Iraq: "biggest cultural disaster since 1258' says expert

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/world.shtml#18261

One million books, 10 million documents and 14,000 archaeological artifacts have been lost in the U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq -- the biggest cultural disaster since the descendants of Genghis Khan destroyed Baghdad in 1258, Venezuelan writer Fernando Báez told IPS.

"U.S. and Polish soldiers are still stealing treasures today and selling them across the borders with Jordan and Kuwait, where art merchants pay up to 57,000 dollars for a Sumerian tablet," said Báez, who was interviewed during a brief visit to Caracas.

The expert on the destruction of libraries has helped document the devastation of cultural and religious objects in Iraq, where the ancient Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon emerged, giving it a reputation as the birthplace of civilisation.

His inventory of the destruction and his denunciations that the coalition forces are violating the Hague Convention of 1954 on the protection of cultural heritage in times of war have earned him the enmity of Washington.

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[DS1]

1. None of the people I served with would recognize Sumerian Tablets

from bricks of granite.

Not believing this one.

[lcordero]

4. how about this

look higher in the chain of command and don't look at the average E-nothing soldier. Also remember that the peons are almost always locked down to camp and don't have traveling privileges.

[DS1]

5. I considered that

Officers are even less (IMO) able to just disappear into the night, to make a drive to a border a few hundred miles away.

[lcordero]

10. the distance is a lot "closer"

when it involves a helicopter ride or an airplane ride.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

6. Being an ex rare book dealer, all people need to know is that something

old can fetch a lot of money. People like that will pick up a piece of clay with squiggles on it and sell it to the first person to offer a c-note or better.


Of course, age does not necessarily equate as value, but most lay people don't have a clue.

[daleo]

7. There are also plenty of contractors, some might be specialized.

And with 150,000 odd military personnel, there are bound to be a few who know about Sumerian tablets. As the other poster said, these might well be high up in the chain of command. BFEE is bound to want to take profit wherever it can. Why not artifacts?

[sasquatch]

2. Uh-oh!! The CIA is going to step up its "Overthrow Venezeula self rule"

operatuion.

[neweurope]

3. Ah, don't worry, a lot of these artifacts will turn up again - in the

living rooms of your upper class!

-----------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[SoCalDem]

21. Indeed.. We need to just look at this as a way of "spreading culture"

What good is culture when it stays put.. Those local people probably don;t even know about their history.. Educated Westerners will be the "best stewards' of antiquities.. Everyone knows that...</sarcasm>

[Jacobin]

8. What good is a war if you can't pillage and plunder

priceless artifacts?

/sarcasm

[keopeli]

9. Original Article here

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27459

[lovuian]

11. It kinda reminds you of when Hitler came in and stole the artworks

of all the countries he occupied!!!

[aneerkoinos]

14. Well

It's hard to compare, but my hunch is that the nazi-occupiers of Greece showed lot more respect and constraint than the horde of looting yankee barbarians.

[ConcernedCanuk]

12. "barred from returning to Iraq "to carry out further investigations"

.
.
.

AND (also from the posted article)

Báez said he was refused a visa to enter the United States to take part in conferences.

THAT tells me lots!

I suspect that the WH knew exactly what was where before the first bomb was dropped, and items were pre-selected for removal for cronies of the BFEE . .

They left these valuables unprotected, and tried to blame all the "pilferage" on the Iraquis - -

I for one didn't buy that from day one - -

More from the article:

In addition, he has been barred from returning to Iraq "to carry out further investigations," he added. "But it's too late, because we already have documents, footage and photos that in time will serve as evidence of the atrocities committed," said Báez, the author of "The Cultural Destruction of Iraq" and "A Universal History of the Destruction of Books", which were published in Spanish.
______________________________________________________

Oh - the "caretakers"

[indepat]

13. Most Americans don't give a diddledy-shit what is done to achieve a PNAC/

neocon agenda. Absolutely, positively couldn't care less.

[peacetalksforall]

15. And NPR says everything is very nice in Europe...Bush is reversing

the loss of admiration and the audience has been pre-selected and everything is just great!

The cowboy-brush raker can always say that the coalition has to take equal blame for the loss of 1 mil books, 10 mil documents, and 14 thou artifacts. Some soldiers are making it happen for themselves and others - so everything is wonderful with the world.

[peacetalksforall]

16. Opinions please...I say the think tankers who planned this invasion and.

takeover wrote the words Iraq-Mesopotamia Civilization - protect or steal - on the white board in the planning room. Then they made a decision and lined up the appropriate 'dealers' and 'middle men', the people to carry them, and the operatives who would make it look like a looting of locals.

True or false: The people of modern day Iraq are educated.
True or false: The people of modern day Iraq could care less about the rarities of their civilization whether or not they followed Saddam.
True or false: Saddam didn't care about the treasures.
True of false: The fundamentalists at our curve of the earth could care less about the treasures of the Cradle of Civilization because Armeggedon is coming and a rare item will burn anyway.


Mesopotamia: "An ancient region of southwest Asia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq. Probably settled before 5000 B.C., the area was the home of numerous early civilizations, including Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, and Assyria. It declined in importance after Mongol invaders destroyed its extensive irrigation system in A.D. 1258."

[Rex]

17. Spoils of war

We've already broken a lot of international laws, why would we not add theft to the list of outrages commited in Iraq? Soldiers do what they are told to do...we must always focus the blame on those who train and organize illegal operations. We should start at the top.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

18. oh come on.

it was just a video of some guy steeling a couple of vayses plaid over and over on the tele-vision by the liberal media. Rummy said so. anyways you don't come out of a war with the cultchure you want, you come out of war with the cultchure that is there after the war. you Dems think this is hugh news or something.

Eye-rak is just a dessert waste-land with no histry except one where Saddam suported Bin-Laden with his horific silos of WMD that wanted liberty to not exist.
/freepmode disengage

[Lori Price CLG]

19. LOL, You have to go back to the days of Genghis Khan, ...

...to find another Bush. :)

Lori R. Price
Gen. Mgr., Citizens for Legitimate Government
http://www.legitgov.org/

Receive the (free) CLG Newsletter every day!
http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg

[LizW]

22. Shhh. Don't say it too loud...

Bush would probably be thrilled with the comparison.

[Just Me]

20. It's just,...a damned shame,...really.

We need that history to grow UP.

:cry:

[Disturbed]

23. American is spreading liberty and freedom.

The freedom to steal and the liberty to sell whatever can be stolen from invaded countries.

[Zerex71]

24. Will I get run off the message boards if I say this?

And, it figures, Boy George is the one doing all the destroying, because he's as ignorant as s**t and could care less. When you have the IQ of a toadstool, you can't get little things like history get in the way.

[NNN0LHI]

25. Iraq and Ruin

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0424/p11s02-woiq.html

<snip>US laws on this matter are not insignificant, experts agree. Since looting of Iraqi sites began in the chaos following the 1991 Gulf War and continued amid crushing poverty under the US embargo, "this stuff moves through middlemen in Turkey and Iran in a straight line into North America, Europe, and Japan," Armstrong says. "So what happens effectively is the West looting a prostrate country."

Sensitive to this dynamic, and to a deep conviction throughout Iraq that US troops have selectively protected oil fields and palaces at the expense of archaeological treasures, some in the museum community have begun to consider repatriating small artifacts, and replicas of larger ones, as gestures of goodwill.

After all, they say, Iraqi artifacts don't matter just to Iraqis. Ancient Mesopotamia spans fully half of recorded human history: The Sumerians, Babylonians, Akkadians, and Assyrians are ancestors of us all. These are the people who brought you the 60-minute hour, the 360-degree circle, the signs of the zodiac, city life, criminal courts, and social mobility.

But amid all the outcry over looted Mesopotamian treasures, it's perhaps the period's least-discussed legacy that could prove most significant for Iraq today.

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[VegasWolf]

26. Someday in the far future archaeologists in Iraq will discover stone

tablets depicting people running in fear from a small bush
and wonder what that means.