"There's Art There?" (Samarra)

I had dinner last weekend with a friend of mine who's an academic specializing in medieval Islamic art history. She was talking about how we had destroyed an extremely important minaret in Samarra, and this led into a very depressing story.

Our friend is in search of a husband, so she has spent a lot of time lately doing 8-minute dating and things of that nature. Back when she was living in Texas, she was frustrated by the fact that most of the guys the 8-minute date people were able to scare up for her were in the military. As our friend takes a very dim view of the current administration's approach to the Islamic world, this was not a recipe for success, but she gave it a shot.

One of her 8-minute dates had recently come back from Iraq, where he was somehow involved in directing the tanks during the offensive in Samarra. Since he appeared to really *not* want to talk about the war, she said, "Tell me about Samarra, because I've never been there. I only know about the medieval palace city, being an art historian..."

She said his entire face just fell. She stopped, and then he said, "There's art there?"

Well, yes, she said, there is this very important archaeological site in Samarra...and she said it was so obvious from the look on his face that this was the first time he'd ever heard about this, and that he was very upset. And of course when you think about it, you can see why: this guy was actually in a position to at least try to protect that site if only someone had told him that it was there to protect. But nobody did, so no doubt it's already been flattened.

Did nobody tell him about the medieval palace city because they didn't want him to try to protect it? Or did nobody tell him because nobody in the administration knows or cares what we're destroying over there? Either way, we found it an incredibly sad story. There are sadder ones coming out of Iraq; but to me this is probably going to stand as a good illustration of the truly shitty position our troops are in over there. They are not being told the truth about this war any more than we are, and the vast ignorance of and contempt for all things Muslim (and all things historical and/or artistic, really) that characterizes the Bush administration has inevitably translated into damage these guys are doing not only without really wanting to do it but without even knowing about it.

What struck our friend as most sad about this story was the fact that he found out this upsetting piece of information from a woman he'd met 5 minutes earlier and was never going to see again, instead of, you know, from the people above him who are supposed to have some responsibility for him. She kept saying how unfair it was that he had to find out about it from her.

Ah well,

The Plaid Adder

I think this points to a number of things:

Yes, you are probably correct, that the troops weren't told anything about Muslim historic/artistic sites just as they were never told the truth about the invasion itself.

But there's something more here: We don't teach humanities in high school anymore. We denigrate Liberal Arts education.

Our kids (who may eventually become soldiers) know nothing of art, archeology, history or literature. So it means nothing to destroy a place like Samarra. It means .... nothing.

but my first thought upon the eve of the illegal invasion of Iraq?

"All that history and all that art will be destroyed"....it broke my heart just thinking about it.

It's not that I put "things" above human life....but those "things" ARE life...they're our history....the things we could learn if we just stopped killing each other.

There is a librarian in Basra who took all the books and artifacts out of the town library and placed them in her home to avoid destruction...the library was bombed the very next day....then as the bombing got closer to her house...she moved the books/artifacts again...and she kept moving them until she could find a place for them to re-open the library... She's a hero to me....if there are such a thing as heroes.

archaeological sites in their areas of operation is that you probably can't drive a tank ANYWHERE in an Iraqi city without destroying something priceless. It's the @#$! fertile crescent, people. And from the media coverage you would think that Iraq sprang fully formed into existence the day Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds.

Oh well,

The Plaid Adder

and they just don't care


Trips to Babylon were offered up as weekend R&R...so they could see "history" (before it got bombed and bull-dozed) ...trips to UR were also part of the R&R.

The US is building a base in Babylon...and they've destroyed dig sites ...

Much artwork has been stolen out of Iraq...and some of it found in the US already (Texas to be precise)

about Babylon. Don't remember details, but the gist of it was that we were building a base directly ON the ruins of Babylon, we had basically leveled it, hard-packed it with gravel and turned the actual site into a heliopad.
I remember hearing interviews with archaeologists and historians talking about the artifacts in the Iraqi Museum before the war. That they had been consulted about the areas of importance to human history and art. And then, interivews after, where the same experts were angry and devastated that the * admin had completely ignored their input.
This whole business is just so sick, it's the waking nightmare that never ends.

a "dig"....anywhere they put the post would mean the destruction of thousands of years of history. He saw the beginning of the post going up...directly on a dig site



Yes about the heliopad too...I read about that as well.

It was standard practice for the conquerors (throughout history)to erase the history of their victims and then re-write it to suit the victors purposes...that horrible practice is still happening

If you can erase a people's history....you can erase the people.

This true story is now a children's book. I just bought it for my daughter's 6th birthday this Friday.

If we show the troops that the Iraqis are a people of ancient culture, art, etc, it raises them to actual humans and makes them more difficult to kill indiscriminantly.

Too bad your friend isn't still in Texas though. ;)

They just plain don't know and don't care about art, history, or anything else.

But individual soldiers might. It's the reason we call or have called our enemies Krauts, Gooks, Dinks, Nips, etc...

They weren't too concerned when the Taliban was dynamiting Buddhist sites either. Can't sell it to Exxon, so who cares, right?

no one placed any importance on cultural preservation. the archaelogical wealth of iraq alone was sufficient reason not to invade.

I actually called the WH phone number, and talked to a very nice woman (probably a civil service employee, and not WH staffer) who supported my dismay at what was happening.

Most of the artifacts in the Baghdad Museum were from the Assyrian era -- the only evidence left of our existence and contributions to art and culture. Their destruction was equivalent to destroying an entire nation's history. Shameful and despicable. But at least the Oil Ministry building was protected :eyes:

had the worst of intentions and NO consideration of the rich history and preserving the cradle of civilization. It was two years ago when the Art museum lootings began. The entire U.S. cultural committee resigned over the complete failure, indeed, the complete uncaring and lack of the smallest consideration to preserve these priceless sites and artifacts. They were sure to protect the oil ministry though. Could there be a starker contrast?

Criminal bastards.

just like the god damned Mongols.

neither especially more likely than the other:

The first is hinted at at http://www.cronaca.com/archives/003373.html, and is that both sides occupied it, first "insurgents" and then the Americans, with the majority of the damage (an intentional blast) being done by insurgents.

The counter narrative (as I recall it, but that's the sequence in which I read them in the US), is that actually the Americans blew up the minaret to keep it from being reoccupied by insurgents.

Each seems possible. I'm agnostic on the affair. Most discussions I've seen seem to rely more on the speaker's stereotype of the insurgents or US troops than on a reasoned discussion of the news sources.