BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 02:16 AM

I think that the military's failure to guard the cultural treasures of Iran -- particularly given that the Pentagon had been warned by experts of the danger -- has done a lot to anger the Iraqi people even more. The NYT reported US soldiers waving treasure-carrying people through their checkpoints. And today some people in Baghdad were staging anti-American protests because of the looting.

I wonder if the military were advised by the Pentagon to watch out for cultural destruction -- perhaps the chain of command faltered somewhere. Or perhaps, in fact, nobody gave a damn.

Everywhere except the oil ministry -- hospitals, schools, libraries, universities, clinics.

But not the oil ministry.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 08:45 AM

Sorry to keep on with this, but it is reported that the great Inanna vase is missing -- I don't have a picture -- but it is among the greatest works of art. This was one of the ones I was most worried about. Damn.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 09:04 AM

This is a lousy off colour picture of the Warka vase, 3,500 B.C., it is about 1 metre high, and is in translucent green alabaster. It depicts the whole of the Sumerian world giving ritual thanks to the goddess Inanna. The bottom of the vase represents the reed marshes and the water world out of which all life comes, and works its way up in a spiral to the realm of the gods. Sorry I couldn't find a better picture. I hope someone stole it, and didn't smash it, maybe it can be recovered.here.yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: harvey andrews
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 02:41 PM

The poor and ill educated throughout history have looted art, destroyed history and burnt books. But the word "barbarian" here is for the people who started the war pre-emptively having been warned of the dangers to the cultural heritage and then didn't give a damn, didn't care a damn,and never will give a damn.The administration never told the men in the field to guard the museum and the library, they told them to guard the oil ministry!
Barbarians defend money, not culture and they've done it again.All good and caring and intelligent Americans will, I'm sure, feel that this is one of the blackest stains on their nation's history.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 03:21 PM

And a blot on the UK's history too perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: harvey andrews
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 03:49 PM

The war? yes. We don't know what the British would have done had they taken Baghdad. We have enough stains from our own colonial past when we were the cops of the world.It's all there to learn from, but barbarians don't read, they allow the libraries to burn.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 05:11 PM

Well, considering that this is Britain's third invasion of Iraq in less than one hundred years, to "liberate" the Iraqis, I'd say Britain has plenty of blood on it's hands, not to mention priceless artifacts looted in previous "liberations" of the country stored away in the British Museum.

At what point do we start talking about the rape and looting of other cultures by the Anglo American axis of power? Oh, I forgot. Talking about imperial ambitions isn't considered to be PC anymore by the right wing extremists responsible for this debacle.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 08:48 PM

Well, not to seem too paranoid here, but the Bush Sr. taught his boys well to engage in class warfare.

Look around at the dumbed down epsilon class of Budwiser, NASCAR and Country Music folk and these are the folk that eat up this class warfare stuff. Okay, let review the connections intellectual (intellegence)= liberal= homosexual= pastsy= protestor= un-American= commie= ____________________=___________________....

So, even though much effort was made in in preparation to saqve oil wells to keep Billy Bob's Chevy 4WD pickup in fuel, there was apparently no such plan in place for the art? Why? And the tougher question, when the Bush administration has micro-managed, why they have given the *green light* to this story, when they have effectively hept their heels on the throats of so many stories covering the *Human* pain. Yeah, that's the larger question here?

Or is it? You get Rumsfeld doing his part to promore the class warfare thing my minimalizing and laughing about "vases" being hauled off. See, this plays real well into the minds of Bubba NASCAR Sixpack, who I have heard just today parroting Rumsfelds backhand at art/artist/intelectuals/etc./etc. See, this is a clear example of the Bush adminstration's stategy to not only dumb down the masses but also turn the dumber ones against folks with, ahhh, a *fu*ckin'*!!! mind, thank you.

"Fu*ckin'" minds are the Bush administartion's biggest concern. They are so afarid that enough people won't fall into thier little class warfare trap to keep them in power. But I'm not going to go as far as to say that their aren't Bush supporters who have the abilitiy to reason but I will say that if Bush looses his subclass of Epsilons, his done! And so he will continue to make decisions to pit the enlightened against the not so. And Rumsfelf will continue making jokes about the work of artists.

That's what we have. It's tough arguing with the approach. Politically it will keep him and his chums in office but the long range dangers for America are purdy danged scarey as *intollerance* becomes the new cornerstone of America...

End of rant... But just think about it, folks...


Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 08:52 PM

Makes sense to me, Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: JudyR
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 02:30 AM

Intolerance as the new cornerstone of America...well-said. I have to engage with a bunch of yahoos daily, who rant on about we are making to much of a bunch of "cracked pots."

The callousness about the loss of this treasure is one of the most sickening things about this administration, among many sickening things.

Thanks for all your links. I'll contribute one myself, from Tuesday's paper, by columnist Robert Scheer.

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=14840

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: harvey andrews
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 05:08 AM

According to "The Independent" newspaper A British minister told Parliament that British troops have been, and are, guarding the Basra museum.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 08:49 AM

True enough the British looted most places they went pretty systematically. The upside of that this paradoxiaclly makes possibleis the kind of thing reported in this story today: "The British Museum has announced a taskforce of conservators and curators, funded by an anonymous private donor, to go to the rescue of Iraq's ravaged museums."

The major tragedy in all this isn't so much the big monuments and treasures, it's the records preserved and recovered over generations of painstaking archeology, for example the tablets which provided a record of all kinds of things in the vanished past.

I suppose what this shows is that, when it comes to being imperialists, the Americans aren't very good at the skills involved. I just hope they don't get too practiced at this kind of thing.

Here's a story which sums up the whole thing pretty well: "'The collection lies in ruins, objects from a long, rich past in smithereens'"

"This is a tragedy with echoes of past catastrophes: the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258, and the fifth-century destruction of the library of Alexandria. For the loss is not just Iraq's but ours, too."

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Peg
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 11:42 AM

McGrath of harlow wrote:

"I suppose what this shows is that, when it comes to being imperialists, the Americans aren't very good at the skills involved. I just hope they don't get too practiced at this kind of thing."

--this is confusing to me; sounds like you're saying it's the "Americans'" lack of "skill" which caused this; but then you're saying you don't want them to get any better at it?

Pity the British troops didn't step in and show they how it's done...

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: harvey andrews
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 01:09 PM

--this is confusing to me; sounds like you're saying it's the "Americans'" lack of "skill" which caused this; but then you're saying you don't want them to get any better at it?

Back to the "irony" thread Peg!!!
The British were not in Baghdad because the Americans wouldn't let them. Basra was the British zone alloted.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 01:29 PM

Well I wqsn't actually being ironic. What I mean is, the way you get skilled at such things is through trial and error and practice, and I'd rather the Americans backed away from the notion of establishing Imperial American Earth.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Peg
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 01:30 PM

--this is confusing to me; sounds like you're saying it's the "Americans'" lack of "skill" which caused this; but then you're saying you don't want them to get any better at it?

Back to the "irony" thread Peg!!!
--what, exactly, was ironic about McGrath's statement? And ironic in what way? Are you saying that Americans ARE good at imperialistic actions? or that their actions in Baghdad, in imperialistic terms, were successful?
I found it confusing (or perhaps just awkwardly worded); he seems to be pitting two incompatible ideas against one another.
And why are you speaking for him?


The British were not in Baghdad because the Americans wouldn't let them. Basra was the British zone alloted.
--what do you mean by "the Americans wouldn't let them?" Which Americans? soldiers? officers? politicians? And what does "wouldn't let them" mean, anyway? How was this preventive action carried out exactly?

I just want a straightforward answer, if it's not too much trouble. Please just don't tell me I don't understand because I don't get the irony...explain what you mean, so that I *can* understand it.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Troll
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 02:57 PM

You forgot about the destruction of the Aztec writings by the Conquistadores, the Sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth, or the destruction of Solomans Temple.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 05:21 PM

??? I can't see the relevance of that Troll. Who does "you" refer to?

I don't think anyone had actually set out to list all the precedents to what happened in to the Baghdad Myseum and the Iraq National Library.

As Harvey said: "Barbarians don't read, they allow the libraries to burn."

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: harvey andrews
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 05:29 PM

Peg, sorry, I didn't wish to cast aspersions on your understanding. The British weren't allowed because it was America's war. America wanted its flag over the capital. Why else was the flag that flew over the Pentagon on 11 sept ready to drape over the statue pulled down before the readied cameras?
The British are incidental to Bush's regime plan.They're the little boy who tags on to the bully for the kudos.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 05:41 PM

According to all of the reports I've seen, the flag that was placed on the statue was the personal property of a 19-year-old Burmese-American Marine. It was taken off immediately and replaced with an Iraqi one.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: harvey andrews
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 05:53 PM

In the UK it was reported as I stated.
Also, today I read that American media have not published or shown photos of the boy who's lost both his arms. Is this true?

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 05:58 PM

Also, today I read that American media have not published or shown photos of the boy who's lost both his arms. Is this true?

No. The US is being very self-congratulatory via the media here, about how much effort we're putting into getting that boy to a better hospital. But we didn't hear anything in our news about him until after the story about him appeared in the British media.

Re: the flags... they didn't drape the Iraqi flag over the statue's face the way they did with the US flag. They hung it around the statue's neck like a necktie. I saw the footage of it on TV.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: harvey andrews
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 06:03 PM

Thanks Carol.. goes to show.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 06:07 PM

And maybe those reports are true, and maybe they aren't. And maybe there were two rival spin doctors involved, one of them looking for a picture for the US public, and one more concerned about the people in the street, and watching from the non-US world.

I see from The Independent today that it is believed that the Ananna Vase, which Peter T was especially worried about, was stolen to order. Which at least means that it has a chance of having survived intact.

But for the shattered clay tablets with their writing, and the manuscripts and books burnt in the National Library, there is no hope.

Paradoxically, the fact that the invaders made great play about avoiding targetting these buildings, and did not do target them, probably made things worse. It meant that national treasures and archives and that were not removed to a safer place, as normally happens in wartime.

There was in fact a lot of concern expressed in advance, by academics and others around the world, about the possibility of damage to heritage sites. However the idea that the national museum and library would be left completely unguarded by the people responsible for security in the city - that doesn't seem to have been something that anybody thought necessary to warn against.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 08:00 PM

McGrath, where was that -- do you have the Web reference? yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 08:10 PM

Well, the story just states it as a fcat, rather than giving any information, and it is by the Arts Correspondent, who would probably be writing in London, and it doesn't even name thevase - but the picture that appeared with it was definitely the right one.

Anyway - here is the story - Baghdad museum's greatest treasures 'stolen to order'

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Peg
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 02:52 AM

harvey;
you didn't really answer my questions. Not with any factual information, anyway, which is what I was looking for.
What proof do you have that British soldiers were somehow prevented from being in Baghdad because of the Americans?

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 04:00 AM

Given the number of cases of soldiers being killed by "friendly fire" anyway it would have been a bit daft have a unit turn up in a place where they weren't supposed to be - and the British sector in the war was Basra not Baghdad. Just as it would have been if an Amrican unit had turned up in Baghdad to defend some building there.

Looking after security is most definitely part of the job of the people capturing a city, not of their allies who are tied up in another part of the country.

All part of the "rules of engagement."

Noone is criticising the ordinary soldiers for what happened. Some people at higher level made a terrible mistake.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 04:57 AM

Given the number of cases of soldiers being killed by "friendly fire" anyway it would have been a bit daft have a unit turn up in a place where they weren't supposed to be - and the British sector in the war was Basra not Baghdad. Just as it would have been if an Amrican unit had turned up in Basra to defend some building there.

Looking after security is most definitely part of the job of the people capturing a city, not of their allies who are tied up in another part of the country.

All part of the "rules of engagement."

Noone is criticising the ordinary soldiers for what happened. Some people at higher level made a terrible mistake. Very likely they would have been civilians.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Bagpuss
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 05:31 AM

Peg - re the irony thing. Perhaps McGrath was trying to say that imperialism is bad whether you are good or bad at it. The US is trying to do it, but doing it badly. They could get better at it if they had practice, but that would also be a bad thing...

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: JenEllen
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 11:25 AM

Frankly, if there were spare soldiers sitting around, I'd rather them be at the zoo saving lives than at a museum saving 'things'.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 12:21 PM

The administration has made it clear that it is the Pentagon that is running the show, and soldiers know the peril of trying to act as policemen. It is obvious that the need to protect Iraq's treasures was not part of the pre-war planning on the part of the Department of State. What I can't help but wonder is what the situation in "liberated" Iraq would have been like if the administration hadn't been slowed in its rush to war by the anti-war crowd? What kind of plan would there have been if they hadn't bothered to go through the motions of going back to the UN, and trying to get some allies, and selling the war to the networks, and get contracts out to all those US corporations and other statesmanship stuff?

What good is preserving our cultural heritage anyway? What good has it done us? Thousands of years of culture led Iraq to Saddam Hussein and his bunch of thugs. And we've got George W., following Ole Bubba, George I and Ron the Actor. . .Why do barbarians stand around when the libraries burn? Because all reading does is make a real man weak. . .

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 12:37 PM

Why do barbarians stand around when the libraries burn? Because all reading does is make a real man weak. . .

That's intended as irony, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: harvey andrews
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 01:14 PM

" Real proud to be a weak reading man!!"
"Proud to be a weak real reading man!"
"Proud to be a real weak reading man!"

Whatever...it doesn't sing well, but I'm happy to wear the badge. Where do I sew it?

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 01:26 PM

Anyway, it's one way of achieving immortaloity. People will remember this in a thousand years, long after they've
forgotten what this war was all about. "Top of the world, Ma!"

In Afghanistan it was the Taliban achieved a similar distinction, when they destroyed the giant Buddhas.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 01:40 PM

That's true, McGrath. If the rest of civilization doesn't get destroyed first, historians for generations will be remembering Donald "Rummy" Rumsfled as being the man responsible for the destruction of the great museums and libraries of Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: GUEST, heric
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 01:54 PM

No, MGOH and Carol, the apparent failure to guard the anitquities from looters during a predictable civil unrest, as bizarre as this still seems, is hardly similar to calculated, intentional destruction of religious antiquities in defiance of world outcry.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 01:57 PM

I don't know about that, heric. But time will tell, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: GUEST, heric
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 02:05 PM

Too cryptic for analysis. Are you proposing a conspiracy theory involving intentional calculations by George Bush?

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 02:22 PM

Who me?

;-)

I suppose I'm less inclined to believe the "bumbling" excuse than any number of other possible explanations.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 02:23 PM

That kind of distinction isn't going to be remembered, heric. It'll all be down to the Great Satan, who'll be a combination of Bush and Saddam, and it'll only be pedants who try to point out that they weren't actually the same man.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 02:26 PM

But even if it was "bumbling", I guess that means that Rumsfeld will be remembered by generations of historians as the man who was too stupid to take the advice (and desperate pleas) of people who warned the US government that this would happen, thus making him the man responsible for the destruction of the great museums and libraries of Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 06:49 PM

Hostorians, yes. But outside academic circles, I doubt if Rumsfeld's name as such will stick around too long. Who remembers Foster Dulles now? I think this is one of those times when it'll be the monkey who is is remembered rather than the organ grinder, and that'll mean Bush.

Or perhaps just "the barbarian invasion of 2003." After all, what was the name of the commander who burnt the Alexandria Library all those centuries ago?

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: Alba
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 07:10 PM

Today the FBI announced that they are now going to help recover the Artifacts!   As the State dept. was told about the Museum and it's importance before the War started, by many Historians, sounds a bit like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.
This situation should never have happened.
Seemingly a group of European Art dealers have heard of some of the items in their circles already.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 05:23 AM

Bush's cultural aides quit over sack of Baghdad's treasures.

From which piece comes this quote:

Historians and art experts meeting in Paris yesterday under the auspices of the UN cultural agency Unesco said the looting may have been organised, possibly from abroad. Those removing the items had the keys to open museum vaults, they said.

"It looks as if part of the theft was a very, very deliberate, planned action," said McGuire Gibson, an Iraqi specialist at the University of Chicago. "It really looks like a very professional job... They were able to obtain keys from somewhere for the vaults and were able to take out the very important, the very best material. I have a suspicion it was organized outside the country. In fact I'm pretty sure it was."

Mr Gibson said he had already heard unconfirmed reports of looted items being offered for sale outside Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: GUEST, heric
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 12:16 PM

I heard this yesterday as well. I am probably out of step with most of you in thinking this *decreases* apparent U.S. culpability? (US blame arising out of a failure to guard against predictable looting by "mere" civilians flooding in from the street.)

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 12:25 PM

I saw the CBC report about the UNESCO emergency meeting re Iraq's stolen treasures last night, McGrath. Click here for two articles re UNESCO's analysis and recommendations - unfortunately just a bit late, IMO.

I still can't understand why the museum, which had been closed for 10 years prior to April 2000 to protect it from the ravages of the first Gulf War, was not closed again in recent months. Surely enough warning had been given that an even worse attack was coming! (See these articles I linked to in this recent thread.)

IMO the failure to close the museum and remove/protect Iraq's cultural treasures before the coalition attack was no simple oversight, but a very strong indication that the theft and destruction was planned, possibly even with Saddam's compliance.

Then again, I have developed quite the suspicious mind of late ...

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: GUEST, heric
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 12:27 PM

Let me be clear. I don't mean that the sophisticated aspects of the theft absolve or excuse the US failure to guard against the loss. I just mean that the issues addressed in the Guardian article, i.e., sophisticated aspects to the thefts does not, to me, make the US look even worse on this issue. Failure to guard against the obvious warrants blame; failure to guard against sophisticated theft is less blameworhty.

(Neither, I hope, do you interpret and therefore reference this Guardian article for demonstrating sophisticated malfeasance by the US.)

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 01:18 PM

If they'd put some kind of security in place, but the clever professionals employed by the millionaire collectors had fooled them, that might be some kind of excuse. But since there doesn't appear to have been any attempt by the occupying army to protect the buildings in question or their contents, it doesn't really make any difference whatsoever. "I know I didn't bother to shut my front door, but you can't blame me for the burgalry - the burglar could very likely have been able to pick the lock anyway."

"Sophisticated malfeasance"? I imagine that would be if there was a suggestion that it was a put up job by people high up in the army to obtain the loot, with them arranging not to have guards on the doors, and trashing the place as a cover up. I know that kind of thing is a standard plot in Hollywood caper movies, where it's all presented as a jolly game, but I'm inclined to doubt if anything as sophisticated as that is involved.

Subject: RE: BS: Iraqi National Museum Looted
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 04:05 PM

The military were not sent into Iraq to be social workers or policemen. Only targets of military significance were protected. Namely the oil ministry (the main source of future income for Iraq) was one, and the oilfields and service facilities. Hospitals and museums etc are now being assisted. The threat of suicide bombers could place such facilities at risk of attack if US servicmen guarded them, and this was one factor that contributed to the difficulty of providing security.