Rumsfeld's arrogant words in 2003 on the looting of Iraq..."Stuff happens"

madfloridian

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Wed Dec-10-08 05:46 PM
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Rumsfeld's arrogant words in 2003 on the looting of Iraq..."Stuff happens"

This man will probably go unpunished for his indignities and crimes to a country that was no threat to us. Those words were so ignorant, so appalling, so lacking in caring about a country's heritage.

I remember that day, as I am remembering a lot of things now leading up to the invasion of Iraq. I will not call it a war...it was an invasion and occupation.

From CNN April 11, 2003.

Rumsfeld on looting in Iraq: 'Stuff happens'

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, left, makes a point as Gen. Richard Myers looks at his notes.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Declaring that freedom is "untidy," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday the looting in Iraq was a result of "pent-up feelings" of oppression and that it would subside as Iraqis adjusted to life without Saddam Hussein.

He also asserted the looting was not as bad as some television and newspaper reports have indicated and said there was no major crisis in Baghdad, the capital city, which lacks a central governing authority. The looting, he suggested, was "part of the price" for what the United States and Britain have called the liberation of Iraq.

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said. "They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here."

Looting, he added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. "Stuff happens," Rumsfeld said. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed. "This is a transition period between war and what we hope will be a much more peaceful time," Myers said.

Part of the price to pay for freedom? That wonderful gift of freedom we gave them?

Most Americans had no clue we were bombing and destroying cities prominently mentioned in the Bible and history. The Cradles of Civilization supposedly.

It had been conquered and re-conquered a dozen or more times, by (among others) the Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, Parthians, Arabs, Ottomans and British, and in February 1991, yet another foreign power raised its flag over the ancient city of Ur, near the mouth of the Euphrates: the Americans. Daring the allies to bomb the birthplace of the patriarch Abraham, Iraqis had parked their jets near Ur's 4,000-year-old ziggurat, but the planes were shot up all the same. American soldiers toured the ancient tower, then got out their entrenching tools and began digging for souvenirs. A forlorn Iraqi gatekeeper ran among them, wailing protests in Arabic, until U.S. officers put a stop to the looting. Last week, when NEWSWEEK visited the site, it was virtually deserted, except for a lone guide, the son of the old gatekeeper, keeping a wary eye on the American and British warplanes streaking overhead. "Ninety-nine percent of Americans don't know the country they'll be bombing is Mesopotamia," says Dr. Huda Ammash, a high-ranking Baath Party official. "Our country has served humanity for so long, now it's up to the international community to help protect Iraq."

Babylonian Booty, Newsweek, 2003

From a blogger who spent years studying these civilizations:

Raping History

After the first Gulf War, there were widespread reports of looting of museums, so the Pentagon created special units designed to protect cultural sites that happened to be inside a combat zone. Then came the war in Iraq.

As is now well known and documented, the Baghdad Museum, perhaps the single most important repository of material culture from the Cradle of Western Civilization, was sacked and looted. The cultural protection units who might have stopped this were not even deployed. No more than fifty men would have been enough to secure this treasure house, but it was left to the ravages of the mob. Then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld shrugged it off with his usual indifference to tragedy, and the world took a few steps closer to viewing the invasion of Iraq as the work of the forces of a militarist, imperial government ruled by a mad cowboy.

He posts a before and after picture of an ancient artifact.

The Warka Vase, one of the oldest (ca. 3,000 BCE) depictions of a ritual, stolen in April 2003 from the Baghdad Museum. the photo on the left shows its pre-war condition, the photo on the right the condition in which it was returned. Photo copyright Hirmer Verlag, Munich.

The blogger concludes with these words.

If you ask me why we should care about a bunch of artifacts of a dead civilization, I can only wonder how dead your soul must be. Years ago, french assyriologist Jean Bottero wrote an essay entitled "In Defense of a Useless Science", as some may consider the study of such arcana. But to some extent, Bottero's essay was useless; you either have the maturity, depth, knowledge, and wisdom to appreciate the value of our shared ancient material culture or you don't.

War is a destroyer of cultures, but in this case the culture is that of the western world, along with a fair share of the east. I do not doubt that fairly or unfairly, future scholars and historians will mention the American invasion of Iraq in the same breath along with the Germans at Louvain, or the Romans or Muslims at Alexandria.

The last eight years are coming to a close. Whether we leave Iraq, whether we expand the war in Afghanistan....there will be no undoing of the lives we have taken and the history allowed to be destroyed.

The blogger's words are so true.

..the world took a few steps closer to viewing the invasion of Iraq as the work of the forces of a militarist, imperial government ruled by a mad cowboy.

And of a Secretary of Defense who thinks "stuff happens." And whose soul indeed must feel very dead.