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The Destruction of Iraq's Once-Great Universities
Harperdog writes "Hugh Gusterson has written a devastating article about what has happened to Iraq's once great university system, and puts most of the blame for its total collapse on the U.S. Quoting: 'While American troops guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior but ignored cultural heritage sites, looters ransacked the universities. For example, the entire library collections at the University of Baghdad's College of Arts and at the University of Basra were destroyed. The Washington Post's Rajiv Chandresekara described the scene at Mustansiriya University in 2003: "By April 12, the campus of yellow-brick buildings and grassy courtyards was stripped of its books, computers, lab equipment and desks. Even electrical wiring was pulled from the walls. What was not stolen was set ablaze, sending dark smoke billowing over the capital that day."'"
"While American troops guarded the Ministries of Oil"
That is what happens when you think cowboys are the epitome of culture. Still:
"In the months preceding the 2003 Iraq war, starting in December and January, various antiquities experts, including representatives from the American Council for Cultural Policy asked the Pentagon and the UK government to ensure the museum's safety from both combat and looting. Although promises were not made, U.S. forces did avoid bombing the site. On April 8, 2003 the last of the museum staff left the museum. Iraqi forces engaged U.S. forces from within the museum, as well as the nearby Special Republican Guard compound. Lt. Col. Eric Schwartz of the U.S. third Infantry Division stated that he was unable to enter the compound and secure it since they attempted to avoid returning fire at the building."
"According to museum officials the looters concentrated on the heart of the exhibition: "the Warka Vase, a Sumerian alabaster piece more than 5,000 years old; a bronze Uruk statue from the Acadian period, also 5,000 years old, which weighs 660 pounds; and the headless statue of Entemena. The Harp of Ur was torn apart by looters who removed its gold inlay."[3] Among the stolen artifacts is the Bassetki statue made out of bronze, a life-size statue of a young man, originally found in the village Basitke in the northern part of Iraq, an Acadian piece that goes back to 2300 B.C. and the stone statue of King Schalmanezer, from the eighth century B.C. In addition, the museum's aboveground storage rooms were looted; the exterior steel doors showed no signs of forced entry. Approximately 3,100 excavation site pieces (jars, vessels, pottery shards, etc.) were stolen, of which over 3,000 have been recovered. The thefts did not appear to be discriminating; for example, an entire shelf of fakes was stolen, while an adjacent shelf of much greater value was undisturbed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Iraq#Damage_and_losses_during_2003_war
I guess these cowboys did what they could to protect the museum, but "forgot" about other parts of culture, like the university library. Protecting that oil must have appeared as more important.
Possibly the greatest military blunder off all time was coalition provisional authority order number 2 which dismissed the Iraqi army. This action sent hundreds of thousands young unemployed trained soldiers into the hands of the various mullahs. Arguably, it was the tinder that fuel the Iraqi civil war. L. Paul Bremer, the man who committed the blunder was rewarded with the Presidential medal of Freedom.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I'm assuming that you mean Iraq was not Islamic. Iraq has been Muslim since its conquest by Arabs in the 7th century. Anyway, even that would depend on how one defines 'Islamic'.
In Islamic countries, the term 'Islamic' implies the definition of whichever is the majority sect in that country. So in Iran, Bahrein, Iraq & Azerbaijan, it would mean Shia. In all other Islamic countries, it would mean Sunni. The Baath Party existed in order to give Muslim minorities in any Muslim country e.g. Sunnis in Iraq or Alawites in Syria an ideology to back up their forceful seizure of power, and that's what existed in both Iraq & Syria. Since they were dominated by minority sects, obviously they didn't declare their countries as 'Islamic' countries, or the consequences would have been disastrous for them. Had Saddam done that, Iraq would have become a Shia country, negating any of his gains, and similarly, had Assad (Hafez or Bashar) done that, Syria would have become Sunni. (In the case of the Alawites, most Sunnis don't consider them to be Muslims, but one Shia seminary in Iran recognized them as a Shia sect.)
However, none of that meant full religious plurality & tolerance, as your misleading phrase 'Iraq was not Muslim' would seem to imply. In both Iraq & Syria, since the Baathists were so outnumbered and they saw that there was no way the Christians were going to take over their country, they co-opted them, giving them lower rung posts within their set up (like Tariq Aziz in Iraq) and giving them a few limited freedoms (Syria still is the only Muslim country that has holidays on Christmas and Easter - something unheard of in the Muslim world). Also, since both Syria & Iraq were both heavily backed by the Soviets during the Cold War, their regimes tended to be more socialist, if not communist, so that encouraged some Atheism amongst them.
Comparing it to Kuwait, I agree that Kuwait was pretty much a backwater country, whose own people pretty much lived on the beaches while guest workers slaved away - much like the other GCC countries. Freedom for women was probably the only thing that Saddam had, but the same was true of Libya and Tunisia. As countries become more Islamic, the freedom of women gets eroded.
written about it, Thieves of Baghdad (9781582346458): by Matthew Bogdanos + William Patrick.
some iraqi troops used the museum as a base from which to fire at the invaders. so the US couldn't attack it, because it would have been completely wiped out by crossfire. but while those troops were based there, there was a massive theft. bogdanos was on a special unit that was sent purposely to try to secure the museum, and his team were able to recover a huge amount of material through somewhat ordinary police procedure (he had been a cop in new york), but his opinion is that there was probably an 'inside job' with someone in the iraqi bureaucracy looting the museum. i.e. in the case of the museum, the US did not have a good chance to secure it from the mobs... someone else had beaten the mobs to the punch.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is our way of saying "you fucked up"
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
Becuase they play ball.
Do they?
Who funded Al Queda?
Who funded the Muslim Brotherhood?
Who funded the Islamic terrorist network all around the world?
Give you a hint: Neither Saddam Hussein nor Muammar Gaddafi wanted to have anything to do with those who wanted to convert the whole world under ultra-conservative Islamic dictatorship
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
King Abdullah II of Jordan, and his father King Hussein. They crafted one of the freest arab nations in the middle east. While they're track record probably isn't completely spotless, they are by NO definition political despots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Abdullah_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Hussein
I Googled "Iraqis having yellowcake"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25546334/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/secret-us-mission-hauls-uranium-iraq/#.Ty1roFyPkb0
"U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site â" surrounded by huge sand berms â" following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns."
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
There was this one guy, but the CIA managed to replace him with a monarchy.
When you invade a country, you have to take responsibility for all the consequences.
Now if that is not enough for you how about these juicy pieces, "The new head of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq, Paul Bremer removed members of the Ba'ath Party from senior management positions at all public institutions. Since one had to join the Ba'ath Party, in order to get ahead in Hussein's Iraq, this order had the effect of removing most of Iraq's senior university administrators and professors overnight" (stupid is as stupid does). ". "Control over Iraq's universities now lay in the hands of Andrew Erdmann, a 36-year-old American, well-connected in Republican Party patronage networks, who was senior adviser to Iraq's Ministry of Education. Erdmann spoke no Arabic and had no experience in university administration (ohh look political appointees getting paid and stealing millions). "Erdmann was succeeded by John Agresto, the former president of St. Johns College in New Mexico and a conservative opponent of multicultural education.He too spoke no Arabic and, when the Post's Chandresekaran asked what he had read to prepare for his assignment, Iraq's new top educator said he decided to read no books at all about Iraq -- so he would have an "open mind." (was that open or empty". "USAID did set aside $25 million to help revitalize Iraqi universities -- but the money went to American universities to do curriculum development (seriously WTF, ohh yeah, ignorant foreignors don't now how to set curriculum).
So a country was invaded, was tossed to the wolves local and imported, corruption was rife local and imported but hey it was all the Iraqi's fault. The US had nothing to do with it, even though the triggered it and mismanaged it. Why did it fail, mainly because all the Americans sent to manage it were only concerned with cashing in and did you give a rat's arse about actually doing anything constructive.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen