AN IRAQI TRAGEDY (DANIEL PIPES)

New York Post ^ | 4/22/03 | DANIEL PIPES

[kattracks]

April 22, 2003 -- WHO'S to blame for the destruction of Iraqi museums, libraries and archives, amounting to what The New York Times calls "one of the greatest cultural disasters in recent Middle Eastern history"?

The Bush administration, say academic specialists on the Middle East. They proceed to compare American leaders to some of the worst mass-murderers in history.

[goldstategop]

Daniel Pipes points out that in a culture devoid of values that foster pluralism and coexistence the type of behavior that occured shouldn't have come to any one as a surprise. Yet veteran Middle Eastern experts were shocked at the looting in Iraq. It confirms that the people who have been so wrong about the region shouldn't be listened to by American policymakers. And expecting Iraq to become an instant model of democracy is also an illusion. We need to face the facts as they are and not imagine what we would like to see happen over there.

[risk]

The word is getting out: we didn't do it, Iraqis (and probably Baathists) did it. Bravo, Pipes!

[hotpotato]

I'd hate to see what would happen here if our prisons were emptied just prior to an invasion.

[DB]

He failed to mention how it is those beg steel doors opened to release all the treasures.

Simply put the keys were used.

There is strong evidence that it was an inside job under the cover of looting.

[randita]

This descent into barbarism is so unusual, it has only a single precedent - Iraqi actions in '90-'91.

I recall reports of the Taliban in Afghanistan defacing and destroying ancient statues and other antiquities during their control.

Chairman Mao, during the Cultural Revolution, destroyed countless ancient Chinese artifacts.

But in these two cases, it was the rulers who undertook the destruction, not the citizenry, per se, as seems to be the case in Iraq.

[WOSG]

This is a perceptive article. At last, someone is talking about the lack of civicmindedness among IRaqis that allowed that to happen. Not just this museum, but also it seems an orphanage, hospitals, etc. And now, already, the protests asking the US to leave ... to leave what? What, exactly do these people want to do now? Do they really want none of our help building a free Iraq? Or are they actually *afraid* we will institute freedom and Democratic Government?

This suggests that if US forces leave quickly the most violent and repressive will "win" in Iraq. It would probably devolve into a shiite pro-iranian kleptocracy.

Way too much of this seems like that movie "Lawrence of Arabia", remember the scenes in Damascus, where the city was anarchy while the Arabs ran it ... why is that?

[WOSG]

Those examples were ideological, just like Hitler's book burning and destruction of art that offended Nazis.

It seems these looting are pure greed and barbarism.

[Political Junkie Too]

I'd hate to see what would happen here if our prisons were emptied just prior to an invasion.

Think: Mariel Boatlift.

-PJ

[browardchad]

Here’s the 2001 article by Shafeeq Ghabra to which Pipes refers:

Iraq's Culture of Violence

A long read, with some good historical background.

Unfortunately, Ghabra didn't anticipate the level of Iranian interference we're seeing now -- and I believe most, if not all, of the anti-U.S. sentiment in attributable to Iran (with continuing violence also supplied by Syria). I also question the soundness of Saudi Arabia's involvement in the rebuilding, as Ghabra suggests.