Baghdad elite flees Iraq and the daily threat of death

[TacticalPeek]

Baghdad elite flees Iraq and the daily threat of death
By Thomas Harding in Baghdad
(Filed: 10/08/2005)

Quietly, in their ones and twos, the professional classes of Baghdad are slipping out of the country to avoid becoming another fatal statistic.

Iraq is losing the educated elite of doctors, lawyers, academics and businessmen who are vital to securing a stable future. There is also fear that their departure will leave a vacuum to be filled by religious extremists.

Outside the shelter of the Green Zone, home to the American and Iraqi political leadership, lawlessness has overtaken the capital.

snip

There are no land-line telephones, water has to be pumped from a well and electricity is on for only two hours a day compared with 21 under Saddam. In a country that perches on a lake of oil, the petrol queues last up to four hours.

more
http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/10/wirq10.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/08/10/ixworld.html

[burrowowl]

1. Nothing new under the sun

once the U$ intervenes!

[madeline_con]

2. Your tax money at work.

:puke:

[burrowowl]

4. Yup! Same old same old!

U$ helped rich Mexicans, Vietnamese, Iranians, etc.,etc.
Middle-class and poor Americans pay the price.

[Erika]

3. Thanks for posting this

I've been trying to get this article up and never could.

When you have the educated class leaving, you know civil war is coming next.

[burrowowl]

5. And the U$ is losing its educated class

by the repukes screwing up public education and universities (re Raygun et al) and smart foreigners are going to Europe and elsewhere. The U$ brainpower is drying up!

[Erika]

6. Yes

Easier for Bushco in his attempts to make this a third world country. Get rid of the "thinking and educated" class.

[rodeodance]

10. their doctors are exiting also.

.....Baghdad's doctors suffer most of all. They are now authorised to carry firearms after some were killed by angry relatives of dead patients and after threats by police officers demanding immediate treatment for injured colleagues.

Dr Tariq Bahjat, who became a hospital director in Baghdad after his predecessor was killed and where a radiologist was recently shot dead, said: "No one can provide doctors with protection. I am afraid the same will happen to me; that is why I will go abroad."

A spokesman for the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said: "It is a worry, of course, and they are going to be difficult to replace.

[Erika]

14. Replace with American doctors?

I hope we won't stand for that. Been there, done that.

[madeline_con]

8. The U$ brainpower is drying up!

Stoopid peeple are easyer to controle.

[wli]

7. sounds like what's happening in the US

There's an exodus of many people who can afford it. The economic grounds were enough a while ago, and they were fleeing to get their liquid assets converted to euros. Nowadays I think people are getting afraid of death squads hitting the streets and more false flag attacks and so on, but I'm not hearing about a slow exodus like when the dollar started tanking. Oddly, I didn't hear of Canada as a popular destination; most I knew of fled to Europe or Scandinavia (Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Norway, and so on).

[Erika]

9. Canada no longer welcomes us at all

After the election, Canada required a five year Canadian sponsor who would guarantee all costs.

On another note, remember when our puppet president and vice president we installed in Vietnam flew the coop with the money and left us and our troops there to fight?

[wli]

11. I wasn't there for Vietnam, but I remember the immigration lockdown

Nowadays Europe is pretty thoroughly locked down also. The underground railroad is (unfortunately) now limited to what appears to be Eastern Europe and Russia.

[burrowowl]

12. Yup!

Going to 'Old' Europe or the Asian Indians going back home and Mexican and Central Americans to afraid.
Here in NM a young promising Mexican student, here for summer work with his uncle, who was going back home, was run over in an AppleBee's parking lot by a drunk 72 year-old and nothing much is being done about it.

[rodeodance]

13. has there-is there anything recent written about this?--(the US). I saw an

article several months ago about the loss of foreign students in our universities but that is all.

[wli]

15. I don't know. Most of what I'm seeing are other kernel programmers.

So my evidence is anecdotal and limited to a rather small segment of society.

And actually, a number of those were immigrants of some kind in the first place. It may be considerably more difficult to flee the country than I'm aware of.

[SoCalDem]

18. If money was not an issue, I would leave in a heartbeat

..

[rodeodance]

16. lawlessness in Bagdad.

.....While the lack of basic needs and a barely functioning infrastructure are considerable hardships, it is the daily threat of death that was the catalyst for his decision. Since the new government came to power in April there have been up to 3,000 civilian deaths, about half attributed to criminal activity.

"I love my country but I am unable to do any service for the people because it is overrun by fanatics and extremists," Prof Jawad said. "The streets are ruled by gangs, looters and goons."

Last month he resigned a position as dean of arts after "religious animals" surrounded his office and shouted "war-like slogans".

The threats have also forced him to close down two English newspapers he ran because "it now is anti-religious to have free speech, liberal minds and civilisation in this country"......

[Erika]

17. Michael Savage has said put Saddam back in

He could control the country in a secular society and keep the extreme zealots out.

We can do neither.

[cthrumatrix]

19. Savage should be reporting for duty....he was a cheerleader for bush's

lies and deception