Destruction of Iraqi Heritage Labeled 'Cultural Cleansing'

[Rhinodawg]

Unesco chief Irina Bokova on Sunday slammed the “barbaric” destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage, as jihadists from the Daesh group destroy age-old sites in areas they control.

Iraq has “thousands of temples, buildings, archaeological sites, objects that represent a treasure for [all] humanity,” Bokova said during a visit to Baghdad.

“We cannot agree that this treasure, that this legacy of human civilisation, is being destroyed in the most barbaric manner,” she said.

“We have to act, we don’t have time to lose, because extremists are trying to erase the identity, because they know that if there is no identity, there is no memory, there is no history, and we think this is appalling and this is not acceptable.”

http://gulfnews.com/news/region/iraq/destruction-of-iraq-heritage-slammed-as-barbaric-1.1407302

[Scootaloo]

1. Well, it only took eleven years for someone to notice.

[eissa]

2. What does anyone expect from these savages

who proudly sell off young girls in slave markets, and murder their way around the region? Utterly despicable excuses for human beings.

Personally, seeing my people (Assyrians) being cleansed from their indigenous lands is bad enough, but to watch our history being wiped off the face of the earth, so there will be absolutely no record of our existence once we've been emptied from our homeland, is beyond heart-breaking.

[Skidmore]

3. I think we beat the jihadists to it some time ago.

The surest way to destroy a people's identity is to destroy their history. Yes, we started it and someone else is finishing it. A travesty.

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ELI401A.html

Spoils of War:

The Antiquities Trade and the Looting of Iraq

by Gregory Elich

www.globalresearch.ca 3 January 2004
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ELI401A.html

It has been called the worst cultural disaster to happen since the Second World War, and one archaeologist has likened it to a "lobotomy of an entire culture." (1) To the dismay of archaeologists throughout the world, the toppling of the Iraqi government by U.S. troops unleashed a wave of looting and destruction of Iraq’s national patrimony. Despite pleas for action from outraged scholars, the culturally blinkered Bush Administration remained indifferent, belatedly acting only when media coverage mushroomed into a public relations fiasco that threatened to upend the manufactured image of benign liberation. Although the scale of loss from the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad was less serious than initially indicated, it was nevertheless a crippling blow, while elsewhere in Iraq the situation ran alarmingly out of control.

Shortly after the entry of U.S. troops into Baghdad on April 8, 2003, intense fighting broke out near the National Museum, sending its guards fleeing for safety. Donny George, the museum’s research director, and Jabber Khalil Ibrahim, President of the State Board of Antiquities also departed, crossing the Tigris River with the intent of returning later in the day. They were unable to do so, however, as U.S. troops would not allow anyone to cross the bridges back into Baghdad. Two days later, looters firing AK-47s in the air approached the museum, which was now lightly protected by the few guards who had managed to return by then. A guard recalled, "Gangs of several dozen came. Some had guns. They threatened to kill us if we did not open up." Far outnumbered, the guards had no recourse other than to unlock the door, permitting the mob to push their way inside while still others smashed and entered through a glass window. (2)....more on site.

[True Blue Door]

4. It's the only way such an ugly ideology can succeed.

To wipe out the memory of anything even remotely beautiful.