Museum Pieces and Weapons of Mass Destruction
From Tragedy to Farce
Anti-American journalists and the museum looting that wasn't.
BY ROGER KIMBALL
Thursday, June 12, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
It was horrible. An outrage. A tragedy. "Iraqi looting 'a loss to mankind' " said the BBC. "U.S. Army ignored alert on museum looting risk," ABC reported.
In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd skirled about coalition forces "guarding the Iraqi Oil Ministry building while hundreds of Iraqis ransacked and ran off with precious heirlooms and artifacts from a 7,000-year-old civilization." Oh dear. Everywhere one turned, the major media had the same story: Thousands upon thousands of rare, priceless, irreplaceable artifacts had been "taken or destroyed by looters." One hundred thousand objects, according to some reports; 270,000, according to one story in the London Observer.
The Iraqis were looting themselves, but responsibility for the outrage was placed squarely at the feet of the Americans. On April 13, the Washington Post grimly informed readers that "it has become increasingly clear that the looting that was sparked by the fall of Saddam Hussein's government--largely unchecked by U.S. forces--has wreaked more damage on Iraq's civilian infrastructure and economy than three weeks of U.S. bombing." The Post went on to quote an Iraqi museum official who keened: "Our heritage is finished. Why did they do this? Why? Why?"
"Why" is exactly the question that needs to be asked. Not "Why did they do this?" but "Why is the press so gullible?" A few weeks ago the collective countenance of the fourth estate was, like Hamlet's Denmark, contracted in one brow of woe. Oh, those savage Americans: What they didn't bomb they stole, or allowed others to smash and steal.
But wait. That story plays brilliantly but, as the London Guardian reported June 10, "it's nonsense. It isn't true. It's made up. It's bollocks." It wasn't the crazed Iraqi populace that denuded the museums but careful Iraqi curators, who spirited the swag away into vaults and secret storerooms before the war even began. Yes, there have been a few important losses. But there weren't 270,000 items missing, or (the most frequently reported number) 170,000. One museum official put the number at 47 items, but that was later revised down to 33. Meanwhile, the museum that was supposed to have been destroyed is scheduled to reopen next week. Stay tuned for further reductions.
About face, folks: The tape with the self-righteous denunciations has been taken off the reel while the new tape, full of self-righteous media navel-gazing, is cued up.
Instead of recriminations, we have a bumper crop of explanations and self-exculpations. Variations on "the fog of war" top the list: "So difficult here in the heat of battle being shot at we hardly know which side is which as we bravely try to get out the news to a panting public . . ."
Well, there has certainly been plenty of fog. But the fog has primarily swirled around in great patches of anti-American sentiment. Fifteen minutes ago, when recriminations about an unprecedented historical loss were all the rage, it was all the fault of the Yanks and in particular the administration of George W. Bush. Quoth Prof. Zinab Bahrani from Columbia University: "Blame must be placed with the Bush administration for a catastrophic destruction of culture unparalleled in modern history."
Where do you suppose Prof. Bahrani is now? Busy writing an apology? Don't hold your breath. Columbia University is the institution that also gave us Nicholas de Genova, the prof who publicly said he hoped the Iraq war would result in "a million Mogadishus"--i.e., a million American soldiers dead and dragged naked through the streets.
But don't single out Columbia. That's what establishment academic culture is like in America and Europe today. It's the received opinion--not the only opinion, but the dominant one, the agenda-setter. Go to virtually any college or university in America or Western Europe: Anti-Americanism is a growth industry, so thriving that it is simply taken for granted: It's the state of nature.
And these days the assumptions that inform university attitudes also shape media culture. When NPR or the BBC or the New York Times goes to war, it goes with the lectures of people like Prof. Bahrani ringing in its ears and sentiments like those espoused by Prof. de Genova stirring its heart. As one disabused reporter from the Guardian put it: "You cannot say anything too bad about the Yanks and not be believed."
The story of nonlooting of the Iraqi museums gave us a glimpse into that heart of darkness. That tragedy has collapsed into farce. Now playing: the saga of weapons of mass destruction. Plenty of those, I predict, will be found, and then we'll be treated to long analyses of exactly why the media got that wrong, too. Stay tuned.
Mr. Kimball is managing editor of The New Criterion.
From Tragedy to Farce
Anti-American journalists and the museum looting that wasn't.
BY ROGER KIMBALL
Thursday, June 12, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
It was horrible. An outrage. A tragedy. "Iraqi looting 'a loss to mankind' " said the BBC. "U.S. Army ignored alert on museum looting risk," ABC reported.
In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd skirled about coalition forces "guarding the Iraqi Oil Ministry building while hundreds of Iraqis ransacked and ran off with precious heirlooms and artifacts from a 7,000-year-old civilization." Oh dear. Everywhere one turned, the major media had the same story: Thousands upon thousands of rare, priceless, irreplaceable artifacts had been "taken or destroyed by looters." One hundred thousand objects, according to some reports; 270,000, according to one story in the London Observer.
The Iraqis were looting themselves, but responsibility for the outrage was placed squarely at the feet of the Americans. On April 13, the Washington Post grimly informed readers that "it has become increasingly clear that the looting that was sparked by the fall of Saddam Hussein's government--largely unchecked by U.S. forces--has wreaked more damage on Iraq's civilian infrastructure and economy than three weeks of U.S. bombing." The Post went on to quote an Iraqi museum official who keened: "Our heritage is finished. Why did they do this? Why? Why?"
"Why" is exactly the question that needs to be asked. Not "Why did they do this?" but "Why is the press so gullible?" A few weeks ago the collective countenance of the fourth estate was, like Hamlet's Denmark, contracted in one brow of woe. Oh, those savage Americans: What they didn't bomb they stole, or allowed others to smash and steal.
But wait. That story plays brilliantly but, as the London Guardian reported June 10, "it's nonsense. It isn't true. It's made up. It's bollocks." It wasn't the crazed Iraqi populace that denuded the museums but careful Iraqi curators, who spirited the swag away into vaults and secret storerooms before the war even began. Yes, there have been a few important losses. But there weren't 270,000 items missing, or (the most frequently reported number) 170,000. One museum official put the number at 47 items, but that was later revised down to 33. Meanwhile, the museum that was supposed to have been destroyed is scheduled to reopen next week. Stay tuned for further reductions.
About face, folks: The tape with the self-righteous denunciations has been taken off the reel while the new tape, full of self-righteous media navel-gazing, is cued up.
Instead of recriminations, we have a bumper crop of explanations and self-exculpations. Variations on "the fog of war" top the list: "So difficult here in the heat of battle being shot at we hardly know which side is which as we bravely try to get out the news to a panting public . . ."
Well, there has certainly been plenty of fog. But the fog has primarily swirled around in great patches of anti-American sentiment. Fifteen minutes ago, when recriminations about an unprecedented historical loss were all the rage, it was all the fault of the Yanks and in particular the administration of George W. Bush. Quoth Prof. Zinab Bahrani from Columbia University: "Blame must be placed with the Bush administration for a catastrophic destruction of culture unparalleled in modern history."
Where do you suppose Prof. Bahrani is now? Busy writing an apology? Don't hold your breath. Columbia University is the institution that also gave us Nicholas de Genova, the prof who publicly said he hoped the Iraq war would result in "a million Mogadishus"--i.e., a million American soldiers dead and dragged naked through the streets.
But don't single out Columbia. That's what establishment academic culture is like in America and Europe today. It's the received opinion--not the only opinion, but the dominant one, the agenda-setter. Go to virtually any college or university in America or Western Europe: Anti-Americanism is a growth industry, so thriving that it is simply taken for granted: It's the state of nature.
And these days the assumptions that inform university attitudes also shape media culture. When NPR or the BBC or the New York Times goes to war, it goes with the lectures of people like Prof. Bahrani ringing in its ears and sentiments like those espoused by Prof. de Genova stirring its heart. As one disabused reporter from the Guardian put it: "You cannot say anything too bad about the Yanks and not be believed."
The story of nonlooting of the Iraqi museums gave us a glimpse into that heart of darkness. That tragedy has collapsed into farce. Now playing: the saga of weapons of mass destruction. Plenty of those, I predict, will be found, and then we'll be treated to long analyses of exactly why the media got that wrong, too. Stay tuned.
Mr. Kimball is managing editor of The New Criterion.
From Tragedy to Farce
Anti-American journalists and the museum looting that wasn't.
BY ROGER KIMBALL
Thursday, June 12, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
It was horrible. An outrage. A tragedy. "Iraqi looting 'a loss to mankind' " said the BBC. "U.S. Army ignored alert on museum looting risk," ABC reported.
In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd skirled about coalition forces "guarding the Iraqi Oil Ministry building while hundreds of Iraqis ransacked and ran off with precious heirlooms and artifacts from a 7,000-year-old civilization." Oh dear. Everywhere one turned, the major media had the same story: Thousands upon thousands of rare, priceless, irreplaceable artifacts had been "taken or destroyed by looters." One hundred thousand objects, according to some reports; 270,000, according to one story in the London Observer.
The Iraqis were looting themselves, but responsibility for the outrage was placed squarely at the feet of the Americans. On April 13, the Washington Post grimly informed readers that "it has become increasingly clear that the looting that was sparked by the fall of Saddam Hussein's government--largely unchecked by U.S. forces--has wreaked more damage on Iraq's civilian infrastructure and economy than three weeks of U.S. bombing." The Post went on to quote an Iraqi museum official who keened: "Our heritage is finished. Why did they do this? Why? Why?"
"Why" is exactly the question that needs to be asked. Not "Why did they do this?" but "Why is the press so gullible?" A few weeks ago the collective countenance of the fourth estate was, like Hamlet's Denmark, contracted in one brow of woe. Oh, those savage Americans: What they didn't bomb they stole, or allowed others to smash and steal.
But wait. That story plays brilliantly but, as the London Guardian reported June 10, "it's nonsense. It isn't true. It's made up. It's bollocks." It wasn't the crazed Iraqi populace that denuded the museums but careful Iraqi curators, who spirited the swag away into vaults and secret storerooms before the war even began. Yes, there have been a few important losses. But there weren't 270,000 items missing, or (the most frequently reported number) 170,000. One museum official put the number at 47 items, but that was later revised down to 33. Meanwhile, the museum that was supposed to have been destroyed is scheduled to reopen next week. Stay tuned for further reductions.
About face, folks: The tape with the self-righteous denunciations has been taken off the reel while the new tape, full of self-righteous media navel-gazing, is cued up.
Instead of recriminations, we have a bumper crop of explanations and self-exculpations. Variations on "the fog of war" top the list: "So difficult here in the heat of battle being shot at we hardly know which side is which as we bravely try to get out the news to a panting public . . ."
Well, there has certainly been plenty of fog. But the fog has primarily swirled around in great patches of anti-American sentiment. Fifteen minutes ago, when recriminations about an unprecedented historical loss were all the rage, it was all the fault of the Yanks and in particular the administration of George W. Bush. Quoth Prof. Zinab Bahrani from Columbia University: "Blame must be placed with the Bush administration for a catastrophic destruction of culture unparalleled in modern history."
Where do you suppose Prof. Bahrani is now? Busy writing an apology? Don't hold your breath. Columbia University is the institution that also gave us Nicholas de Genova, the prof who publicly said he hoped the Iraq war would result in "a million Mogadishus"--i.e., a million American soldiers dead and dragged naked through the streets.
But don't single out Columbia. That's what establishment academic culture is like in America and Europe today. It's the received opinion--not the only opinion, but the dominant one, the agenda-setter. Go to virtually any college or university in America or Western Europe: Anti-Americanism is a growth industry, so thriving that it is simply taken for granted: It's the state of nature.
And these days the assumptions that inform university attitudes also shape media culture. When NPR or the BBC or the New York Times goes to war, it goes with the lectures of people like Prof. Bahrani ringing in its ears and sentiments like those espoused by Prof. de Genova stirring its heart. As one disabused reporter from the Guardian put it: "You cannot say anything too bad about the Yanks and not be believed."
The story of nonlooting of the Iraqi museums gave us a glimpse into that heart of darkness. That tragedy has collapsed into farce. Now playing: the saga of weapons of mass destruction. Plenty of those, I predict, will be found, and then we'll be treated to long analyses of exactly why the media got that wrong, too. Stay tuned.
Mr. Kimball is managing editor of The New Criterion.
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