Well Iraq is liberated now (and in the process of being free). But I think it's petty to call the US winners. It's the equivilent of the whole of the US trying to defeat California. Who would you expect to win?
seissd
Quote:"Tartarin, I did not call them liberators, I called them winners..."
it was/is our President GWB that calls them Liberators.
Dafdaf, in the early communist society (USSR in '20s-'40s) distribution was relatively fair. It was achieved by means of severe repressions toward corrupt officials (not only them, of course, but corrupt officials were also considered being "the enemies of the people" and "economic counterrevolutionaries"). After the regime became less bloodthirsty and evolved into almost completely vegetarian (in Brezhnev's era, for example), corruption put end to fair distribution, and regime degenerated into plutocratic and oligarchic. This ended in complete destruction of Communist systems in Europe.
In Asia such a system still persists due to specific features of the Asian mentality, especially pertaining to Confucian religion (in PRC), but even there capitalism gradually erodes the system.
I agree, communism is the most noble dream that ever existed in the human culture, but it contradicts to the sinful human nature, and communist social relations can be enforced only by means of extreme violence.
Bush Cultural Advisers Quit Over Iraq Museum Theft
1 hour, 58 minutes ago Add Politics to My Yahoo!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of a U.S. presidential panel on cultural property has resigned in protest at the failure of U.S. forces to prevent the wholesale looting of priceless treasures from Baghdad's antiquities museum.
"It didn't have to happen," Martin Sullivan said of the objects that were destroyed or stolen from the Iraqi National Museum in a wave of looting that erupted as U.S.-led forces ended President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s rule last week.
Sullivan, who chaired the President's Advisory Committee on Cultural Property for eight years, said he wrote a letter of resignation to the White House this week in part to make a statement but also because "you can't speak freely" as a special government-appointed employee.
The president appoints the 11-member advisory committee. Another panel member, Gary Vikan, also plans to resign because of the looting of the museum.
"Our priorities had a big gap," Sullivan told Reuters on Thursday. "In a pre-emptive war that's the kind of thing you should have planned for."
The National Museum held rare artifacts documenting the early civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, and leading archeologists were meeting in Paris on Thursday to seek ways to rescue Iraq (news - web sites)'s cultural heritage.
Earlier this week, antiquities experts said they had been given assurances from U.S. military planners that Iraq's historic artifacts and sites would be protected by occupying forces.
U.S. archeological organizations and the U.N.'s cultural agency UNESCO (news - web sites) said they had provided U.S. officials with information about Iraq's cultural heritage and archeological sites months before the war began.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has rejected charges the U.S. military was to blame for failing to prevent the looting, noting the country has offered rewards for the return of artifacts and information on their whereabouts.
"Looting is an unfortunate thing. Human beings are not perfect," Rumsfeld said, earlier this month. "To the extent it happens in a war zone, it's difficult to stop."
The Advisory Committee on Cultural Property convenes when a country requests U.S. assistance under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on international protection of cultural objects.
There was the only way to put end to looting: to open fire at the trespassers, majority of which were civilians. U.S. Army decided not to do this, preferring value of the human life to the value of the expensive artifacts; what is wrong with this?
steissd wrote:Not all those that are anti-Saddam are automatically supporters of democratic reforms. We must not forget that pro-Iranian fundamentalists also had problems with the regime, but their access to power in Iraq may be even more detrimental than leaving Saddam in office.
60% of the Iraqi population is Shia, religious connected with Iran. If they want good relations and even cooperation with the Govt in Iran its their decision. People call this democracy.
steissd
Your apologia for the US failure to protect the National Museum of Antiquities is typical in its blindness, but it's deeply repugnant in this case. Do you have any notion at all of the significance of this event, of what was housed there? Archaeologists have properly noted that this loss may have no comparable precedent other than the burning of the libraries in Alexandria. AND WHILE IT WAS BEING LOOTED, THERE WAS A MILITARY UNIT PROTECTING THE MINISTRY OF OIL BUILDING. And you make the claim that the US was acting so as not to hurt people.... after cluster bombs.
By the way, I notice that many speak of the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia as though it were something apart from us. In fact it is our history -- those of us who live in the west as well as the middle east and Central Asia. You could wipe out every historical building and artifact in the US and western Europe and still not approach the depth and extent of the loss in Baghdad for all of us. We're not talking about a local historical society...
There have been (and will continue to be) fallout from the ghastly loss of those collections. It will take quite a while for the US to redeem itself in the eyes of many, in and outside of the country. If we ever considered ourselves to have "won" the "war", Daf is right about the proportions of that "war" and the subsequent "win." We beat up an oppressed country the size of one of our 52 states and we're boasting about it. Except for those among us who are deeply grieved and ashamed. Daf writes that "Things'll go back on track." My feeling is that if we don't make them go back on track, if we don't open our eyes and recognize what we've been up to, if we don't take responsibility for all of these losses -- historical and human -- we won't know the track from the mud anymore.
Tartarin is right.
And there is a saying.
Those who dont know history are doomed to repeat it.
We destroyed our history. Lost for the generations to come. The craddle of human civilisation is smashed.
steissd
Your remark about the US "preferring value of the human life to the value of the expensive artifacts" is very valuable as well.
Besides the points, blatham already noted, not only 'expensive artfacts' are missing but a lot of not already acrhived material as well.
'Material' from the "birth of human culture".
Tartarin wrote:By the way, I notice that many speak of the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia as though it were something apart from us. In fact it is our history -- those of us who live in the west as well as the middle east and Central Asia. You could wipe out every historical building and artifact in the US and western Europe and still not approach the depth and extent of the loss in Baghdad for all of us. We're not talking about a local historical society...
Well said! Thank you for adding your voice to this -- so more people might think, learn, and realize what we have lost.
IMO, no combination of American artifacts -- the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Liberty Bell, Washington monuments or museums -- can come close to the heritage, knowledge, and human value that the world has lost in Baghdad.
Two newer articles:
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/5648560.htm
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2003/04/17/build/war/32-robbed.inc
I've noticed paging problems with our forum software... clicking "Page 5 of 5" turns up blank, etc.
Here the software says I am viewing "Page 12 of 11 ::",
so no one else can get to the actual page.
Maybe posting this little note will knock the counters up to the next page...
[ Yup, that fixed it! Seems to happen whenever I edit or delete an existing post. The page counters probably don't get updated correctly. Carry on ... ]
This seems to be more than just civilian looting.
The majority of the priceless artifacts were stored in locked vaults in the basement of the museum to protect them from the bombing. All of the vaults were emptied, opened with keys. An inside job perpetuated by the dregs of the Iraqi regime?
Good-bye Saddam, Hello Iraqi mafia.
Not exactly the Iraqi mafia, Flatted. I posted the following in another forum:
Quote:It is now clear that the most dangerous stage of the conflict will be looting of monuments and museums on a massive scale. At an official level the American Council for Cultural Policy is already persuading the Pentagon to relax legislation that protects Iraq's heritage by prevention of sales abroad, arguing that antiquities will be safer in American museums and private collections than in Iraq.
More responsible conservation bodies in America, such as the Archaeological Institute of America, are already arguing strongly against this, and Professor Lord Renfrew has efficiently exposed the origins of these proposals. At an unofficial level we are seeing exactly what happens even to unguarded hospitals and museums when law and order collapse: it needs little imagination to see the inevitable effects on heritage sites, especially when heavy machinery and vehicles are readily available and lucrative markets are already in place.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,9959,936466,00.html
Flatted 5th wrote:Good-bye Saddam, Hello Iraqi mafia.
IMO, there is no difference between these two. It is quite possible that the vaults were emptied by the regime officials that escaped later abroad (allegedly, to Syria). They took expensive artifacts with them to provide to themselves
dolce vita in exile.
Is there going to be a "Post War Iraq?" c.i.
You may be right, c.i. . And this opinion isn't new at all:
"Soon after the British captured Baghdad in 1917, the civil commissioner, Captain Arnold Wilson, wrote a plaintive note to London, arguing that the new state being created out of three former Turkish provinces could only be "the antithesis of democratic government". This was because the Shia majority rejected domination by the Sunni minority, but "no form of government has been envisaged which does not involve Sunni domination". The Kurds in the north, Wilson prophetically pointed out, "will never accept Arab rule"." from:
http://www.zmag.org/
steissd wrote:There was the only way to put end to looting: to open fire at the trespassers, majority of which were civilians. U.S. Army decided not to do this, preferring value of the human life to the value of the expensive artifacts; what is wrong with this?
There are many other alternatives. With military guards at the museums, they could forcefully prevent them entering - not shooting, but obstructing them. If the looters started opening fire on the guards, then i guess shooting back would be necessary. Another option would be to arrest those attempting to loot the artifacts. Arrests have been made on looters attempting to steal an ambulance, so why not other treasures worth a factor of a thousand more?
Tartarin wrote:Daf writes that "Things'll go back on track." My feeling is that if we don't make them go back on track, if we don't open our eyes and recognize what we've been up to, if we don't take responsibility for all of these losses -- historical and human -- we won't know the track from the mud anymore.
It is precisely because of people opening their eyes and standing up for genuine freedom that I think things will eventually go back on track. But we all really have to put our feet down. When the protests started in the UK, I was in Bristol marching with the largest crowd in the country, but I admit that i stopped marching after the forth or fifth day even though others were continuing. If Bush moves on to Syria though, I think every man and woman has an obligation to march until he stops. Bush senior once compared Saddam to Hitler, ironically Bush junior shows a lot of similarities. I sincerely hope we're not witnessing the start of an attempted totalitarianism.
steissd wrote:Flatted 5th wrote:Good-bye Saddam, Hello Iraqi mafia.
IMO, there is no difference between these two. It is quite possible that the vaults were emptied by the regime officials that escaped later abroad (allegedly, to Syria). They took expensive artifacts with them to provide to themselves
dolce vita in exile.
I think they are seperate. There's a tendancy to mentally combine a bunch of groups with similar traits. It's the same as the opinion of anti-war protestors are pro-saddam, or that Saddam's regime must be linked with Al Queda. BTW i'm not saying this is what you think Steissd - this is just something that came to mind.
It certainly appears to be some organisation doing the looting (and arson) or significance, but there's no way of telling who. Chances are it's a group few of us have ever heard of.
C.I. - I take it you voted for 'There won't be an Iraq to govern'?
