A case study of a corrupt occupation.

John Dolan is one of the good ones. He is a bitter and pessimistic man but such are the wages of speaking truth to power. People far better informed than me have suggested he has a further curse, he is an unrecognised artistic genius, doomed like Van Gogh or Nietzsche to have his literary work recognised only after his death. I mean sure you can be high minded and stuff but I'd imagine all things being equal those with gifts would like to be recognised in their lifetime, especially by young attractive people and rich people of any shape size or colour. I mean damn, who wouldn't?

He was one of the main people behind The Exile and is still an occasional contributor to The Exiled. While he did a lot of good work under his own name his most popular stuff was probably when he posed as http://exiledonline.com/cat/war-nerd/>The War Nerd where he did quite probably the best analysis of modern conflicts you're likely to read, stripped of jingoism and bolstered with the context we're seldom provided with. To actually make a living, for the powers that be make sure dissent isn't profitable, he worked in academia all over the world until a few years ago while at the University of Victoria he was fired for encouraging students to criticise George Monbiot. Now I'm not sure of the specifics and since I like Monbiot I'd like to hope he didn't personally push for the dismissal but who knows. He wrote of the trials of extreme poverty in North America and one can thus understand how he came to be employed at the corrupt right wing institution that is the America University of Iraq.

He got fired after working there for little over a year but he experienced enough to write a lengthy article about how messed up the place was. I feel little need to criticise a formerly destitute man for selling out in order to eat. The way things work you either sell out or start off rich enough not to need to worry about an income, the game is rigged. Indeed the concept of selling out seems to me to mean you get nice and rich off of betraying your ideals but you don't go into academia to get rich (except maybe if you're an American sports coach):


Bear that in mind when reading the article for if an institution like a university which one generally wouldn't associate with a bonanza of graft ("suck on it losers, I got three of my monographs bought by the library!") you can begin to guess how terrible the corruption and fraud is in occupation institutions that are associated with fabulous wealth. That is not to say the American University of Iraq is simply a cautionary hint to the wider Iraq situation, it the people who are paying considerable amounts of money to learn there are being shafted by the cronyism and blind right wing ideology touting of a faculty so cowed and intellectually timid as to no longer really be able to call themselves academics.

Still when it comes time to bomb Iran we will likely sell the Kurds out to gain Turkish support, and dead Kurds wont need universities.