Tearing pages out of the history books

Brutal Destruction Of Iraq's Archaeological Sites Continues (SLIDESHOW) CLICK HERE

Posted: September 21, 2009 04:46 PM

Buried in Iraq's clay and dirt is the history of Western civilization. Great empires once thrived here, cultures that produced the world's first wheel, first cities, first agriculture, first code of law, first base-sixty number system, and very possibly the first writing. A brutal plundering of this rich cultural heritage has been taking place in broad daylight ever since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. These days Ancient Mesopotamia looks more like a scene from the movie Holes.

"I still find it hard to believe this is happening," Clemens Reichel told the Huffington Post. "Since the 2003 Iraq War, my work as a field archaeologist has changed forever. Sometimes it feels more like an undertaker's work." Reichel, a Mesopotamian archaeologist at the University of Toronto, is former editor of the Iraq Museum Database Project at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute.

The scope of the catastrophe taking place cannot be overstated, said Reichel.

Thousands of cuneiform-inscribed tablets, cylinder seals, and stone statues have illegally made their way to the lucrative antiquities markets of London, Geneva, and New York. Irreplaceable artifacts have been purchased for less than $100 on Ebay.

Beyond the loss of these precious objects, reckless digging has destroyed the ability of researchers to assemble a mosaic of meaning from the shards of ancient art and mud bricks buried in the ground. "Artifacts without context are decoration, nothing more. Pretty, but useless," said Reichel.

View slideshow: CLICK HERE

Looters Aren't The Only Culprits

The United States military turned the site of ancient Babylon into Camp Alpha in 2003 and 2004, inflicting serious damage according to an exhaustive damage assessment recently released by UNESCO. Bulldozers leveled many of Babylon's artifact-laden hills. Helicopters caused structural damage to an ancient theater.

But don't be quick to pin the blame on the U.S. military. In the past, protecting antiquities was an important part of U.S. military planning -- that is, when the leadership at the Defense Department deemed it important. During World War II, American officers persuaded allied commanders to avoid combat inside Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. Members of the Third Army rescued ten works by Rembrandt from the salt mines of Germany, then shipped them to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. for painstaking restoration before returning the works to Europe.

Why, then, are military helicopters still landing on the remains of ancient Babylon? Why are looters still bringing shovels to the cradle of civilization and stripping it bare?

The Buck Stops With Donald Rumsfeld

Remember Rummy? The former defense secretary's jaw-dropping insensitivity was immortalized by the Washington Post's Thomas E. Ricks, after Army Specialist Thomas Wilson complained to Rumsfeld that he and his comrades were forced to root through Iraqi junkyards to improvise armor for their military vehicles:

TW: "A lot of us are getting ready to move north soon. Our vehicles are not armored."

DR: "You go to war with the Army you have."

Rumsfeld was equally indifferent about the looting of more than 15,000 objects from the National Museum in Baghdad on his watch. "Stuff happens," he said.

According to U.S. military intelligence officer Major James B. Cogbill, the principal reason the U.S. failed to protect the National Museum in Baghdad and key archaeological sites was the relatively small size of the force sent into Iraq. "There weren't enough troops on the ground to guard known ammunition dumps, let alone cultural and archaeological sites," Cogbill told the Huffington Post.

Remember it was Rumsfeld who pushed hard to send as small a force as possible into Iraq. This failed strategy, now called the Rumsfeld Doctrine, resulted in unnecessary loss of life, and loss of history.

In 2003, museum officials in Baghdad had more on the ball than Rumsfeld. They wisely hid many premier objects inside an air-raid shelter and the Central Bank before the Coalition invasion. Even so, thousands of precious objects covering 5000 years of recorded history were stolen or smashed to bits. Today nearly 10,000 artifacts remain missing.

Even more devastating is the continued destruction of Iraq's reknowned archaeological sites. Here are three examples. There are thousands more.

Babylon

First built nearly 5,000 years ago, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon was once the largest city in the ancient world. Hammurabi, whose principles of justice are still recognized today, lived here. So did Nebuchadnezzar, who reputedly established the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Alexander the Great once ruled this resilient city.

The use of Babylon as a military base was a grave encroachment on the ancient site. Several areas were leveled to serve as parking lots. Heavy vehicles destroyed relics buried near the surface. Troops filled sandbags with soil full of archaeological fragments. (Something as simple as a broken plate can hold the key to how ancient cultures traded.) The remains of Ishtar Gate, the most beautiful of the eight gates that ringed Babylon's perimeter, was among the structures most abused.

"The damage to Babylon is so great," said Maryam Mussa, an official from the Iraqi state board of heritage and antiquities, "it will be difficult to repair it, and nothing can make up for it."

Samarra

The Great Mosque of Samarra, built in the 9th century, was once the largest mosque in the world. It's minaret, the Malwiya Tower, is a dramatic spiraling cone that rises more than 170 feet above the desert. Not only is the tower one of the most recognized buildings in the Middle East, it was featured on Iraq's currency. Despite protests issued by scholars, U.S. snipers occupied the Malwiya Tower as a lookout. In 2005, the top floor of the minaret was blasted by an insurgent bomb.

Umm al-Aqarib

Archaeologists uncovered a palace and a large temple complex more than 4,500 years old at the ancient site of Umm al-Aqarib, findings that were expected to help rewrite the history of Sumerian architecture. Today this buried treasure has been completely picked over by looters. Many of the illicit digs were massive efforts carried out by organized teams with backhoes and bulldozers, some financed by foreign operations. Stolen artifacts included fragile clay tablets etched in cuneiform script that revealed recorded decrees, business transactions, and other details of Mesopotamian life. Archaeological bjects like this are difficult to trace because they have never been recorded.

Who is going to step in and protect these sites?

The United Nations is trying to name Babylon a World Heritage Site, a designation that would bring additional support and protection. The hitch? The World Heritage Organization might deny the request if it decides Iraq doesn't have the personnel to maintain the site. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has kicked in $700,000 to help with restoration, a figure most archaeologists consider too small to make a difference. "Of course it is not enough, but it is better than nothing," said Mussa.

Speaking of better than nothing, last fall the U.S. became the 123rd country to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. (That date, 1954, is not a typo. It took 55 years for the U.S. to get on board.) The Hague Convention is the first multilateral treaty devoted exclusively to the protection of cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict.

Major Cogbill is pushing to institutionalize wartime cultural planning "so it is not marginalized as an afterthought in the junk drawer of the Pentagon."

The U.S. Government should create a permanent, dedicated structure within the Department of Defense that, at a minimum, ensures that appropriate cultural planning occurs and is disseminated to all levels of command. This organization should be fully integrated into the operations and policy directorates -- not marginalized as an afterthought in the "junk drawer" of the Pentagon. It would also be responsible for coordinating directly with whatever civilian agency has overall responsibility for protecting cultural arts and antiquities. Perhaps most importantly, cultural planning should not be relegated to the periphery as part of "phase IV" operations. Unless such planning is a formal aspect of all phases of the operation, it will not be executed properly.

The Department of Defense is "seriously considering this recommendation" said Cogbill.

Army cultural services manager Laurie Rush told the Huffington Post the Department of Defense has already started to do more than just talk about antiquities issues. In 2007, Rush developed a set of playing cards for U.S. soldiers that illustrate Iraq's wealth of ancient historical sites. "This summer, the Central Command Historical Cultural Advisory Group completed its first ever on-site archaeology training for military personnel in the Middle East. Next month, the group will return to Cairo to provide additional sessions with an international faculty," said Rush.

In the meantime, the U.S. military is in the process of slowly withdrawing its troops from Iraq. It begs the question: who is going to step in and stop the slow death of human history?

alrighty then.... that's a big, big post ....LOL...looks mighty important though

I'll have to study it later, I'm at work

look what the taliban was doing in afghanistan before we went in

KK wrote:

look what the taliban was doing in afghanistan before we went in

Stopping the opium production?

java wrote:

KK wrote:

look what the taliban was doing in afghanistan before we went in

Stopping the opium production?

it was their cash crop for export. they wouldn't allow it to be used by their own people but it was up for sale

some people do not like the truth to be available to the common folk,
it would confuse us and we might rise up and demand answers

Madison wrote:

some people do not like the truth to be available to the common folk,
it would confuse us and we might rise up and demand answers

http://www.opioids.com/afghanistan/index.html

Afghanistan, Opium and the Taliban

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (February 15, 2001 8:19 p.m. EST

U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan -- once the world's largest producer -- since banning poppy cultivation last summer.

A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent two weeks searching most of the nation's largest opium-producing areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to come out of Afghanistan this year.

"We are not just guessing. We have seen the proof in the fields," said Bernard Frahi, regional director for the U.N. program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He laid out photographs of vast tracts of land cultivated with wheat alongside pictures of the same fields taken a year earlier -- a sea of blood-red poppies.

A State Department official said Thursday all the information the United States has received so far indicates the poppy crop had decreased, but he did not believe it was eliminated.

Last year, Afghanistan produced nearly 4,000 tons of opium, about 75 percent of the world's supply, U.N. officials said. Opium -- the milky substance drained from the poppy plant -- is converted into heroin and sold in Europe and North America. The 1999 output was a world record for opium production, the United Nations said -- more than all other countries combined, including the "Golden Triangle," where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, banned poppy growing before the November planting season and augmented it with a religious edict making it contrary to the tenets of Islam.

The Taliban, which has imposed a strict brand of Islam in the 95 percent of Afghanistan it controls, has set fire to heroin laboratories and jailed farmers until they agreed to destroy their poppy crops.

The U.N. surveyors, who completed their search this week, crisscrossed Helmand, Kandahar, Urzgan and Nangarhar provinces and parts of two others -- areas responsible for 86 percent of the opium produced in Afghanistan last year, Frahi said in an interview Wednesday. They covered 80 percent of the land in those provinces that last year had been awash in poppies.

This year they found poppies growing on barely an acre here and there, Frahi said. The rest -- about 175,000 acres -- was clean.

"We have to look at the situation with careful optimism," said Sandro Tucci of the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Vienna, Austria.

He said indications are that no poppies were planted this season and that, as a result, there hasn't been any production of opium -- but that officials would keep checking.

The State Department counternarcotics official said the department would make its own estimate of the poppy crop. Information received so far suggests there will be a decrease, but how much is not yet clear, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We do not think by any stretch of the imagination that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has been eliminated. But we, like the rest of the world, welcome positive news."

The Drug Enforcement Administration declined to comment.

No U.S. government official can enter Afghanistan because of security concerns stemming from the presence of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Poppies are harvested in March and April, which is why the survey was done now. Tucci said it would have been impossible for the poppies to have been harvested already.

The areas searched by the U.N. surveyors are the most fertile lands under Taliban control. Other areas, though they are somewhat fertile, have not traditionally been poppy growing areas and farmers are struggling to raise any crops at all because of severe drought. The rest of the land held by the Taliban is mountainous or desert, where poppies could not grow.

Karim Rahimi, the U.N. drug control liaison in Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar province, said farmers were growing wheat or onions in fields where they once grew poppies.

"It is amazing, really, when you see the fields that last year were filled with poppies and this year there is wheat," he said.

The Taliban enforced the ban by threatening to arrest village elders and mullahs who allowed poppies to be grown. Taliban soldiers patrolled in trucks armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. About 1,000 people in Nangarhar who tried to defy the ban were arrested and jailed until they agreed to destroy their crops.

Signs throughout Nangarhar warn against drug production and use, some calling it an "illicit phenomenon." Another reads: "Be drug free, be happy."

Last year, poppies grew on 12,600 acres of land in Nangarhar province. According to the U.N. survey, poppies were planted on only 17 acres there this season and all were destroyed by the Taliban.

"The Taliban have done their work very seriously," Frahi said.

But the ban has badly hurt farmers in one of the world's poorest countries, shattered by two decades of war and devastated by drought.

Ahmed Rehman, who shares less than three acres in Nangarhar with his three brothers, said the opium he produced last year on part of the land brought him $1,100.

This year, he says, he will be lucky to get $300 for the onions and cattle feed he planted on the entire parcel.

"Life is very bad for me this year," he said. "Last year I was able to buy meat and wheat and now this year there is nothing."

But Rehman said he never considered defying the ban.

"The Taliban were patrolling all the time. Of course I was afraid. I did not want to go to jail and lose my freedom and my dignity," he said, gesturing with dirt-caked hands.

Shams-ul-Haq Sayed, an officer of the Taliban drug control office in Jalalabad, said farmers need international aid.

"This year was the most important for us because growing poppies was part of their culture, and the first years are always the most difficult," he said.

Tucci said discussions are under way on how to help the farmers.

Western diplomats in Pakistan have suggested the Taliban is simply trying to drive up the price of opium they have stockpiled. The State Department official also said Afghanistan could do more by destroying drug stockpiles and heroin labs and arresting producers and traffickers.

Frahi dismissed that as "nonsense" and said it is drug traffickers and shopkeepers who have stockpiles. Two pounds of opium worth $35 last year are now worth as much as $360, he said.

Mullah Amir Mohammed Haqqani, the Taliban's top drug official in Nangarhar, said the ban would remain regardless of whether the Taliban received aid or international recognition.

"It is our decree that there will be no poppy cultivation. It is banned forever in this country," he said. "Whether we get assistance or not, poppy growing will never be allowed again in our country.

Madison wrote:

alrighty then.... that's a big, big post ....LOL...looks mighty important though

I'll have to study it later, I'm at work

be honest... TL;DR zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

jamesjchrist wrote:

Madison wrote:

alrighty then.... that's a big, big post ....LOL...looks mighty important though

I'll have to study it later, I'm at work

be honest... TL;DR zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

even your post was geting a little lengthy

KK wrote:

jamesjchrist wrote:

Madison wrote:

alrighty then.... that's a big, big post ....LOL...looks mighty important though

I'll have to study it later, I'm at work

be honest... TL;DR zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

even your post was geting a little lengthy

i'll leave it at 9 z's next time

Hi I just got here! Could somebody give me a quick recap?

jamesjchrist wrote:

KK wrote:

jamesjchrist wrote:

Madison wrote:

alrighty then.... that's a big, big post ....LOL...looks mighty important though

I'll have to study it later, I'm at work

be honest... TL;DR zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

even your post was geting a little lengthy

i'll leave it at 9 z's next time

perfect, lol

Put mines in the poppy fiels and see who picks the crops.

Joebert wrote:

Put mines in the poppy fiels and see who picks the crops.

they will send the children in to pick it

jamesjchrist wrote:

Madison wrote:

alrighty then.... that's a big, big post ....LOL...looks mighty important though

I'll have to study it later, I'm at work

be honest... TL;DR zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I wuz twyin 2 B powite

CCc/thru wrote:

jamesjchrist wrote:

Madison wrote:

alrighty then.... that's a big, big post ....LOL...looks mighty important though

I'll have to study it later, I'm at work

be honest... TL;DR zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I wuz twyin 2 B powite

wiff gr8 success

I hereby add this thread to the official Iraq War casualty list.

JJjava wrote:

I hereby add this thread to the official Iraq War casualty list.

that just cost us a million $