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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."'"
Some have even suggested that it was on purpose.
.. I guess you can't blame the looters.. I mean no-one wan looking, so it's like they WANTED all their shit stolen, right?
I remember seeing footage of a curator of a Baghdad museum weeping at the destruction that had been wrought upon the building and its collections.
Even in videogames, you can not develop technology to attack or defend your virtual community without taking care of the essentials for your population first: making sure they are fed, clothed, housed, and educated.
The Iraqi universities are not the only victims of a failure to recognize the importance of these social pillars.
The First Nations of Canada have many communities where even those basic needs are not properly managed and delivered to the people.
Heck, the whole COUNTRY of Canada suffers from a government which places an emphasis on imprisoning people for growing plants that the majority of the population wants to see legalized, taxed, and regulated in poll after poll.
Without an educated and comfortable population, a nation has no hope of competing on the global market and being a "real player." Education creates jobs, it creates technology, and it improves the processes of business and society. Even people like Marx recognized that society would evolve into a "communist" or "socialist" state as the people became educated and concerned about more than their own personal needs. (Marx never espoused a revolution such as Russia or China had; he was merely discussing where he saw society evolving to.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
"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.
Those ARE the looters... Hence they where protecting some oilfields instead of the citizens they came to 'free'.
has done wonders in the past....
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Would this have happened if the USA didn't started this illegal war over some oil? If the anwser is NO (and it is) then we should blame those money-hungry, trigger happy, backward idiots. Those responsible and those who supported it should be brought to justice in The Hague, just like any other warcriminal. But unfortunally our EU goverment are all bought up by those criminals and would rather eat their own kids than do what is right.
u.s. invaded, removed iraqi military and police. u.s. army took over in their place.
it was their responsibility to protect those cultural heritages. instead, they protected fucking oil fields.
a few pieces from those museums could buy years' worth of output from any given oil well. they were that important.
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So Iraq was supposed to be a push over, and the US was going to install a puppet government that would do what the US oil cartel wanted. This would be a counterbalance to Saudi oil power. Remember Bush and Cheney are both originally oil men, and they wanted to go back to the "good old days" of western dominance of Middle Eastern oil production.
There was no planning about anything except securing the oil resources. They made no plans about securing any civil society, not just the schools. They didn't even have a real plan to secure any weapons, or even the known stockpiles of uranium ore (yellow cake) that Iraq had obtained. Access to weapons was one of the things that made the following civil war so bloody, and made it hard for the occupation forces to restore order.
All the top military US military leaders left right after the collapse of the Hussein regime because they knew that it was going to be a disaster, and they didn't want their legacy to be associated with the resulting fuckup. Something like half the administrators who went over in the first wave to try and restore some kind of government did not have passports! They had never been outside the US. A sizable chunk were people who had worked for the Bush/Cheney election campaign and had no relevant experience. In short, completely clueless.
The winner on all of this has been Iran. Their regional power and influence in the Arab world has increased dramatically. A lot of the weapons that were looted during the lawless fall of Iraq ended up in Iran, by the way. Meanwhile, the US has been mauled by asymmetrical warfare in both Iran and Afghanistan. They win, we loose. The unexpected result that thwarted Iran has been the Arab Spring, specifically the near civil war in Syria. Otherwise they are well on their way to being the dominant Gulf power. They may still come out on top.
So here is the bonus question: Why has GW Bush been the invisible man during the current presidential campaign? The US withdrew combat troops from Iran and Bush's name never came up. That's like talking about the US Civil War without talking about Lincoln, or WWII without FDR or Churchill or Stalin. You would expect that he would be asked about the end of the conflict he started. We get nothing.
Now the press is all over the perceived weakness of the Republican contenders. It would be reasonable for someone in the press to ask the last elected Republican candidate, even if all they got was a "no comment". Again, nothing. When the Republicans scream about how Obama hasn't fixed the economy, no one, Democrat or Republican talks about how the Bush administration screwed it all up. Remember TARP and it's bailout were authorized when Bush was still in office. If you look at the press accounts, it's like our economic mess fell from the sky without human intervention.
I'm wondering what will happen during the Republican convention. Will Bush show up? Whoever the nominee is, do you think they want to be seen with Bush on stage? It would be like being endorsed by Charlie Manson. If Bush is a no show, will the press ignore the non-event? I assume that McCain will be there, and Palin will get some air time, so how could they not talk about Bush?
The disappearance of GW Bush is emblematic of the memory hole that now dominates US political discourse. We don't need the complexities of New Speak or the Ministry of Truth. Collective amnesia in the media is so much more effective.
Why is Snark Required?
Read the Geneva Conventions if you don't believe me.
Like the Convention Against Torture, those are very handy for us to use for convicting the petty thugs running penny-ante countries when we catch them.
However, they don't apply to the USA. Or won't, anyway, until some other country has the power to apply them to us.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Funny enough, such books would have been unlikely to be in Iraq universities at that time.
Iraq was a dictatorship, it was somewhat communist, but the government and the people in charge where not Islamists.
I hate the military as much as anybody, but I don't think it's fair to take it out on the soldiers. I think most people don't really understand what they're getting into when they sign up. They sign up thinking they'll be fighting bad-guys, not blowing up innocent children to further some political agenda (or shuffling around paper-work and doing dishes, which is often the case too).
Then once they're in they try to make the best of a bad situation. There are sociopaths in the military (the same as you would find anywhere) but I don't think it's the standard. And it's very telling that the military heavily supports Ron Paul. Obviously they don't like being overseas blowing up innocent women and children, or they would support one of the chichen-hawk warmongers instead.
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.
No, Iraq is worse off now than it was under Saddam. At least under Saddam there was security, basic services, good access to health care, and one of the best education systems in the middle east.
I'm not glorifying the bastard mind you, there were political kidnappings, executions and torture under Saddam. But this hasn't stopped, far from it, there has been an increase in political and ethnic violence, as well as corruption.
In other words, it's better to live under the rule of a ruthless dictator than it is to be "liberated" by the US.
Why don't psychologists go analysing people in politics and say 'he is a sociopath and should be barred from being in any position in power'?
Because if that were to happen, so many of them would get thrown out that the US government would collapse on that alone.
America invaded Iraq and destroyed the security apparatus completely. America is the occupying power immediately after the invasion. Therefore, America is totally responsible for the planning and provisioning of a new security system for the state for the duration of the occupation. It's quite simple really. We all know the looters are a bunch of thieves, but, the looters would never have been able to loot had the US done its job of providing security to these sites. It's not like they tried and failed, they didn't even bother trying. The ultimate responsibility falls on occupying power's shoulders.
in the university system. they should be thanked, and perhaps given high paying 'security consultant' jobs.
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.
now reconstruct all the priceless, 5000+ years old world heritage that was looted and destroyed in those museums.
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I see you read the bit in TFA that described how gender equality in Iraqi universities was better than in Princeton.
why were those u.s. troops there in the first place, you fucking idiot ?
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2653923&cid=38925893
so, you can just invade a country, take over its army and police, and then just leave it schools, museums, hospitals, universities unguarded ?
and you have a 4 digit userid too ! one would think that you would actually be a person who would have some amount of brain power - and hence, as it should be - some amount of accompanying culture.
yet you dont.
lets say at the time you got your uid, you didnt have the proper broad vision and humane understanding that every member of modern society should have. alright. happens. we all were young at one point.
and yet, close to a decade passed since you possibly got that uid. you were on the internet all the time, taking into account that you are geek, to have taken that uid from this site that long ago.
and yet, you have stayed still in the place you were in terms of culture, uttering the above bullshit to us at this point in 2012. ...........
either die out, and get the fuck out of this planet, or, move forward. alternatively you can just shut the fuck up.
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Nobody ever said Saddam was a saint. We all know he was a murderous arsehole. But he was the murderous arsehole in charge of what was probably the most enlightened middle eastern muslim country. If you wanted to invade a country over there because you wanted to free the people and end human rights abuses, start with Saudi Arabia.
and, sadly, "my life for Aiur!"
My mind always seemed to translate that to "My wife for hire!" for some reason.
Look who were targetted by the West ?
Saddam Hussein
Muammar Gaddafi
What kind of countries these guys were controlling?
Iraq and Libya - both countries were considered as "Modernized Islamic Countries" because they allow the women to do drive, to work, to do most things men were allowed to do
Why the West targeted Iraq and Libya?
You may not believe in conspiracy theories but there is suspicion that the West doesn't really want the Islamic countries to become modernized
True, both Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were despicable despots. Both of them killed their own people.
But then, please tell me which Middle East leader never treat their own people like shit and/or being tyrannical ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
We are so quick to condemn the US based on the words of politicians but I sometimes wonder if we can glean the truth from the events.
One September 11, 2001 the U.S. suffered it's most devastating and deadly attack in history. With the death of over 3,000 U.S. civilians and the destruction of property that will likely never see it's equal, Americans faced an enemy they could not easily identify knowing only their approximate (financial, political, support) origin. The question of the new era was how to fight an enemy without a country, without a standing army. How do you fight an enemy so ruthless that they will slaughter innocent men, women and children without warning and without regard to their own destruction?
America's response was simple. They invaded the lands of their enemies. The politicians spoke of weapons and camps and funding but the words of politicians are for sheep. Their actions spoke to the enemy. They destroyed armies, killed the leaders of nations and their families and left behind the smoking ruins of two nations as a message to a people never truly swayed by the words of American politicians. "If you attack us, we will lay waste to you. We will destroy your armies, we will destroy your government and we will destroy your past and we will destroy your future. We don't care who among you truly did it. We are sending a message to you all, this is what happens when we are attacked. Consider this while you wonder who among you is next."
And so America continues to fight a war on two fronts. Politically it insists that it is the world's policeman enforcing justice that mirrors its own enlightened legal system while militarily it responds to the threats of the new world in a way that it believes the new world can understand, ruthlessly, selfishly and decisively. At home, the only place America truly cares about, the words of the politicians sooth those want to be soothed. Others see the actions of the military for what they are, revenge and warning. The rest continue to rail against the U.S. because they have some misplaced and completely unfounded belief that their elected leaders words should somehow match their actions. Over 200 years of history has taught them nothing. The words of politicians are for sheep and the actions of the military, like all great military, are ultimately for destruction.
Rather then a conspiracy I interpret the US invasion of oil-rich countries as a kind of "blackmail" for other global competitors like China. Something like: "Hey guys, we control most of the oil. Let's sit and discuss it over."
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It seems to me that there should have been a big pile of detached hands somewhere. Martial Law and Civil Law are still supposed to work together.
Some people here deride religion, but real religion is good for society as a whole. (This does not mean that it should be imposed on people by Government.) Religion teaches moral values in a way that Law can't, and in the absence of Law, those without moral values will act in ways detrimental to society. Sharia would have been better than no civil law.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Becuase they play ball.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
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 !
I actually prefer the books to have been stolen for profit: that way, they may have made their way into private libraries, and may, in time be recovered.
On the other hand, books burnt by religious idiots are lost forever.
I was there in Jan 2005 and they had excellent hospitals (and doctors/nurses), an improving police force (that was learning about fingerprinting), and "basic services". I also toured some schools. Want to know what the school teachers told me? That under Saddam they made less than $10 a month, now they make $400 a month. Hmm, that sounds much better. I also had tea with a man who had his Doctorate in Physics but couldn't use a computer.
The big problems i saw centered around national identity and religions. For them, Family/Tribe was their Country and their town/village their allies. They didn't give a crap about the next town over. I visited a christian community who got along well with neighboring shia and sunni (and vice versa). The shia and sunni would kill each other on occasion for reasons i didn't understand. Most of the time it seemed related to something someone did years ago. The Iraqi people have long memories. Far better than Americans or Germans (the only other People i have lived with and know well).
As far as infrastructure went. The biggest failure i saw was in gasoline. Citizens would be lined up two days deep waiting in line for fuel. Fuel trucks were attacked/looted in-route to gas stations. Convoys protecting fuel trucks were bombed. You'd think a country like Iraq would have ZERO fuel problems. The second biggest failure was centralized electricity. I saw very little centralized electricity production. Instead of producing at a town/city level it was usually neighborhoods. There would be rat's nests of cables coming out of a generator and going to the nearby homes.
I'm partial to the Shia myself (who i spent the most time with). But before you say Iraq is worse off (because i doubt you've ever lived there), you should speak with an Iraqi about their views. I have. They have many interesting views on the subject.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Even at little ol' Kansas University in the middle of the plains in big ol' US of A, the library had priceless antique texts and pictures. I got a feeling that's a little more the case here. Explain how anything you said applies to those.
During the first Iraq war, an irreplaceable collection of Fertile Crescent artifacts were destroyed when Bagdad's museums were bombed.
I knew someone who had worked studying them, and was literally in tears when he heard at what had happened.
1. Afghanistan is not at the center of the Islamic world
The center of the Islamic world is in the Middle East.
Afghanistan is situated at the peripheral, not only geographically but also in terms of influence
2. What happened in Afghanistan that led to the invasion by America (and the West) is Omar, the leader of Taliban, permitted Osama bin Laden to use Afghanistan as a base for Al Queda, and Al Queda, for one reason or another, decided to launch 9/11 on America because America is nothing but a pussy.
Before Al Queda, before 9/11, America never touch Afghanistan. In fact, America (and the West) aided the Taliban (among other Mujahideen groups) in their rebel against the former USSR.
3. About Libya,
Please do not delude yourself that Gaddafi was removed by the "Libyan rebels" alone.
The world saw what happened there and we all know who was doing what.
Those "Libyan rebels" were nothing without the help from the Western powers.
And please do respect the intellect of other Slashdot users - please do not substitute "The Western Power" with "UN Forces"
Thank you !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Assuming you can even find the stolen books and texts online (with Baghdad being a major center of learning and knowledge while Europe was in the Dark Ages, you can be pretty sure that they might have had a few irreplaceable texts) , do you have any idea how much modern publishers charge for online access to journals? It's expensive enough to be a major issue even for universities in the richest countries.
And regarding replacing equipment and rebuilding, that's assuming Hallibu–sorry, the Iraqi people–prioritize rebuilding their universities over restoring order, getting oil production on track, and rebuilding the completely fucked up basic infrastructure.
I agree with all you say and I commend you for arguing it as well as you have.
But you have forgotten the centerpiece when it comes to understanding the relationship between Iran and the rest of the world.
Israel.
Add that complexity to your points above and you have a much fuller picture.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
I'm still confused - why don't we want Muslims to modernize? Africa and Asia I understand, because we get cheap sneakers and cell phones, but labor costs in the Middle East are completely detached from what we pay for oil.
The issue regarding the suppression on Middle Eastern Islamic countries (and the people) via despotic tyronnical regimes started long before the so-called "Rise of the East"
You gotta understand, long before World War I and World War II, the European countries had already had countless experiences on regional conflicts - from the conquer of Alexander the Great and his army to the various crusades to the Moors' conquer on Spain and Ottoman Empire's hold on many eastern European countries
From the above regional conflicts, the West got to know the people living just south east of Europe - the Middle Eastern/Persian tribes, and their very very aggressive (which often is on the verge of ruthlessness) Middle Eastern culture
That is why the one thing that keeps the West awakes at night after night, throughout the past millennium, wasn't India, wasn't Japan, wasn't even China, but the following:
"How to keep the Middle Eastern barbarians so busy that they do not have time to invade us"
After the disastrous World War II, the West had a common understanding - Make it so that the Middle East is mired in their own problems that they couldn't muster any effort to fight the West
As we can see, after the establishment of the United Nations, Middle East had plunged into one bloody conflict after another
And the regimes who hold power in the Middle Eastern countries ?
Either they are of the lunatic Islamic fringe - those ultra-conservative anti-modernists
Or they are of the Western puppets variety - such as the Anwar Sadat / Mubarak regime of Egypt, and the Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali regime of Tunisia
All these were designed so that no one would blame the West for what happens in Middle East.
After all, the West can publicly wash their hand clean and put all the blame squarely at those lunatic Muslims and their apparatus
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I'm glad posters with views that twisted feel a need to post as AC and hide behind the anonymous mod system. That makes them jingoists and cowards.
The only thing the US can be blamed for is naïveté.
Acting out a pattern of violence over decades, especially for gain, is never associated with being naive. Not among the civilized or the sane.
As for making stuff up, I would put Klein's veracity against that of commentators commonly found on Wall St media outlets between 2002 and 2008. Start with yellowcake (made up), aluminum tubes (made up), photos of massed troops near Saudi border (made up in Photoshop). Going both forward and backward in time, there are numerous fabrications and deliberate distortions, some of them created by public relations (propaganda) firms for media consumption. Almost any lie about this years new-new-enemy or old-new enemy is uncritically flogged as gospel and real evidence is shut out until its too late.
And most people around the world now know this.
Much as you like to insist the US gets the benefit of the doubt and retain some deranged aura of innocence, I gotta tell you that by and large people who are not directly subjected to the US culture are not buying your freeper-apologist "violent-and-innocent-oh-well" schtick. It doesn't go over very well in this country, either.
There was this one guy, but the CIA managed to replace him with a monarchy.
Mr. Mosaddegh's demise fits the pattern to a "T".
As long as someone / or some organization determines to modernize any Middle Eastern Islamic country, it's a safe bet that that particular "someone" has written a death wish with his own blood
26 years after CIA replaced Mr. Mosaddegh with a monarchy, the West kicked out the same monarchy because the Shah made the same fatal mistake as Mr. Mosaddegh
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !