Universities and the Costs of the Iraq War

An interesting report from the BRussells Tribunal on higher education in Iraq can be found here:

http://www.brussellstribunal.org/

 Hugh Gusterson writes for the BRussells Tribunal (September 15^th):   The political scientist Mark Duffield has observed that the effect of Western intervention in Iraq has actually been to “demodernize” that country.  ^]This is ironic given that the military campaigns against Iraq and Afghanistan have been accompanied by narratives of the West’s obligation to modernize backward nations.  Nowhere is the truth of Duffield’s observation clearer than in the story of what has happened to Iraq’s education system, especially its higher education system.   Western intervention has ended up destroying Iraq’s universities, formerly among the best in the region, as functional institutions. “Up to the Early 1980s, Iraq’s educational system was considered one of the best in the Middle East.  As a result of its drastic and prolonged decline since then, it is now one of the weakest,” concludes a 2008 official report.