Your biass is showing <ggg>.
Happy to see you are in a fun mood.
However, all that goes to show is the US bias (towards oil) and not any on my part. Try to show bias in my statement if you feel it is biased. Here it is again:
(2) Meanwhile, they protected the oil ministry. In fact, that is the only building they protected. That is a clear indication of where US interests lie, imho
It's more likely that the US was prepared to defend the oil
They protected the oil ministry by placing armed soldiers around it. They could have done the same with the museum. It's not THAT different to protect a museum building and an oil ministry building.
I don't believe they knew that there would be planned methodical looting of artifacts with huge historical and religious value
US army was asked numerous times by UN and other international organizations to protect that museum. Read aout several among them below:
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US army was told to protect looted museum
The United States army ignored warnings from its own civilian advisers that could have stopped the looting of priceless artefacts in Baghdad, according to leaked documents seen by The Observer.
Paul Martin in Kuwait, Ed Vulliamy in Washington and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday April 20, 2003
The Observer
Iraq's national museum is identified as a 'prime target for looters' and should be the second top priority for securing by coalition troops after the national bank, says a memo sent last month by the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), set up to supervise the reconstruction of postwar Iraq.
Looting of the museum could mean 'irreparable loss of cultural treasures of enormous importance to all humanity', the document concluded. But the US army still failed to post soldiers outside the museum, and it was ransacked, with more than 270,000 artefacts taken.
General Jay Garner, the head of ORHA, is said to be 'livid'. 'We asked for just a few soldiers at each building or, if they feared snipers, then just one or two tanks,' said one ORHA official. 'The tanks were doing nothing once they got inside the city, yet the generals refused to deploy them, and look what happened.'
The warnings were echoed yesterday by American archaeologists, who have tried for three months to persuade the Bush administration of the risk to antiquities.
Its sacking was 'completely predictable', says the president of the Archaeological Institute of America, Jane Walbaum. A week before the looting, one of the institute's members, Patty Gerstenblith of De Paul University, wrote to Major Christopher Varhola, a US army civil affairs officer in Kuwait, asking for troops to be stationed at the museum.
'I am stressing this hard to the ground commander, but unfortunately I do not have good news for you,' Major Varhola replied.
The Observer has seen documents submitted to senior US generals by ORHA on 26 March, listing 16 institutions that 'merit securing as soon as possible to prevent further damage, destruction and or pilferage of records and assets'. First was the national bank, next came the museum. The Oil Ministry, which has been carefully guarded, came sixteenth on a list of 16.
Martin Sullivan, the chair of President Bush's Advisory Committee on Cultural Property, has already resigned over the issue, saying it was 'inexcusable' that the museum should not have had the same priority as the Iraqi Oil Ministry.
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As I said before, shortly before the lootings, museum management asked the then-occupying US army for protection. They were refused.
Museum's treasures left to the mercy of looters
US generals reject plea to protect priceless artefacts from vandals
Museum's treasures left to the mercy of looters
US generals reject plea to protect priceless artefacts from vandals
Jonathan Steele in Baghdad
Monday April 14, 2003
The Guardian
Iraqi National Museum Deputy Director Mushin Hasan holds his head in his hands as he surveys the debris of looted and destroyed artifacts.
US army commanders have rejected a new plea by desperate officials of the Iraq Museum to protect the country's archeological treasures from looters.
Despite worldwide media coverage at the weekend of the waves of vandalism and plunder last week, no tanks or troops were visible there yesterday.
Abdul Rehman Mugeer, a senior guard, was shaking with anger yesterday at the destruction. He praised the US for at least parking four tanks in front of the museum when they took control of Baghdad last Wednesday. But they were later removed, leaving the museum to the mercy of rampaging Iraqis.
"Gangs of several dozen came," he said. "Some had guns. They threatened to kill us if we did not open up. The looting went on for two days."
The Americans returned with tanks at one point on Friday and sent the looters fleeing, but as soon as the tanks rumbled away, the gangs came back to finish the job.
"I asked them to leave one tank here all the time but they have refused," said Raeed Abdul Reda, an archeologist.
The museum escaped the bombing, but it has been stripped almost bare. "Eighty per cent of what we had was stolen," Mr Reda said, standing in the glass-littered compound.
It was clear from his description of the frenzy of destruction that these were not professional thieves with an eye on the auction markets of the world but people out for whatever they could get their hands on, and if it was too big to cart away, they smashed it to vent their frustration. Display cases are empty, pottery shards litter the floor. In the vault for archeological fragments drawers that once held evidence of Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian culture have been pulled out and stripped.
"There were hundreds of looters, including women, children and old people. They were uneducated. We know who they are," Mr Reda said, in a way that left little doubt they were from the poor slums of the Shia quarter.
Even if they had known that there would be looting, it is very difficult to stop mass looting.
One tank at the front door. Just one. That's not so difficult, is it? It wasn't difficult to protect the oil ministry, after all...
In life, it is easy to be critical without offering a real plan of action
"Real plan of action"??? One tank in front of the museum. That's not such a complicated "plan of action".
why won't you agree that the US is doing its share to ameliorate the damage?
I agree. After the damage is done, it's not much use, though.
Do you know anything about the black market in archelogical treasures? There is little chance the most important among them will ever be found. They should have been protected. Crying afterwards is not much use. |
