New card deck for US troops in Iraq: heritage theme

Diamonds and digs

The new card deck for US troops in Iraq has a heritage theme. Ace idea or too little too late?

David Smith
Sunday December 2, 2007
The Observer

Cultural tourism in Iraq is a dangerous and diminishing pursuit, as I discovered during a spell as an embedded journalist with the US army last month. Many of Mesopotamia's heritage sites are impossible to reach in safety or, after enduring for millennia, have in the past four-and-a-half years become casualties of war.

In 2003 part of the ancient city of Babylon was turned into a helicopter landing pad and a camp for 2,000 American troops who filled their sandbags with archaeological fragments. Priceless antiquities were stolen from the National Museum during looting in Baghdad, causing US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to observe 'stuff happens' - later the title of David Hare's play about the war. Other ancient cities have since been pillaged and effectively erased from history.

Now, in what critics may regard as locking the stable door after the horse has bolted, the US army is being issued with packs of playing cards advising them how to identify and preserve ancient ruins and combat the booming trade in stolen artefacts. It is an unlikely sequel to the 'most wanted' deck of cards first issued to troops to help them hunt members of Saddam's ousted regime: the moustached dictator himself was the ace of spades.
About 50,000 sets of the new cards are being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan with a theme for each suit: diamonds for artefacts, spades for digs, hearts for 'winning hearts and minds' and clubs for heritage preservation. The five of clubs says: 'Drive around, not over archaeological sites.' The queen of hearts proclaims the importance of culture: 'Showing respect wins hearts and minds.' The seven of clubs pictures the Ctesiphon arch in Iraq and is captioned: 'This site has survived 17 centuries. Will it survive you?' The jack of diamonds, meanwhile, has a photo of New York's Statue of Liberty, asking: 'How would we feel if someone destroyed her torch?'

Famously, Iraq is the site of a number of Babylonian and Sumerian cities where writing and astronomy developed. King Nebuchadnezzar built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the world. But when I joined soldiers on patrol in south Baghdad, evidence of the cradle of civilisation was scarce. A few weeks earlier, soldiers had been fighting daily gun battles and blowing up buildings if necessary. Now, in what was once an affluent residential area, there is desolation: herdsman leading their goats past piles of bomb rubble; streets which have become open sewers.

Lieutenant Colonel Rod Coffey, commander of the squadron I accompanied, was a keen student of history and well aware of Mesopotamia's former greatness. Elsewhere, the soldiers and Iraqis I met had their hands full with modern-day Baghdad's problems: schools, power, sewage systems and the threat of insurgents and the terrorist network branch sometimes described as 'al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia'.

Meanwhile, however well-intentioned, the US army's latest pack of cards idea may be out of date. Once a staple of the mess hall, card games have now been overtaken by more modern pastimes. At US military base Camp Striker, I saw off-duty soldiers watching American football on TV or sitting in internet cafes surfing MySpace (signs on the walls insist: 'NO PORN'). There was a film library and a shop selling cameras, CDs, flatscreen TVs, MP3 and DVD players and PlayStations.

A message at the top of each of the heritage playing cards states: 'ROE first!', notifying soldiers that the military's rules of engagement trump all other considerations. 'If they're under fire,' said Jim Zeidler, of Colorado State University, who helped produce the deck, 'all bets are off.'