OK, I have to blog about this, 'cause it's been eating away at me for the past week or so.
Back in college, I took Art History from a wonderful man named Dr. John Elliott. One of the first things we learned about in Art History I was about the contributions of the Assyrians and the Sumerians. Incredible artworks, gravity defying buildings, AND a uniform written language. He mentioned that many of these artworks were located in their land of origin, namely the nation currently known as Iraq.
Last week, reports came in from that nation stating that Iraqis had swarmed into their national museum and stripped it bare of all its artworks. 5-to-7000 year old vases, sculptures, bas-reliefs and other artifacts stolen or DESTROYED. Seems that for our administration, securing and guarding oil wells was much more important than safeguarding something much more important; a nation's cultural heritage. Not only one nation's, though; it was a heritage for western civilization as we know it.
When asked about it, administration officials were dismissive, even arrogant. "Oh, the Iraqi people are just letting off steam." "What are we whining about? It's just a bunch of old vases." "You liberals didn't whine about looting after the Rodney King verdict."
Bullshit.
Looting is looting. If the LA riots of '92 had resulted in the loss of a 7000 year-old television set, then you might have heard me as outraged as I am now. Televisions are replacable. This is not!
The thing that most pisses me off about this is the fact that the Resident's cultural advisors warned the administration that something like this could happen if/when Baghdad failed. Yet, in their own hubristic fashion, they decided that making sure Halliburton and Bechtel got their just reward for supporting Dubya was much more important than ensuring that the Iraqi people had something to point to with pride that DOESN'T power a Hummer.
I can't write any more. I'm just incredibly pissed and if I write any more, I'll probably get a visit from the FBI. Crikey.
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