you're right, it is mostly lip service. that's because in the world of armchair idealism you can dot every i and cross every t with the benefit of hindsight, but in the real world your resources are limited and you have to keep your priorities straight. that "half a platoon" that could have so easily been spared to guard antiques was probably part of the plan for dealing with the massive guerrilla warfare that was promised on the streets of Baghdad, or part of the force that is patrolling secured areas in watch for loyalist forces masquerading as civilians, or part of the force trying to locate hidden caches of WMD as fast as possible before they can be used as a final act of spite by a dying regime. Rumsfeld and Franks were probably a bit busy worrying about things like ambush tactics, counter defenses and other life and death type issues to pay much attention to statues and scrolls. as it should be.
Except for the objects that were clearly damaged or destroyed, I don't know that I'd jump to the conclusion that much was "lost". Even if it's smuggled out of the country, it will wind up in the hands of private collectors. And I assume that smuggling anything out of the country will not be a simple matter. This happens. Look what the Turks did to Greece. Remember the Alexandria Library. And England practically emptied Cairo during its occupation. It's unfortunate, but it's hardly a first.
I don't see it as a tradeoff, Darkhorse, and I think you are being dishonest in saying so. We clearly had the resources to deal with this contingency on top of everything else you cited. Its not hindsight as there are so many precedents in history for this type of thing. They simply did not think about it or were not concerned. You said it yourself "you're right, it is mostly lip service". If you don't care about the cultural treasures, don't rationalize the plunder, just say so. How about, "well we really fucked that one up but I hope we'll learn from it"
I wasn't trying to rationalize anything, I was just trying to put things in perspective. Obviously it's a shame when something of great historical value is lost. But in terms of priorities, artefacts are far and away secondary to larger issues. Having a hierarchy of values doesn't mean that you "don't care," it means that you understand that some things are more important and you rightly focus more energy and attention on those things. You say "we clearly had the resources to deal with this contingency," and I say that's armchair quarterback BS. This is completely a hindsight issue. How many times in the past few weeks or months have you read or heard discussions on whether or not Iraq's national treasures need to be protected from its own people (and even from the employees of the museum itself!!)?? We had no idea how things were going to go down before we got to Baghdad, and there were far bigger concerns on the plate. And let's say we had thought about establishing a contingency plan to your liking- it's still not an easy call. Imagine the furor in the states if it came to light that American soldiers were killed guarding a museum. I know I would be furious if my little brother's life was wasted in defense of a statue. Idealism is cut and dry, the real world is not. I care, yes, but I also have perspective. If self righteous protesters put as much time and energy into fighting human rights abuses as they do fighting for the rights of trees and monkeys and chickens (and now statues), I would be less inclined to write off their tirades.
By comparing the art and artefacts from the beginnings of human civilization to chickens you have made my point perfectly. Mesopotamia is a far cry from Colonel Sanders. Fighting human rights abuses! Get real. The the last thing your brother was sent to Iraq for was to stop a tyrant's abuse of his people. Talk about idealism!
Who are they. Name them? We'll throw old shoes on those Antiamerican lily livered pinko smegmacious arrow slinging fools, God willing, their entrails will blister and burn at the gates of hell. They are condemned to a fiery death, those satanic liberals. God will bring to bear the severest of consequences upon those blasphemous doubters of the most wise omniscient Bush Iraqi policy. I warn you, I beseech you, keep your children indoors until these devils are routed from streets and airways of the great republic.
From KANAN MAKIYA'S WAR DIARY April 14 http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=iraq&s=diary041403 From the WaPo via AP, April 12: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14331-2003Apr12.html
From today's WSJ Best of the Web: Protecting Iraq's Antiquities The Wall Street Journal (link requires WSJ.com subscription) reports that the looting at Baghdad's Iraq National Museum wasn't as bad as early reports had it:
NY TIMES Museum Pillage Described as Devastating but Not Total By IAN FISHER AGHDAD, Iraq, April 16 â Curators surveyed the damage at the National Museum of Iraq today, and expressed both worry at how much might have been stolen in the looting last week and tentative hope that thousands of years of Iraq's cultural heritage might not have vanished completely. "It's not a total loss," Donny George, the director of research for the Iraqi Board of Antiquities, said in an interview today. "But some of the major masterpieces are gone." The museum, which housed a priceless collection dating back 7,000 years to the Sumerian civilization, was looted over two days following the fall of Saddam Hussein's government. The pillaging infuriated Iraqis who complained that American troops here did little to stop it. Two other repositories of artifacts, the National Library and a collection of old handwritten Korans, were also burned and stripped clean in what many experts believe may be an irrecoverable disaster for Islamic cultural heritage. With the museum at last under the protection of American troops and tanks, Dr. George said today that part of the collection had been stored in vaults in the basement just before the war, though some of the heavier and more fragile items remained in the galleries. Some items were also taken elsewhere for storage. He said looters did manage to break into the basement, but said his team of experts had only begun assessing the extent of the damage. "We have to check all the boxes to see what is lost," he said, "and that will take time, a lot of time." Dr. George listed three treasures he said were missing: a three-foot carved Sumerian vase from 3200 B.C., a headless black statue of the Sumerian king Entemena, dating from 2600 B.C., and a carved sacred cup of the same age. In the last several days, officials from Unesco and the British Museum, which houses one of the largest collections of Mesopotamian antiquities, said they would send experts to Iraq to help assess the losses. In New York, Dr. Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said he was gaining wide support for proposals that the museum looters be offered immunity from prosecution and some compensation if they return their loot. He said he had spoken on Tuesday with Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, about efforts to recover the artifacts. "He agreed that immunity and compensation was the way to go," Dr. de Montebello said of Mr. Rove, who did not indicate what, if anything, the White House was prepared to do. In one possibly encouraging sign, several people in the Al Awi neighborhood that surrounds the museum said they did not see looters leave with any antiquities, even amid gun battles and looting that lasted two days. An imam who lives behind the museum said he stood outside the museum for several hours on the first day of the looting, begging them to stop. "I kept reminding them that this is their country and it was against Islam to steal," said the imam, who asked not to be identified. But he said the only items from the collection he saw stolen were several old rifles. Mostly, he said, he saw looters take chairs, typewriters, ceiling lamp fixtures and other items from the museum's offices, as happened at nearly every other government office in the capital. Abed El Rahman, a museum security guard who lives on the premises, also said that rifles were the only items he saw stolen from the collections. "But many people were carrying boxes," he said. "I don't know what was in the boxes." Mr. Rahman began to cry when asked what the museum was like before it was looted. "It was beautiful," he said. "The museum is civilization."