War causes illiteracy for Iraqi refugee children

Upton · #1 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 02:44 PM

Another by-product of the US invasion. I guess we've done these kids a favor, right along with the ones we've turned into prostitutes. Thanks America

Quote:

Illiteracy increasing among Iraq's refugee children
McClatchy Newspapers

DAMASCUS, Syria — Illiteracy is spreading rapidly among refugee children from Iraq, with at least 300,000 young Iraqis not attending school in the countries where their families have sought safety.

Alarmed aid workers in Syria and Jordan report that a growing number of children can't read or write because cash-strapped parents have withdrawn them from school to cut down on expenses. In many cases, displaced families can afford to send only one of their children to school, creating a painful gap between educated children and their illiterate siblings, humanitarian workers say.

UNICEF, the U.N. education agency, is beginning a census to determine the size of the problem. There's no program in place yet to deal broadly with the issue. Aid workers admit that the development surprised them, in part because Iraq once boasted some of the highest literacy rates in the Middle East. The Iraqis' legendary thirst for knowledge is encapsulated in an Arabic saying, "The Egyptians write, the Lebanese publish, the Iraqis read."

"We are finding that a lot of participants in the youth programs we're running — a very high number, sometimes up to 30 percent per class — are illiterate or close to illiterate," said Jason Erb, the deputy country director for emergency programs in the Jordan office of Save the Children. He said that more than 90,000 Iraqi children were out of school in Jordan.

"In the initial rounds of some of our programs, we expected children to read and write, so we'd have all these activities that involved writing things on the flip chart or having them read a case history," Erb said. "They couldn't do it."

Iraqi teachers and professors in Damascus have begun offering free remedial lessons so Iraqi children make up for years lost to war, but they're finding far more students than they can accommodate. In Syria, some 250,000 Iraqi children, about 76 percent of the school-aged Iraqi population here, are out of class this year, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

"The last time my kids were in school was 2003, right before the American invasion," said Hanaa Majeed, 32, an Iraqi refugee in Damascus who can't afford to send her two sons to school. "They can barely read. I buy books and try to teach them at home, but it's not the same. My boys see other kids with backpacks on, going off to school, and they ask why they can't go, too."

Education is a point of pride for Iraqis, the descendants of civilizations that invented cuneiform, one of the world's first writing systems.

Iraq's illiteracy rate began to climb during the 1990s, when sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime decimated the education system. Schools lacked textbooks, pencils and other materials. Teachers were so poorly paid, Iraqi parents recalled, that they sometimes offered better grades in exchange for bribes to supplement their salaries.

After Saddam's regime fell in 2003, the U.S.-led occupational authority earmarked millions of dollars to rebuild Iraq's education system and schools. But the unanticipated insurgency rendered much of that work useless. With car bombs exploding near playgrounds and militants roaming neighborhoods, many parents kept their children home rather than risk their lives sending them to school.

Now, with violence at home and economic hardship for those who've sought safety outside Iraq, education has become a luxury that many are unable to afford.

Even refugee children who are enrolled in school struggle to keep up with unfamiliar Arabic dialects, aid workers said. The trauma of being forcibly uprooted from their homes and neighborhoods in Iraq also diminishes their ability to learn. Most Iraqi children also have witnessed or experienced horrific acts of violence, aid workers said.

"A whole generation is missing out on its education," said Sybella Wilkes, the Damascus-based U.N. spokeswoman on refugee issues. "Nothing has prepared Iraqis for being refugees, for running out of savings. For the first time in a generation or longer, the priority is basic survival."

Illiteracy is growing fastest among displaced Iraqis, humanitarian workers said. An estimated 2 million people have fled sectarian bloodshed within Iraq, and another 2.5 million have sought refugee in Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and other countries.

As displaced families scrounge for food and shelter, educating the children becomes difficult, even in countries such as Syria and Jordan, where Iraqi children can attend public schools for little or no fees and needy families are eligible for U.N. assistance with books, uniforms and transportation.

Many Iraqi parents are so poor that they can't shoulder school costs, especially with several children to a family. In addition, parents often rely on older children to help support the family by taking on odd jobs and helping at home. Only 35,000 Iraqi children are enrolled in Syrian schools; 20,000 are enrolled in Jordan.

"I have a 13-year-old who can't read or write," said Azhar al Haidari, 47, an Iraqi who can afford to send only two of her four children to school in Damascus. "It destroys me. He needs to start from A-B-C, but he's too embarrassed. He says he's too old to learn now."

Haidari and her unemployed husband rely on their sons, Bassam, 13, and Ayman, 14, to bring in cash by doing odd jobs for shopkeepers. After household expenses, the couple can just barely pay school costs for their daughters, Mary, 8, and Inam, 11.

Haidari said Bassam was so jealous of his sisters' ability to read and write that he stormed out of the apartment if he saw them with books.

"The other day, I was going over dictation with the girls and Bassam started yelling at me, 'What's the difference between me and an animal?' " Haidari said. "He quits jobs on the spot when they ask him to fill out forms. He's humiliated. He feels he has no future.

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 12/12/2007 | Illiteracy increasing among Iraq's refugee children

Oedipus Rex · #2 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 02:52 PM

Total bullshit.

26% of Iraq's population couldn't read BEFORE the war.

Upton · #3 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oedipus Rex

Total bullshit.

26% of Iraq's population couldn't read BEFORE the war.

That makes it ok? Prostitution, illiteracy, Iraqi children now refugees, yeah the US has done them a big favor.
World Vision - TRAPPED! Unlocking the future for Iraqi refugee children

FedUpAmerican · #4 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oedipus Rex

Total bullshit.

26% of Iraq's population couldn't read BEFORE the war.

26% of American military are illiterate. So whats your point junior?

noneof yourbusiness · #5 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 04:04 PM

Theres no reality to any 20 percent not reading before the war. Iraq was a educated nation. It was not fun but it was not overwhelmed by the Rabid religous radicalism it is now thatsnk to the US.

ONEWHITEDUCK · #6 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 04:07 PM

BUT WHAT CAUSES WAR

Makow - The 'Quiet War' Against Humanity The Lulling Before the Culling

CONCLUSION

We call ourselves "progressive", but that is another example of doublespeak. The "progress" is only progress for the Illuminati.

While man was made in God's image, human life was Sacred. When we agreed God was dead, we became expendable. That's why "Silent Wars" refers to us as "beasts of burden" and use the "Darwinian struggle" to justify enslavement and genocide.

Satan is not content to destroy us physically. He has a wager with God. Are we made in God's image or not? In order to win, he needs prove we are nothing but dumb animals.

Lack of resistance signifies our acquiescence. We have been progressively demoralized and lulled. We must shake off our stupor and show that we not jelly fish but men who will fight for our Divine birthright.

This is a battle humanity never can evade. The longer it is postponed, the harder it will be to win.

See also "Wall Street's Utopian Hoax" savethemales.ca - Communism & NWO: Wall Street's Utopian Hoax

Henry Makow Ph.D. is the inventor of the board game Scruples and the author of "A Long Way to go for a Date." His past articles exposing feminism and the new world order are archived at his web site henrymakow.com - exposing feminism and the new world order <http://www.savethemales.ca/> He enjoys receiving feedback which he often posts protecting anonymity.

Perhaps no newspaper is more important to the CIA than the Washington Post, one of the nation’s most right-wing dailies. Its location in the nation’s capitol enables the paper to maintain valuable personal contacts with leading intelligence, political and business figures. Unlike other newspapers, the Post operates its own bureaus around the world, rather than relying on AP wire services. Owner Philip Graham was a military intelligence officer in World War II, and later became close friends with CIA figures like Frank Wisner, Allen Dulles, Desmond FitzGerald and Richard Helms. He inherited the Post by marrying Katherine Graham, whose father owned it.

After Philip’s suicide in 1963, Katharine Graham took over the Post. Seduced by her husband’s world of government and espionage, she expanded her newspaper’s relationship with the CIA. In a 1988 speech before CIA officials at Langley, Virginia, she stated:

We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things that the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.
This quote has since become a classic among CIA critics for its belittlement of democracy and its admission that there is a political agenda behind the Post’s headlines.

Ben Bradlee was the Post’s managing editor during most of the Cold War. He worked in the U.S. Paris embassy from 1951 to 1953, where he followed orders by the CIA station chief to place propaganda in the European press. (9) Most Americans incorrectly believe that Bradlee personifies the liberal slant of the Post, given his role in publishing the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate investigations. But neither of these two incidents are what they seem. The Post merely published the Pentagon Papers after The New York Times already had, because it wanted to appear competitive. As for Watergate, we’ll examine the CIA’s reasons for wanting to bring down Nixon in a moment. Someone once asked Bradlee: "Does it irk you when The Washington Post is made out to be a bastion of slanted liberal thinkers instead of champion journalists just because of Watergate?" Bradlee responded: "Damn right it does!" (10)

It would be impossible to elaborate in this short space even the most important examples of the CIA/media alliance. Sig Mickelson was a CIA asset the entire time he was president of CBS News from 1954 to 1961. Later he went on to become president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, two major outlets of CIA propaganda.

The CIA also secretly bought or created its own media companies. It owned 40 percent of the Rome Daily American at a time when communists were threatening to win the Italian elections. Worse, the CIA has bought many domestic media companies. A prime example is Capital Cities, created in 1954 by CIA businessman William Casey (who would later become Reagan’s CIA director). Another founder was Lowell Thomas, a close friend and business contact with CIA Director Allen Dulles. Another founder was CIA businessman Thomas Dewey. By 1985, Capital Cities had grown so powerful that it was able to buy an entire TV network: ABC.

For those who believe in "separation of press and state," the very idea that the CIA has secret propaganda outlets throughout the media is appalling. The reason why America was so oblivious to CIA crimes in the 40s and 50s was because the media willingly complied with the agency. Even today, when the immorality of the CIA should be an open-and-shut case, "debate" about the issue rages in the media. Here is but one example:

In 1996, The San Jose Mercury News published an investigative report suggesting that the CIA had sold crack in Los Angeles to fund the Contra war in Central America. A month later, three of the CIA’s most important media allies — The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times — immediately leveled their guns at the Mercury report and blasted away in an attempt to discredit it. Who wrote the Post article? Walter Pincus, longtime CIA journalist. The dangers here are obvious.

EXAMPLE OF CIA OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD CONTROL OF MEDIA:

The Israeli Spy Ring Scandal - The Story That Will Not Go Away - Prior to 9/11, the FBI had discovered the presence of a massive spy ring inside the United States run by the government of Israel. This seems a harsh gratitude from a nation which obtains 10% of its annual budget from the American taxpayer, $3+ billion a year. ALSO CNN IS A CIA FRONT OF PROPAGANDA | CNN IS A CIA FRONT OF MEDIA PROPAGANDA AND LIES CNN & FOX PROPAGANDA

IMPORTANT TO CLICK ON AND READ THESE LINKS

PLEASE BE ADVISED YOU CAN FILE A CIVIL RIGHTS LAWSUIT IN UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT IN ANY STATE AGAINST THE USA,CIA,CIA DIRECTOR,AND THE BROADCAST AND PRINT MEDIA.THERE ARE TWO VERY GOOD WEBSITES ON "OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD" CIA's Operation Mockingbird and Operation Mockingbird: CIA Media Manipulation WHERE THE CORPORATE NAMES OF THE MEDIA ARE FOUND THAT CAN BE LISTED AS DEFENDANTS OR JUST TYPE IN "OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD" TO OBTAIN A LIST OF THE WEBSITES AND ALSO READ Operation Mockingbird and read below how the CIA public relations officer conrols the media and news to the public.

source: THE WATCHDOG GROUP MOVEMENT · US GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION AND COVERUPS WEBSITE LIST

CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST CIA/MEDIA VIOLATION OF FIRST AMENDMENT-RIGHT TO A FREE PRESS Petition

Sincerely,

YouTube - Jethro Tull - One White Duck

^I^

Skinny Fatts · #7 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 04:08 PM

War caused poverty, alcoholism (that's for you NOYB), crime, uh...measles, mumps, diarrhea, bad calls in football games, gambling, prostitution, bank robberies, blogs, bad drivers, and...and...and...

J04miller · #8 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 04:14 PM

My guess is that Iraq was never fully vested in the idea of a literate country. I don't think this went along with Sadam's interests.

If there truly is a dip in literacy, it will swing back up higher than ever once these children (both GIRLS and BOYS) are given the opportunity to be freely educated.

J04miller · #9 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 04:22 PM

UNDP Iraq

Well, according to a UN study, I am wrong. They indicate things were peachy until the first U.S. lead invasion.

I suppose literacy is literacy, even if it is all propaganda they are reading.

noneof yourbusiness · #10 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skinny Fatts

War caused poverty, alcoholism (that's for you NOYB), crime, uh...measles, mumps, diarrhea, bad calls in football games, gambling, prostitution, bank robberies, blogs, bad drivers, and...and...and...

What a fucking idiot. Its your fucking war its your fucking fault. Maybe if you coudl atleast fucking try to act like a human being. You piece of shit.