Iraq students show Virginia Tech support

[maddezmom]

BAGHDAD - Students in Baghdad, where universities have been hard-hit by violence, said they were saddened by last week's massacre at Virginia Tech and hung up a banner to express their solidarity with "our brothers in humanity and in pursuing knowledge."

"We want to let the whole world know that we do not support terrorism anywhere," said Yassir Nazar, head of the student union at Baghdad Technology University, who organized the hanging of the banner near the campus gate.

~snip~

In Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, scores of students have been killed and their campuses targeted by Iraqi insurgents who often regard universities as bastions of Western thought and political activities they oppose.

More than 200 university professors have been killed in the past few years, and thousands have fled the country to teach at universities abroad, said Basil al-Khateeb, spokesman for the Iraqi ministry of higher education.

On Feb. 25, a female suicide bomber triggered a ball bearing-packed charge, 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.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070424/ap_on_re_mi_ea/virginia_tech_iraq;_ylt=AqGMgrxOtT81QUpJvrkkC_Vw24cA

[Kolesar]

1. They read that letter on NPR last night, IIRC...eom

[AnneD]

2. Not to minimize anyones grief...

but while the media here was in a chest beating frenzy, it crossed my mind to take that grief, multiply it by infinity and you won't even begin to understand the grief that parents and students feel in Iraq. How many children have been killed and how many have witnessed their teachers being shot before their eyes. Those are some brave folks with real spines.