Eight Thousand Years of Civilization ...gone

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Agathon


Agreed. If the US thinks that the Iraqis might get mean, wait until hordes of angry archaeologists and historians come after them.

God, if only that WOULD happen...

Too bad they're all going to be too busy scrambling to find new artifacts to replace all that's been lost.

At least the doctors and teachers have supplies to look forward to in the immediate future, as soon as the coalitions gives the green light to aid workers signifying it's safe (enough) to venture in and get to work...

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
I was against the war too, but I feel the fact that the US doesn't have enough troops to police the city is a serious design flaw in our strategy. People have been saying all along that we needed more troops and we may have rushed ahead too quickly in the hopes of keeping this war palatable to the public. Certainly not enough thought was put into how to administer captured territory beforehand.

And Rumsfeld has been taking A LOT of heat for under-manning the ground forces from many military experts and others. Let us hope he gets in trouble for it now...

The coalition DID have enough forces to protect these few vital sites. If they can defend the Oil, Agricultural, and Health and Public Service Ministries with dozens (hundreds?) of troops and vehicles out of tens of thousands outside of the city and hundreds of thousands in the region, they could have spared a few hundred more warm bodies (in dozen-man teams at each site) to protect those other vital locations.

EDIT: Moved the second paragraph BELOW the first quote, since that is what it was responding to

Talking about the importance of cultural heritage is admirable but ultimately pointless to the Iraqi living on the edge of poverty who might have lost his livelihood or his most valuable possessions. He will undoubtedly not be thinking of the cutural or spiritual significance of the loss of such priceless artefacts.

Let me try putting it this way:

Hospitals serve the IMMEDIATE needs of Iraqis currently living.
Schools serve the NEAR-FUTURE needs of Iraqis currently living and soon-to-be born.
Museums serve the FUTURE needs of Iraqis yet born in a (fingers crossed) stable Iraq...

The 3 sites that WERE protected serve the needs of the immediate, near, and more distant future, so at least they got that part planned right.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by gsmoove23

Talking about the importance of cultural heritage is admirable but ultimately pointless to the Iraqi living on the edge of poverty who might have lost his livelihood or his most valuable possessions. He will undoubtedly not be thinking of the cutural or spiritual significance of the loss of such priceless artefacts.

We should have been thinking about it.

[cinch]

We should have been thinking about it.

Definitely.

They wasted no time in securing the oil fields; I would have expected them to show the same level of respect for the history of humanity.

[Daz]

Way to go, liberators...

[Static Universe]

If the responsibility for policing Iraq hadn't been given to a corrupt civilian subcontractor, these control problems wouldn't be happening.

Scandal-hit US firm wins key contracts

DynCorp, which has donated more than £100,000 to the Republican Party, began recruiting for a private police force in Iraq last week on behalf of the US State Department.

Shouldn't the military commanders play this role? Haven't they always done so? The local police have always been under the control of the occupying general at the time of conquest, then handed back to the new government after its establishment.

Bush is making a big mistake trying to outsource this function. I mean seriously, where has this type of thing ever been attempted by private companies? This was a huge risk, and the commercial bent of the web of protection being thrown up is going to brand the new police even more as tool of Western business, thus undermining civilian control in Iraq.

Also, I think Bush made a big tactical mistake not to defend cultural artifacts more closely. These items are of great significance in the ME right now, and museums an important Arab cultural symbol since the Isrealis seized the Palestine Archaeological Museum and the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Six Day War.

And surely some of these looted items while ultimately wind up in Western museums some day, or so the Iraqi's will fear after things settle down. They won't blame the looters, they'll blame the Americans.

[Herzog]

If some other country was liberating us from a dictator, I'd forgive them for destroying the Lincoln Memorial, not even mentioning looting done by Americans of the Smithsonian (which is less 'valuable' to the Lincoln).

if you compare the lincoln memorial with the babylonian museum, you simply cannot make any opinion in matters of art, im sorry

pd, cool avatar that one of the wizard of final fantasy 1!!! weredid you take it!!!

[Herzog]

well, i finished reading this thread (the last post was posted after 3 pages of reading) and its obvious that here we see a discusion between people who know, make and understand art and people who think titanic is a good movie.

[DRoseDARs]

Ok, at least one more post tonight, then bed...

Static:
The contracted police would not have helped in this instance simply because the coalition forces were still encountering resistance from the last of Saddam's forces. They wouldn't have put civilian workers in harm's way. So really, it was the military's responsibility to protect those sites and the leadership's to order it done.

Second, doesn't look like I'm going to like this contracted police force idea...

Herzog:
This isn't a matter of the "artistic value" of one artifact over another. The Lincoln Memorial is just as valuable as any Summerian text. This is a matter of them both contributing to Humanity's collective culture; they are both part of each and every one of us. The loss of either is a loss to all of us. The only difference is that the Lincoln Memorial and other recent "artifacts" can be repaired or rebuild since they are so young: we know what they are supposed to look like and what they mean. On the other hand, I know that a lot of the bigger history museums have a large number of ancient artifacts in storage that haven't been looked at beyond cataloging, simply because the curators haven't gotten to them yet. I fear that many pieces in Baghdad may have slipped into the abyss, never to be understood because the curators were unable to study them more properly.

They can never be "rebuilt" nor "replaced" because they were never studied in full. A photograph probably will never be adequet for study. Of course, then again, the looters stole and destroyed thousands of documents and records, so even that route may be f*cked in most cases...



And you're right. Titanic sucked.

Eight thousand years of civilization ... gone

What a load of rubbish.

[Traianvs]

GODDAMNIT

I'm pissed off. As an archaeologist, reading this event in the paper infuriated me especially because Mesopotamia is my key interest ....

Simply placing a tank and 10 soldiers would have prevented the looting, just now they moved up a few tanks there, but guess what, .... it's too late!! they frikking have 300k troops swarming all over Iraq, they must have a few spare troops I would think, no?

Oh well, next to the countless ancient sites that have been destroyed by bombings in the Gulf wars, now the national museum has to go as well. A fecking great job, you should really be proud of it!

And to all those people who justify the destruction of a few (about 170k was the lates number I heard) antiquities because after all it's because we have to remove Saddam: y-o-u a-r-e a-l-l s-t-u-p-i-d m-o-f-o-s

Imagine the destruction of your nice shiny office building, including all your documents and data... now wouldn't you be pissed off??

And to everyone with a simple mind like Jaguar Warrior here

Oh no! Millenium old plates are going to actually have people eating from them! US troops should be tried for war crimes!

Hehe goddamn I really do wonder how you graduated from kindergarten... maybe poppa passed on a few diamonds on to the school director? you fool, I have no words to describe my anger, bah!

[Sloth]

The destruction of Alexandria's library is still mourned today...this will be mourned 1.000 years from now.
I'm very sad that someone can shrug this off. It was clealry avoidable. It should have been avoided



BTW: yes I do think that anyone that shrug this off is an ignorant idiot. Sorry, I have never insulted anyone here. It will be my first and last time. But this time I must.

[Bereta_Eder]

Allegendly, the director of the museum said she has lost all of her family, killed by the bombs and now she has lost the history of her land too.

[Frogman]

I was very disappointed that the US didn't guard the hospitals and the museum from looters. Instead they hole up in the palace. It was a disgusting disregard for human life and Iraqi history. Hell, they didn't even protect the information ministry. How many important documents were left to burn. Just stupid, there is no excuse. They had the manpower to defend whatever they wanted and they just didn't care. Who sets their priorities?

[Drake Tungsten]

Simply placing a tank and 10 soldiers would have prevented the looting

It also would've made that tank and those 10 soldiers easy targets for any hostile Iraqi forces still in the area. I hate to see a museum get looted, but I would also hate to see American troops get slaughtered because they're spread out all over the city protecting buildings while a war is still going on.

[gunkulator]

So why didn't France of Germany offer to dispatch human targets, er, guards, for this oh so precious museum? I'm sure the US would have gladly accepted them. Surely they saw the need, yes?

Let's get down to the fundamental equation:

Protecting ancient artifacts is worth endangering the lives of ____ soldiers.

Please provide an answer or kindly kwitcherbiatchin.

[Herzog]

"while a war is still going on"...please

[Herzog]

and the corolario of that formula


______is worth the lives of_________persons?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Static Universe


And surely some of these looted items while ultimately wind up in Western museums some day, or so the Iraqi's will fear after things settle down. They won't blame the looters, they'll blame the Americans.

Blair said in commons today that the British museum would be on the lookout for artifacts from Baghdad, would not buy them, and would try to get them returned to the Baghdad museum.

What we need is a UN resolution on this, calling on all nations to prevent trafficking in artifacts from the Baghdad museum. If the thieves and brokers cannot sell the artifacts for a profit, they may return them to the museum.

[gunkulator]

But Bush has already answered your question. He believes it is worth the lives of a hundred+ soldiers to liberate Iraq.

Ok, now it's your turn. Kindly answer the question.

[gsmoove23]

Right across the street, soldiers stationed at the defense ministry.

But even as some Iraqis sought to heal the city's wounds, others, fired by anger and revenge, broke through to the little that was left of untouched government buildings after four days of continuous looting. Among other buildings afire or still smoldering in eastern Baghdad today were the city hall, the Agriculture Ministry and so thoroughly burned that heat still radiated 50 paces from its front doors the National Library. Not far from the National Museum of Iraq, which was looted on Thursday and Friday with the loss of almost all of its store of 170,000 artifacts, the library was considered another of the repositories of an Iraqi civilization dating back at least 7,000 years.

By tonight, virtually nothing was left of the library and its tens of thousands of old manuscripts and books, and of archives like Iraqi newspapers tracing the country's turbulent history from the era of Ottoman rule through to Mr. Hussein. Reading rooms and the stacks where the collections were stored were reduced to smoking vistas of blackened rubble.

Across the street, a lone American tank roared out of the monumental gates of the Defense Ministry, untouched by the looters presumably because they knew that the ministry, at least, would be under close guard by American troops.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...n_ordered_city

[Ned]

From another story, it appears the police stayed home when the regime collapse because they feared for their lives. Police in Basra who patrol without the British present are attacked.

Perhaps Baghdad is different. But it does appear that we need, urgently, a large number of experienced police from outside Iraq. All nations should volunteer police forces immediately.

I know that Canada has volunteer police. So has Denmark. Anyone else? Egypt, for example?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
What we need is a UN resolution on this, calling on all nations to prevent trafficking in artifacts from the Baghdad museum. If the thieves and brokers cannot sell the artifacts for a profit, they may return them to the museum.

Most of this stuff is going to end up in private collections. There is a huge market for smuggled artifacts. This stuff is pretty much gone. We might recover 5% - 10% of what wasn't outright destroyed.

Those of you who think this is just sad really have no comprehension of what was lost. Baghdad as the capital of Islam for almost five hundred years. All those records are gone. It was the most important center for learning in the world during that time. The oldest translations of what Greek writings we have were there. The oldest examples of human writing on Earth were there.

Sumer is the ancestor of all Western civilization. What we lost is neyond comprehension.

Jeez, you'd think people on a site called Civilization would have a friggan clue!

[Carver]

This museum was unequalled in the world. If the US was going to protect one thing in Baghdad it should have been this. To standby and let the looters raid the place was inexcuseable. Whether the orders said ensure law and order or not, someone should have taken the initiative to say we can't let this happen. US troops wouldn't let one Iraqi murder another Iraqi right under their noses and this was worse than one murder.

And to be clear, no US troops would have to have killed any Iraqis. Just put the troops outside the complex and fire towards anyone trying to do something stupid.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Quote:

Simply placing a tank and 10 soldiers would have prevented the looting

It also would've made that tank and those 10 soldiers easy targets for any hostile Iraqi forces still in the area. I hate to see a museum get looted, but I would also hate to see American troops get slaughtered because they're spread out all over the city protecting buildings while a war is still going on.

I never said these soldiers would have to stand wide open on a square ready to be sniped... Anyway that place was pretty safe, because you think remaining opposition forces would allow regular civilians to loot their buildings? Or do you think civilians would even dare loot if there is danger all around?... tsk

[Alex]

Sad, sad tragedy.

[DRoseDARs]

A few of you have already said what I was going to say in response. But I'll reiterate anyway...

First of all, it wouldn't have taken the entire military might of the US to prevent the looting. Rotating dozen-man teams to cover individual building would have been more than enough to prevent looting by Baghdad citizens.

Secondly, as far as engaging army forces, does anyone honestly believe the Iraqi people are stupid enough to riot and loot EN MASSE if they felt they were any longer in danger from Saddam's forces? Clearly, the moment the looting began was the moment Baghdad fell to Coalition forces. For the first time in 22 years or so, they felt "safe" to do as they please (just wish they'd found something else that was pleasurable to do instead of looting...like having a post-war Baby Boom of their own ).

Third, if defending the airport, defending the Oil, Agricultural, and Health and Publice Service ministries was worth ____ lives of soldiers, then protecting the hospitals, universties, and museum was worth the same number of soldiers lives.

Fourth, even though there was and still is some sporadic resistance in Baghdad, strategically securing a wide number of buildings throughout the city would make it easier for the Coalition to blanket the city and engage enemy forces in all directions. Modifying the island-hopping method used in the Pacific Theater of WWII, sections of the city of Baghdad could have been searched and secured rapidly due to the overwhelming number of ground forces in the city. Saddam's forces wouldn't have anywhere to run, anywhere to hide. Those that didn't surrender forthwith would have been dealt with swiftly, either captured or killed, and the city would have avoided a great deal of looting to start with. Likewise, rapid and wide deployment like that would have made policment (<- is that a word?) of the city come that much quicker.



Gunkulator, if you tell us how many soldiers were used to defend those three ministries and the airport in Baghdad, you'll have your aproximate answer as to how many soldiers the hospitals, the universities, and the museum were worth. Each of these installations were just as important to the present and future of Iraq, if not more so.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
Right across the street, soldiers stationed at the defense ministry.

But even as some Iraqis sought to heal the city's wounds, others, fired by anger and revenge, broke through to the little that was left of untouched government buildings after four days of continuous looting. Among other buildings afire or still smoldering in eastern Baghdad today were the city hall, the Agriculture Ministry and so thoroughly burned that heat still radiated 50 paces from its front doors the National Library. Not far from the National Museum of Iraq, which was looted on Thursday and Friday with the loss of almost all of its store of 170,000 artifacts, the library was considered another of the repositories of an Iraqi civilization dating back at least 7,000 years.

By tonight, virtually nothing was left of the library and its tens of thousands of old manuscripts and books, and of archives like Iraqi newspapers tracing the country's turbulent history from the era of Ottoman rule through to Mr. Hussein. Reading rooms and the stacks where the collections were stored were reduced to smoking vistas of blackened rubble.

Across the street, a lone American tank roared out of the monumental gates of the Defense Ministry, untouched by the looters presumably because they knew that the ministry, at least, would be under close guard by American troops.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...n_ordered_city

Hmmmmm....when the Taliban destroyed two old Bhudda statues the western world (and many a poster here) screamed bloody murder about their backward regime. Now we see a part of the world heritage getting ransacked and burned down right before our eyes. We had the means to stop it or at least preverve a part of it. But you know what we did it in the end?

NOTHING, we simply stood by and let it happen...

You know I a way I'm glad that many of those oh-so cultural clods on this forum are exposed for the moral hypocrites they are. Who gives a **** about a musuem and a couple of old vases? Who gives a **** about history anyway? Who gives a **** about lessons from the past?

The ultimate irony in all of this is that is supposed to be a site about civilization as mentioned by another poster. Seems that notion must have slipped us by. AH was damn right , the rot indeed has set in OT.
Gives you an important wakeupcall on where the average OT poster stands these days. I won't forget what was mentioned in this thread.

So much for the moral highground...

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
A few of you have already said what I was going to say in response. But I'll reiterate anyway...

First of all, it wouldn't have taken the entire military might of the US to prevent the looting. Rotating dozen-man teams to cover individual building would have been more than enough to prevent looting by Baghdad citizens.

simple as that, eh? Didn't know you were an expert on looting prevention. Tell you what. Submit this plan of yours to the US military. If they accept it, then I'll admit you are right. Until then, I'll trust the military commanders in the field.

Third, if defending the airport, defending the Oil, Agricultural, and Health and Publice Service ministries was worth ____ lives of soldiers, then protecting the hospitals, universties, and museum was worth the same number of soldiers lives.

These institutions represent the hope for the future for Iraq. Choices have to be made in war. Do you protect the past to save the future?

Fourth, even though there was and still is some sporadic resistance in Baghdad, strategically securing a wide number of buildings throughout the city would make it easier for the Coalition to blanket the city and engage enemy forces in all directions. Modifying the island-hopping method used in the Pacific Theater of WWII...

Again, I'm not an urban warfare expert and I suspect you are not one either. Typing words like "rapid deployment" or "island hopping" means nothing unless you know the tactical situation. Do you know a) the terrain, b) the number of snipers in the area, c) their weapons, d) cover positions for guards, e) access routes to and from the building, f) how clear the area is of Saddam's mercenaries, etc. I know I don't know so I'm not going to second guess the field commander who does know.

Gunkulator, if you tell us how many soldiers were used to defend those three ministries and the airport in Baghdad, you'll have your aproximate answer as to how many soldiers the hospitals, the universities, and the museum were worth. Each of these installations were just as important to the present and future of Iraq, if not more so.

You miss the point of the question. I'm asking how many lives YOU think are worth expending to secure the area. Tell me, in lives lost, what this museum is worth.

Oh and that's only part one of my question. Part two is: Compose a letter to the families of those who bravely fell defending this vitally important position. Be sure to explain exactly what they have given their lives for. Remember, YOU made this decision, not the US Military, so it is up to you to provide the rationale

Part three is extra credit: a voluteer form for those wishing, right now, to go over to Iraq and defend what is left of the museum. Any takers?

[Carver]

Originally posted by gunkulator

You miss the point of the question. I'm asking how many lives YOU think are worth expending to secure the area. Tell me, in lives lost, what this museum is worth.

Protecting treasures from the birth of civilization is worth many lives. But there would have been no more than 1 or 2 US casualties, probably none.

Oh and that's only part one of my question. Part two is: Compose a letter to the families of those who bravely fell defending this vitally important position. Be sure to explain exactly what they have given their lives for. Remember, YOU made this decision, not the US Military, so it is up to you to provide the rationale

They would have given their lives to save a huge portion of the heritage of the world. That is much more important and commendable than dying to seize an oil well before the Iraqis can set it on fire, or dying to "save" a village in Vietnam that doesn't want to be "saved."