three (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threeplusfire) wrote2003-12-14 12:27 pm
threeplusfire) wrote2003-12-14 12:27 pm
it's always about Texas
Capture 'a wonderful shock' to Baylor professors headed to Iraq
By Bobby Ross Jr.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sunday, December 14, 2003
DALLAS— As he prepared early Sunday for an educational mission trip to Iraq, retired Air Force Col. William Mitchell, director of Baylor University's Center for International Studies, turned on the television in his Waco home.
"And it was all over the place," Mitchell said a few hours later in an interview from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
"It" was news of Saddam Hussein's capture.
For Mitchell and more than 20 other Baylor professors who left Sunday on a trip to help improve Iraq's higher education system, the news was "a wonderful shock," Mitchell said.
"I know that the people we deal with at the universities, based on what we observed last August, will be exuberant," said Mitchell, referring to a previous trip related to Baylor's exchange and cooperation agreement with Bohuk University in northern Iraq. "It'll be a wonderful, wonderful occasion."
The professors were to travel from Turkey to northern Iraq, where they planned to put on a three-day workshop for Dohuk faculty members later this week to help them begin rebuilding the higher education system in Iraq.
"Almost every faculty member we talked to in August had been affected by Saddam," Mitchell said. "Either one of their family members had been assassinated, imprisoned or tortured.
" ... Something terrible had happened to at least one family member of every person we talked to. So they hated Saddam Hussein."
Mark Long, director of Baylor's Middle East Studies Program and author of the just-finished book "Saddam's War of Words," heard the news of the capture on the radio on his way to the airport.
"Then we got to the airport and saw the scenes (on television), just extraordinary scenes," he said.
The celebrations by the people struck Long, but so did the way Saddam was captured.
The Iraqi dictator had said repeatedly during the Gulf War that he would rather die than be humiliated by the enemy, Long said.
"But when it came right down to it, Saddam was found cowering in a small bunker and he was humiliated," Long said.
The latest Baylor trip follows the August trip taken by Mitchell, Long and professor Bill Baker, a lecturer in Arabic and Middle East Studies. All three are retired U.S. Air Force officers with extensive experience in Middle East politics, military issues and counterterrorism, university officials said.
Professors from 14 different disciplines joined the latest mission.
Some of the workshops they will conduct include: responsive and targeted engineering, computer science education, teacher training for English, new methodologies in foreign language education, western ideas and culture, basic reporting and editing for the news media, advances in medical and environmental microbiology, molecular biology and biotechnology, contemporary international relations and politics, modern political theory, leadership skills for administrators, social work education and physics.
Mitchell, who served as base commander at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey and as Air Base Group Commander in Izmir, Turkey, during the Gulf War, said he expected to find U.S. soldiers in ecstatic moods.
"When we see the soldiers, there's going to be a lot of smiling and a lot of hand shaking and a lot of warm exchanges because they have some good news," he said.
All I can say about the Baylor professors going to Iraq is that it's a good thing they don't play football over there.
In a Bridezilla moment, fuck you Saddam for stealing the attention of the day! It's all about me! Rahhh!!!!
By Bobby Ross Jr.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sunday, December 14, 2003
DALLAS— As he prepared early Sunday for an educational mission trip to Iraq, retired Air Force Col. William Mitchell, director of Baylor University's Center for International Studies, turned on the television in his Waco home.
"And it was all over the place," Mitchell said a few hours later in an interview from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
"It" was news of Saddam Hussein's capture.
For Mitchell and more than 20 other Baylor professors who left Sunday on a trip to help improve Iraq's higher education system, the news was "a wonderful shock," Mitchell said.
"I know that the people we deal with at the universities, based on what we observed last August, will be exuberant," said Mitchell, referring to a previous trip related to Baylor's exchange and cooperation agreement with Bohuk University in northern Iraq. "It'll be a wonderful, wonderful occasion."
The professors were to travel from Turkey to northern Iraq, where they planned to put on a three-day workshop for Dohuk faculty members later this week to help them begin rebuilding the higher education system in Iraq.
"Almost every faculty member we talked to in August had been affected by Saddam," Mitchell said. "Either one of their family members had been assassinated, imprisoned or tortured.
" ... Something terrible had happened to at least one family member of every person we talked to. So they hated Saddam Hussein."
Mark Long, director of Baylor's Middle East Studies Program and author of the just-finished book "Saddam's War of Words," heard the news of the capture on the radio on his way to the airport.
"Then we got to the airport and saw the scenes (on television), just extraordinary scenes," he said.
The celebrations by the people struck Long, but so did the way Saddam was captured.
The Iraqi dictator had said repeatedly during the Gulf War that he would rather die than be humiliated by the enemy, Long said.
"But when it came right down to it, Saddam was found cowering in a small bunker and he was humiliated," Long said.
The latest Baylor trip follows the August trip taken by Mitchell, Long and professor Bill Baker, a lecturer in Arabic and Middle East Studies. All three are retired U.S. Air Force officers with extensive experience in Middle East politics, military issues and counterterrorism, university officials said.
Professors from 14 different disciplines joined the latest mission.
Some of the workshops they will conduct include: responsive and targeted engineering, computer science education, teacher training for English, new methodologies in foreign language education, western ideas and culture, basic reporting and editing for the news media, advances in medical and environmental microbiology, molecular biology and biotechnology, contemporary international relations and politics, modern political theory, leadership skills for administrators, social work education and physics.
Mitchell, who served as base commander at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey and as Air Base Group Commander in Izmir, Turkey, during the Gulf War, said he expected to find U.S. soldiers in ecstatic moods.
"When we see the soldiers, there's going to be a lot of smiling and a lot of hand shaking and a lot of warm exchanges because they have some good news," he said.
All I can say about the Baylor professors going to Iraq is that it's a good thing they don't play football over there.
In a Bridezilla moment, fuck you Saddam for stealing the attention of the day! It's all about me! Rahhh!!!!
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*goes back to making cheeseball and dying her hair* See you at 3.
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And, in any case, it is all about you today, and remember not to let anyone forget it.
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But Depp, Bloom and Jude Law in a box would be spiffy!
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Don't worry, love, you're in my thoughts. If you really want, I can even post a photo of someone looking at your tonsils in my journal someday.
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Thank you thank you love! I will read Russian lit in the bath at the cottage.
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Saddam who?
I hope everything goes perfectly!
Love yeah hon!