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Mark Steyn: Looting Iraq's 'heritage'
Jerusalem Post ^
| 4-29-03
| Mark Steyn
Posted on 04/29/2003 4:39:16 AM PDT by SJackson
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1
posted on
04/29/2003 4:39:16 AM PDT
by
SJackson
To: SJackson
Wow! I'm a Steyn fan, but this one was especially good. Thanks for the post.
2
posted on
04/29/2003 4:46:07 AM PDT
by
dawn53
To: Pokey78
Another Steyn
(By the way, I need to go off your ping list, at least for a few weeks.)
3
posted on
04/29/2003 4:58:50 AM PDT
by
Mr. Mulliner
(HTTP 404 - File not found)
To: SJackson
bookmark bump
I've rarely seen a more tortured piece of flimsy rationalization.
Part of the frigging POINT of invading Iraq was so that matters of heritage -- whether economic, cultural, or personal -- would be preserved from the effects of being looted. (One of several reasons, shifting with the winds of responding to the media, but we won't get into that now.)
Standing by while these museums were looted, whether by plan or by opportunism, was irresponsible. Rumsfeld had far more soldiers and Marines guarding the glitz of presidential palaces. He also doesn't read the text of the Geneva Conventions that he and Bush were oh, so furious about Al-Jazeera supposedly flouting, for those same treaties obligate us under international law to prevent "pillage," described as early as 1907 as a crime against humanity.
And if the repositories of irreplaceable -- unlike oil -- artifacts and historical records are cleaned out, what kind of physical heritage will the Iraqis be able to offer when they are re-integrated with the rest of peaceable civilization?
Steyn is a swinish philistine. He's no different, in effect, from the caliph who said, before he ordered the torching of the library at Alexandria over a thousand years ago: "If these books say what is said in the Holy Qu'ran, they are superfluous. If they say what is not said in the Holy Qu'ran, they are pernicious." The caliph would have been right at home in an office next to Steyn at the National Post.
5
posted on
04/29/2003 6:38:04 AM PDT
by
Greybird
("War is the health of the State." -- Randolph Bourne)
To: Greybird
I can't help but believe that you don't understand what Steyn is saying. Basically he is slamming those who are critical of the U.S. for not giving the past priority over the present. I can't help but agree. Also, your Caliph example is somewhat suspect. The legend that the volumes from the library took six months to burn is incredible. Also, the evidence that there even was a library in the Serapeum are sketchy at best. More especially since the Serapeum had already been destroyed and rebuilt some centuries earlier - and the evidence of a library being there at that time was sketchy at best.
The best evidence we have for the destruction of the library is given to us by Livas, Florus and Seneca. They assert that it was common knowledge that Julias Caesar inadvertantly destroyed a warehouse containing some 400,000 volumes which was either on the docks or nearby. This happened when Caesar set fire to an enemy's fleet to protect himself from a desperate situation. However, it is now known if these volumes were being made ready for shipping or if were part of one of the actual libraries of Alexandria.
To: Mr. Mulliner; Howlin; riley1992; Miss Marple; deport; Dane; sinkspur; steve; kattracks; ...
Steyn ping.
Mr. Mulliner, you have been removed. Just let me know when you want back on.
7
posted on
04/29/2003 8:10:42 AM PDT
by
Pokey78
To: SJackson
Excellent!
8
posted on
04/29/2003 8:13:12 AM PDT
by
aruanan
To: Greybird
Do you really believe that the museum's truly valuable artifacts were still in the museum when the coalition troops entered Baghdad?
They were long long gone by then.
9
posted on
04/29/2003 8:22:02 AM PDT
by
dead
To: SJackson
10
posted on
04/29/2003 8:28:13 AM PDT
by
Poincare
((not a good time for a Frenchish screen name))
To: Greybird
I would imagine that the Geneva Conventions prevent "pillag[ing]" by advancing or retreating military forces. I'd love to be shown otherwise. Until then, I would say that your comment is as far off-the-mark as your legal analysis.
11
posted on
04/29/2003 8:40:51 AM PDT
by
1rudeboy
To: Greybird
"...not Florida, but Paris. Quelle surprise!"
Yes, how philistine of him to speak bluntly. Swinish, even.
To: Pokey78; SJackson; Grampa Dave
Thanks for the ping!
In any case, it appears the Western jurisdiction in which the first Iraqi artifacts have turned up is not Florida but Paris. Quelle surprise! The National Museum fell victim not to general looting but to a heist, if not an inside job, for which the general lawlessness provided cover. Am I sorry it happened? Yes, because it has given the naysayers, who were wrong about the millions of dead, humanitarian catastrophe, environmental devastation, regional conflagration, etc, one solitary surviving itsybitsy teeny-weeny twig from their petrified forest with which to whack Rumsfeld and Co.
Marvelous writing!
13
posted on
04/29/2003 8:54:39 AM PDT
by
Ernest_at_the_Beach
(Where is Saddam? and where is Tom Daschle?)
To: Greybird
>>>>>>>>Part of the frigging POINT of invading Iraq was so that matters of heritage -- whether economic, cultural, or personal -- would be preserved from the effects of being looted. (One of several reasons, shifting with the winds of responding to the media, but we won't get into that now.)<<<<<<<
Where was I when Bush and Powell described that as a reason for going into "frigging" Iraq? I don't remember Tony Blair mentioning that we were going to attack Iraq because we needed to save the antiquity!!!
Stop the frigging presses, you mean we weren't after weapons of mass destruction or to unseat a despicable dictator? Gosh, we need to make sure we tell the 3rd Infantry Division, the Marines, the 82nd and 101st Airborne and the air force that they were there for all the wrong reasons! I bet they never knew they were there to save the artifacts from Sumeria! (/sarcasm) Good Grief!
To: headsonpikes
The famous stele with the code of Hammurabi resides in the Louvre. Time for another Quelle Surpise!! The British Museum has tons of ancient Babylonian stuff too. I'd like to see an accounting of what exactly has been irreplacebly lost from this heist.
15
posted on
04/29/2003 9:08:38 AM PDT
by
xp38
To: scholar; Bullish; linear
Ping
To: Greybird
Part of the frigging POINT of invading Iraq was so that matters of heritage -- whether economic, cultural, or personal -- would be preserved from the effects of being looted. Could you point to where an administration official said we are going into Iraq to save their museum pieces?
17
posted on
04/29/2003 9:33:01 AM PDT
by
TomB
To: Greybird
I see that others have already responded to your ersatz history and your equally fake rationale for the war.
I have been bemused by the recent descriptions of the treasures claimed to have previously resided in the museum in Baghdad. I have heard of the Louvre and the British Museum. I have heard of the antiquities preserved in Athens, Cairo and Rome. But until now, the treasures of Baghdad have somehow never made it into the headlines, and the Baghdad museum never made it into the Grand Tour of the treasures of antiquity.
But since the museum was looted apparently by insiders we are suddenly hearing about the tremendous treasures once found there. Well, forgive me for being skeptical, but I have also heard about the invincible Republican Guard, the implacable hostility of the Arab Street, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered in this war, the bombing of hospitals, and all the other extravagant claims made by those who opposed this war. So put me down as undecided about the incredible treasures that are forever lost.
And, by the way, frigging is rather juvenile.
To: moneyrunner
Actually, if you take his "rationale" (using that term VERY loosely) to its logical conclusion, since Sadam and his cronies were systematically looting the museum prior to the invasion, we were justified in our actions if for no other reason than to stop the "rape of the antiquities".
I think.
19
posted on
04/29/2003 9:56:46 AM PDT
by
TomB
To: irish guard
Good day, Mark.
Are you as amazed as I am at the sudden number of art and history fans there are since the war has ended?
20
posted on
04/29/2003 10:02:17 AM PDT
by
TomB
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