{"id":49713,"date":"2013-07-12T12:39:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-12T11:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/iraq-between-drug-dealers-and-death-squads\/49713\/"},"modified":"2013-07-12T12:39:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T11:39:40","slug":"iraq-between-drug-dealers-and-death-squads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/iraq-between-drug-dealers-and-death-squads\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq: Between Drug Dealers and Death Squads"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a result of nationalised oil, during the 1980\u2019s the Government of Saddam Hussain had run literacy campaigns, which saw illiteracy drop to less than 10% of\u00a0<\/span>Iraq\u2019s entire population. UNESCO applauded the fact, that Iraqis were able to access free education and come out with qualifications and employment on the other side.<\/span> It was stated in 1998:
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cUNESCO said that Iraq was one of the only countries in the world where, even if you were born in absolute poverty, with illiterate parents you could come out of the education system either a brain surgeon, archaeologist or whatever you wished to become.\u201d<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What has tragically replaced education, stability and employment is an increasing subservience to alcohol and drugs, with \u201cviolence, unemployment and poverty\u201d leading to a dramatic \u201cincrease in alcohol abuse,\u201d according Younis Obeidi, a psychiatrist at the Ibn Rushd Hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kamel Ali, head of the Iraqi Health Ministry\u2019s drug and alcohol-prevention programme, stated in 2007<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span> \u201cthe consumption of alcohol in\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Iraq<\/span>\u00a0has surprisingly increased\u201d, with \u201cevery day more patients looking for help as their addiction begins to seriously affect their personal lives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIraq\u00a0has one of the worst treatment and follow-up regimes for alcohol abusers in the Middle-East,\u201d Ali states, with staff shortages further complicating the situation and denying patients access to consistent after-care.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That same year,\u00a0the Iraqi Psychologists Association illustrated how an internal study had shown \u201cthe number of alcoholics in care had increased by 34 percent compared to the figure for June 2006\u00e2\u20ac\u00b3 but a lack of funding, had prevented the study from being published.<\/span><\/p>\n

Drugs have also become an alternative to the squalor of poverty, as the first three years of the<\/span>US\/UK\u00a0occupation, saw over 2 million people \u201cliving below the poverty line\u201d. In May 2005, the UN announced, that\u00a0<\/span>Iraq\u00a0was about to become a transit station for heroine, \u201cwhich is manufactured in\u00a0<\/span>Afghanistan\u00a0and is heading towards\u00a0<\/span>Europe\u00a0through neighbouring\u00a0<\/span>Iran\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having been made homeless due to sectarian violence and left unemployed, Abu Teif turned to the selling of drugs to \u201csupport his family \u2014 three children and a handicapped wife\u201d, whose disability was caused by militants shooting her \u201cfor not wearing a veil\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning it was like a miracle. It was easy work and I had a lot of clients and I didn\u2019t even know the effect of the drugs.I learned what the effects could be only after an addict tried to kill me to get heroin.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI started to see food in my home again. My grandchildren also started eating well and my wife was able to get proper treatment for her leg, but those days soon ended\u201d, when drug dealers started to extort more money from him and then threatened to kill his wife and family if he tried to escape the drugs trade\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how to escape this life\u201d Abu Teif stated, \u201cIf I try to run away with my family they will find me\u201d, his words echoing the same fears as those fleeing death squads, \u201cI started to do wrong by selling drugs and now I\u2019m paying the price.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In a July article for news agency Al-Monitor, journalist Adnan Abu Zeed warned: \u201cthe negative effects of illegal drugs in\u00a0<\/span>Iraq\u00a0are becoming more apparent\u201d as\u00a0Iraq\u00a0\u201cis being transformed from a country that exports drugs into a consumer of them\u201d.<\/p>\n

Zeed described a situation, where throughout Iraqi cities, growing numbers of young people are high on drugs, where this new generation of war\u2019s children, are finding solace in the arms of these substances.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Drugs are also spreading like wildfire in places that use child labour, such as car repair shops, and road junctions where cheap goods are sold. Asaad Yassin is just one example, who at the tender age of 14, is also a drug addict.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Abu Sami, whose eldest son is addicted to drugs declared: \u201cMy fear is no longer about an explosive or a car bomb, but about the terrorism of addiction.\u201d\u00a0Ahmad al-Jubouri, a middle school teacher from\u00a0<\/span>Babel\u00a0is unable to help his heroin-addicted brother, because the city has no drug rehabilitation centre.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of 2012, an Iraqi parliamentary committee stated, \u201cThe security, the judicial and the health services are embarrassed about the spread of drugs\u201d, and\u00a0<\/span>police sources claim \u201cInvestigating [those boys] is not part of [the police\u2019s] daily duties\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0the Iraqi Ministry of Interior\u2019s response has been to issue a statement, which simply states that drugs \u201ccause a person to commit crime.\u201d
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Republished with permission from: Global Research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a result of nationalised oil, during the 1980\u2019s the Government of Saddam Hussain had run literacy campaigns, which saw illiteracy drop to less than 10% of\u00a0Iraq\u2019s entire population. UNESCO applauded the fact, that Iraqis were able to access free education and come out with qualifications and employment on the other side. It was stated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-49713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}