Quotes of the Morning: Prom is Cancelled

“A suicide bomber killed at least 41 people and wounded another 46 outside a university in northeast Baghdad on Sunday.
Iraq's interior ministry said the bomber was wearing a vest packed with explosives.
He detonated the bomb when guards stopped him near the entrance to the business studies school, which is part of Mustansiriyah University, police said.
The same facility in Baghdad's Talbiyah neighbourhood, a mostly Shia district was hit by a series of explosions last month, including twin car bombs and a suicide blast that killed 70 people.
Most of the victims on Sunday were students at the college, police said. The blast left cement walls pockmarked by shrapnel and twisted parts of the metal gate and turnstile.”
-CBC News, February 25, 2007

“A female suicide bomber triggered a ball bearing-packed charge Sunday, killing at least 41 people at a mostly Shiite college whose main gate was left littered with blood-soaked student notebooks and papers amid the bodies.
Witnesses said a woman carried out the attack at the business school annex to Mustansiriyah University. Interior Ministry officials said they were still investigating those reports. The school’s main campus was hit by a string of bombings last month that killed 70 people.
The attack came as the powerful Shiite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr said an ongoing security crackdown in Baghdad was doomed to fail because of U.S. involvement and suggested he was rethinking his cooperation. He bitterly complained that ’car bombs continue to explode’ in the capital despite the new security push.”
-Associated Press, February 25, 2007

“Wow.. That’s pretty bad. 41 people killed in this bombing with 70 more killed just last month. And that isn’t even counting problems like this one…”
-Skippy

“Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped up to 150 staff and visitors in a lightning raid on a government research institute in downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, the largest mass abduction since the start of the U.S. occupation.
Iraq’s higher education minister immediately ordered all universities closed until security improvements are made, saying he was ‘not ready to see more professors get killed.’
‘I have only one choice which is to suspend classes at universities. We have no other choice,’ Abed Theyab said in an address to parliament.”
-Associated Press, November 14, 2006

“I mean, I know that in media years that was just forever ago (over three whole months), but by most standards it looks like getting a good education in Iraq may be a little tougher than simply trying to afford the text books. Still, kids being kids you know that college students are going to get into trouble, whether it be keggers, frat hazing or jihad. We just need to keep an eye on them to make sure that they say safe.”
-Skippy

“U.S. troops detained the son of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite politician Friday as he returned to the country from Iran, keeping him in custody for nearly 12 hours before releasing him, Shiite officials said. The U.S. ambassador later apologized.
Amar al-Hakim, son of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, was taken into custody at a crossing point and was transferred to a U.S. facility in Kut, according to the elder al-Hakim’s secretary, Jamal al-Sagheer.
Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country’s largest Shiite party with longtime ties to Iran. He met with President Bush at the White House in December, and his party is part of the Shiite alliance that includes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
[…]
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the arrest was being investigated but stressed that Washington did not mean any disrespect to al-Hakim or his family.
‘I am sorry about the arrest,’ he said. ‘We don’t know the circumstances of the arrest and we are investigating ... but he is being released.’”
-Associated Press, February 24, 2007

“Oh those lovable scamps. Only one person seems to understand the collegial feel of Iraq. Rush Limbaugh. Remember when Abu Ghraib happened?..”
-Skippy

“This is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?”
-Rush Limbaugh, May 4, 2004

“We may as well understand that in Iraq boys will be boys and let them have their fun.”
-Skippy

"’After they leave here, they go straight home to their houses and stay there until school tomorrow,’ Mohammed said. ‘It's like they're in jail.’
For the estimated 4.5 million Iraqi schoolchildren, the world outside their classrooms and homes has all but disappeared. A landscape littered with threats both targeted and general has left parents struggling to shelter their own — with some wondering if an education is worth the risk.”
-LA Times, October 26, 2004

“President Bush’s new Iraq strategy calls for a rapid influx of forces that could add as many as 20,000 American combat troops to Baghdad, supplemented with a jobs program costing as much as $1 billion intended to employ Iraqis in projects including painting schools and cleaning streets, according to American officials who are piecing together the last parts of the initiative.”
-New York Times, January 6, 2007