You have lost all sense of proportion. Stealing a rock isn't a crime against humanity. THIS is a crime against humanity:
Posted on 04/12/2003 7:05:07 AM PDT by kalt
Rediculous
Environmental disasters. Gotta save the earf, doncha know.
See 244...You seem to be suggesting to the welfare queen that others will take care of her. The system and the MAN caused her to spread her legs, to drop out of school, to do crack. The state did not protect her. If only we had given her more attention, more schooling, more foodstamps, less racism and another subsidised bedroom for her 6th out of wedlock child, only then could the state say it really cared. It was within our power to prevent it, to prevent her poverty, her despair and we did not prevent it.
You have lost all sense of proportion. Stealing a rock isn't a crime against humanity. THIS is a crime against humanity:
From reading your posts I do perceive that you have a definite bias against the U.S. military. You keep mentioning the fact that they protected the oil fields. Well, of course, that is a given when you consider what Saddam did to the Kuwaiti oil fields. Seems to me that you are trying to imply that we were protecting them for something other than the fact that the oil fields are the biggest base of wealth for Iraq. That is a fact.
Plus, the damage done to the environment and to health if the oil fields had all gone up would have been a terrible disaster. There is more to this story than meets the eye including a statement made by one of the employees of the museum that cast suspicion on the employees of the museum themselves. There was nothing that could be done by our troops to prevent that kind of plundering.
This is an interesting theory, considering that all of the hospitals were not protected, all of the oil wells were not protected and common street looters managed to break open a "bank vault". I suspect the US military is not blessed with divine superpowers to prevent all means of nefarious behavior.
It is an interesting juxtaposition with the behavior of Iraqis in Najaf. There, the people formed a human wall to prevent the infidels from being within yards of the mosque at the burial place of Ali. No malicious intention existed. In fact, US troops near the mosque might have prevented a prominent cleric there from being assassinated.
Yet this museum was not of enough value to cause ordinary Iraqis to prevent street thugs (so we are to believe) armed with little more than rocks and shoes (so we are to believe) from stealing and destroying (so we are to believe) artifacts from behind a heavy steel door (so we are to believe).
You haven't been on the crevo threads yet I take!
Plus, the damage done to the environment and to health if the oil fields had all gone up would have been a terrible disaster. There is more to this story than meets the eye including a statement made by one of the employees of the museum that cast suspicion on the employees of the museum themselves. There was nothing that could be done by our troops to prevent that kind of plundering.
You infer incorrectly. I have a bias in favor of our military. And I'm surprised you have not seen the post in which I said this has been a nearly flawless campaign, save for this incident. Perhaps you would care to quote me where I disparage our military?
I do have a bias against poor planning and carelessness. And I believe the war planners were negligent in regard to this museum. As I have pointed out before, they were given prioritized lists of sites of historic and cultural significance, compiled by professors of Mesopotamian archaeology and Mesopotamian history, at the top of which was this museum. This incident was entirely predictable, since after the first Gulf War nine Iraqi museums were pillaged.
I believe the military did right to protect the oil fields. I am not complaining about that. I am using the oil fields to counter the argument that we shouldn't be protecting objects when people are being killed. If that is the case, then the oil fields should not be protected either. But that is not the case. We are protecting "stuff", as we should. But we should have protected this stuff also. It is of great importance to the study of world history.
I believe Mao-tse Tung said something similar during the 'Cultural Revolution'
I wish we were only talking about statuary. We are not. But I know you know that.
You keep trivializing these as mere rocks. Take some time and actually see what was lost.
The Library of Alexandria was mere books too I guess. Heck more were written. Right? </sarcasm off>
But most important is that we show the other side to the lurkers.
Strawman. When that library was destroyed, the books were gone forever. If a library were destroyed today, only the originals would be gone. Copies of all important works now abound everywhere.
You cannot copy the Marines you would so flippantly put in harms way. These rocks were photographed and documented. Copies can be made.
WRONG!
From Fifth Business: "You are wrong. Most of the cuneiform tablets in that museum have not yet been studied, nor photographed, nor transcribed, nor translated, nor copied. Now they are gone. Some tablets will be destroyed, some damaged, some sold to private collectors for their own satisfaction, some recovered. But this was a great loss to the study of Mesopotamian history. It can't be minimized."
He put it far better than I in post #286
Do you not believe me when I say this collection in historical context is far more important than myself or my life?
Not just theirs, all of ours. This was the cradle which ALL cilvilizations came from.
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