The Costs of War To The Children

B’Man: No… not our children, even though they WILL be paying for this mess that Bush and his crooked crew created. And yes, our children in America are losing alot… money that could and SHOULD be spent on our schools is now being spent on a perpetual game plan of keeping their children (yeah, them, the little camel jockey Muslims that don’t matter to Christian Americans…) in ignorance and turmoil.

What I believe is happening is intentional. For IF and when we ever leave and allow them to finish whatever it is they are going to do WITHOUT our puppet government and our armed forces installed to control their countryGreen Zone and finally establish the end result, the jig is up.

Another Iran was created due to our idiotic notion that their resources are ours to control. But, I believe that the game plan is working pretty much as they always wanted… or they would have done what the military leaders called for early on… hundreds of thousands of troops to handle the situation after the fall of Saddam. They intentionally DID NOT want that. They wanted turmoil and unrest and they continue to feed from that.

All the while, the children suffer:

Iraqi children desperate to learn in ruined schools

 

Editorial From Gorilla’s Guide: Before you read the text click the image to see two photos from AFP which give an idea of life for school children in Sadr city: 

• At the end of the 1980s, after pouring oil money into schools, Iraq had virtually eliminated illiteracy.
• The education system in Iraq, once the envy of the Middle East, is now in tatters.
• After two decades of economic sanctions and war, one third of Iraqi adults now cannot read
• “The school is crowded and in constant need of repairs. “The most important thing is the plumbing. The pupils’ toilets are closed because of the bad sewage, and there is no running water.”
• Schools in violent areas have shut, while schools in safer areas have been overwhelmed with children from displaced families.

BAGHDAD, April 22 (Reuters) – Even after clashes erupted in the Sadr City slum in Baghdad, Thamir Saadoun still tried to go to school, hoping it would be open. When he got there the guard told him to go home. That was more than two weeks ago.

“I miss my friends. I haven’t seen them for weeks, I want to play with them,” said Saadoun, 12.

“I am fed up from sitting at home. I want to return to school to study and to be a doctor, to treat wounded people in the future if attacks happen.”

 

The education system in Iraq, once the envy of the Middle East, is now in tatters.

Violence, a collapse of school infrastructure and the mass displacement of both pupils and teachers have turned many of Iraq’s schools into fetid overcrowded ruins, jeopardising the futures of millions of children like Saadoun.

At the end of the 1980s, after pouring oil money into schools, Iraq had virtually eliminated illiteracy.

But after two decades of economic sanctions and war, one third of Iraqi adults now cannot read, Education Minister Khodhair al-Khozaei told Reuters.

“It is a problem that cannot be fixed by a magic wand. We need more than 4,300 new schools, existing schools are in bad condition and the population is growing,” he said.

No part of Iraq shows the severity of the crisis more than Thamir’s neighbourhood, Sadr City, a vast east Baghdad slum with an estimated 2 million people and more than 500,000 school pupils but just 260 school buildings, many barely usable.

Its neighbourhoods have been a battle-zone in the past few weeks, as security forces have fought the Mehdi Army militia of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. U.S. attack helicopters constantly hover overhead, hunting gunmen.

In many cases two or even three “schools” operate out of the same school in the slum, using the classrooms in shifts staggered throughout the day.

Hundreds of thousands of people moved into the rapidly expanding Shi’ite slum in the 1990s and few new schools were built for them.

“There is no balance between the continuous growth of the population and a number of schools that is almost fixed,” said Mohammed al-Moussawi, head of the education directorate for east Baghdad.

On a recent visit to the al-Khaldiya Primary School in Sadr City, raw sewage was seeping onto the ground from blocked and leaky pipes, filling classrooms with an oppressive stench.

Three separate “schools” share the same 12-classroom building — about 1,600 pupils in total — arriving in morning, afternoon and evening shifts.

“The school is crowded and in constant need of repairs,” said headmaster Ali Abid Sulaibi. “The most important thing is the plumbing. The pupils’ toilets are closed because of the bad sewage, and there is no running water.”

At the al-Fadhila secondary girls’ school nearby, 50-70 teenage girls are packed into each classroom, with three at each desk that is supposed to seat two.

“How can they understand and cooperate with the teacher inside the classroom?” said English teacher Maani al-Yassiri.