The American University of Iraq... Ever Heard of It?

Glenn Beck's show was very interesting tonite. He talked about what's going on in Iraq that we don't hear about.

Source: transcripts.cnn.com...

Nobody in the media is telling you the real story about what`s going on in Iraq. They`re only saying how hopeless it is. Well, here are some facts you`re just not hearing.

Do you realize that a huge chunk of Iraq is still greeting us as liberators? Kurdistan comprises 33 percent of the entire country. They`re now today putting finishing touches on their park system. They are building a university there called the American University of Iraq. Have you ever heard that? Iraq`s deputy prime minister said they`re naming it after us to thank us for liberating them.

A new opera house is being built. Two new international airports. The terminals feature state-of-the-art high-speed interne internet. I`m not sure we even have that in La Guardia. But have you heard any of these? Of course not. Of course not.

Why? Well, the media argues that good news just doesn`t sell. Again, that is a lie. Good news just doesn`t sell some people`s agenda, and that agenda is to say that we`re losing in Iraq. It`s a war not worth fighting. The American University of Iraq? That doesn`t sell that agenda.

BECK: You know, I remember my wife and I, we went right after September 11, we went to Israel and tried to get a handle on the Middle East. I was trying to bone up on what is happening in the Middle East.

And I remember when I got off the plane, my wife said to me, "I expected tanks. I expected fires everywhere. I expected people running with blood on their faces. And it just wasn`t that." The media had spun it so badly that it really didn`t reflect the same as what you saw on TV in real life.

i have never heard about such a university

Right... because the government and the media only wants us to know about the WAR going on. Not anything good coming out of it. They have a new University, an Opera House and two new International Airports with state-of-the-art high-speed internet access.

If anyone doesn't want to live in the U.S., you can probably get a condo in Iraq for a decent price!

Here's a link to a Web page that will tell you more about this 'American' university.

They'll begin with intensive English to prepare for regular university courses, which will all be taught in English as in the other five American Universities around the world, including three in the Arab world: Cairo, Beirut and Sharjah.

There is also an American University of Dubai, which is not mentioned in the article. Some years ago, this 'university' was the client of an advertising agency I worked for, so I came to know it fairly well.

'American Universities' outside the US are in reality locally-run colleges accredited by American state examinations boards, which permit them to offer 'American' degrees in various subjects. Some also have franchise-type connections with American educational institutes of more or less respectable provenance. AUD, for example, is a 'branch campus' of American InterContinental University, Atlanta, through which it is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to award associate, bachelor's, and master's degrees.

Traditional subjects are rarely taught at these 'universities'. Instead, they offer career-related courses in things like business administration, marketing, business IT, interior design and so on. They also offer English courses, just like the American University of Iraq, and for the most part this is their main attraction.

Academic rigor is modest and nearly all students end up with that vital piece of paper. Whether it qualifies them for anything in the real world is a matter for conjecture.

Students are mostly children of rich locals or wealthy locally-employed expatriates, who have not been able, for one reason or other, to find places at a real American or European university.

In short, 'American University' is a business franchise, like McDonald's. To call these institutes 'universities' is to stretch the definition of the term quite a bit. They are more like business colleges -- not especially good ones, either.

Iraq already has plenty of real universities. The American University of Iraq isn't exactly fulfilling a long-felt need in Iraqi society. As a justification for the American invasion of Iraq, it's worse than pathetic. It's meaningless.

Thanks for that additional information, Astyanax. How about the Opera House and the two new airports? Glenn Beck seems to think that all of these are signs of positive growth in Iraq. What's your opinion?

The American University in Beirut happens to be an excellent school. People have gone there from all over the world. The American University is not a new thing in the middle east. They have been around for a long time.


I wonder why Mr. Beck isn't over in Iraq fighting the good fight and bringing high speed internet to the good people of Iraq himself.

Originally posted by annestacey
How about the Opera House and the two new airports? What's your opinion?

I really wish you hadn't asked.

My interest in this thread was piqued by the phrase 'American University', which reminded me of my desert days and the squalid farrago that passes for 'culture' in parts of the Middle East. My post was intended to add some relevant information to the thread, so that people could make up their own minds about this new 'university'. I had no desire to discuss American policy in Iraq, a subject that clearly belongs in a different forum.

But since you ask...

Iraq is not, nor was it ever, a poor country. Neither was it a country lacking an educated professional class. Its infrastructure wasn't bad either, though of course it would have been a lot better if Saddam and his family didn't lavish so much of the national income on themselves. In any event, Iraqis had no need of Americans to come along and build opera houses for them. They could do that quite well for themselves.

You can build as many airports and opera houses as you like. You can endow as many universities as you please. It will not ease by one jot the suffering of Iraqis under American occupation or compensate for the ruin that America has visited upon that unfortunate country.

I'm not saying the war was unjustified; there were those weapons 'of mass destruction', after all, and yes, I do believe Bush and Blair genuinely believed they existed. If they were deemed a sufficient threat, well, fair enough -- go in, trounce the Iraqi military, unseat Saddam, find and disarm (or, as it transpired, fail to find and disarm) the weapons -- no problem. But after that, what?

The pig-ignorance and halfwitted arrogance that failed to recognize the true nature of Iraq and its society, that couldn't be bothered to develop and implement a reasonable plan for the management and governance of postwar Iraq and that has, to this day, stubbornly failed to learn even the most elementary of lessons from the bloody aftermath can never be justified by any decent person. I certainly hope you do not propose to try; I am not interested in debating the blindingly obvious.

America has blundered again, as it has in every single one of its overseas adventures since the end of the Second World War, and for the usual reasons -- naivety and provincialism.

All these opera houses and pretend universities are just Potemkin villages, American style. The rest of the world would be laughing itself sick, if it weren't so busy crying.



[edit on 6-11-2006 by Astyanax]

Originally posted by ThePieMaN
The American University in Beirut happens to be an excellent school. People have gone there from all over the world. The American University is not a new thing in the middle east. They have been around for a long time.

You're right. There's also an American University in the UAE.

Originally posted by Mdv2 You're right. There's also an American University in the UAE.

Yep!! Between Media City and my old haunt, The Hard Rock Cafe And The Palm Hotel...
Owned by Mohammed Bin Salem.. The world class rally driver(and ''close'' personal friend of Michael Jackson )

Anyone need a tourist guide??

Originally posted by AGENT_T

Originally posted by Mdv2
There's also an American University in the UAE.

Yep!! Between Media City and my old haunt, The Hard Rock Cafe And The Palm Hotel... Owned by Mohammed Bin Salem.

Yes, this is the American University of Dubai, referred to in my post above. The President, Lance di Masi, is a former advertising man. University owned by a rally driver and run by an adman, anybody?