# Fifty Centuries of Human History... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 15, 2003, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771 "2003-04-15T00:43:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/181 "2003-04-16T16:59:24Z")
That’s how it was on the day they entered Baghdad, yes, but the museum wasn’t raided until many days later, shortly before this last weekend, after the statue in Firdos Square was pulled down and the people seemed to get it in their heads that the regime was really kaput AND after the sniper and RPG fire in Baghdad seems to have basically melted away to nothing. You seem to think that this was a all-of-a-sudden tidal wave of anarchy that started the second we crossed the Kuwaiti border. Actually it appears to have built gradually, accelerated by the appearance of studied indifference by US troops to Iraqi incidences of looting. Plenty of govt. buildings and hospitals got raided before the crowds turned on the museum. But hey, at least we saved the oil. ---
**Author:** ![Ben\_Hicks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbce88/32.png) [@Ben\_Hicks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben_Hicks)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/182 "2003-04-16T18:44:32Z")
**Pedro** > [@](#): > > How is this comparable. You have a criminal sitting in jail waiting a penalty. And you have a civilian in a war scenario looting a building protected by soldiers. Somehow these are equivalent situations. No, you have a dead murderer and a dead looter. If the latter died for stealing and if we take as a given the proposition that theft is a less serious crime than murder then to be opposed to the first fatality, as **Lissa** is, and ambivalent to the second betrays both a logical inconsistency and a worryingly skewed perspective. > [@](#): > > This is the soldiers job. It’s tragic that they may die performing it but that’s why we admire and respect them. No, a soldiers job is to carry out military objectives. That is why _I_ admire and respect them. I wouldn’t admire them if they were to take time off guarding a hospital full of sick and dying kids to charge headlong into unsecured territory on a suicide mission to fulfil your idiotic whim of fancy. Since only a fool would dare assert that this museum had any kind of _military_ value there is no reason why it should be a military objective. That is why the military treated it like what it was, completely unnecessary to the completion of any of its core objectives. Damn right. > [@](#): > > And is there any civilian that will loot a building with a machine gun posted at its entrance and a few more soldiers here and there? And how long to you think it would take before word of these lone soldiers with absolutely fuck all by way of back up reached armed Iraqi dissidents? > [@](#): > > If the soldiers lives are at risk then I say shoot the looters. Who’s going to fault them for that? Oh great, I can just see the headlines now \*\*MASSACRE Nearly a dozen marines and an as yet undetermined amount of Iraqi’s were killed yesterday in a skirmish outside a museum the US Government somehow thought was well worth the mass human sacrifice. It was later uncovered that Donald Rumsfeld’s curious decision to ignore the advice of leading military strategists, instead preferring to glean strategic counsel from tea leaves and sheeps entrails was responsible for the decision.\*\* Yeah, that’d do wonders to win over the ‘Hearts and minds’. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > If the US soldiers were sitting around ignoring these events I contend that it was their responsability to stop these crimes. Even if it meant pulling men off a hospital to do it? ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/183 "2003-04-16T19:50:32Z")
of course, **Ben** , point being that they were protecting **neither** establishment. your point re: death penalty and this situation is incorrect as well. In any crime fighting situation, since police are armed, and some criminals are as well, the potential for violent death is there. Execution is the planned response for criminal conviction, not a response to an immediate threat. ---
**Author:** ![Doc\_Nickel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5fc32e/32.png) [@Doc\_Nickel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doc_Nickel)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/184 "2003-04-16T20:01:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTA \* > **I’d be the first in line to say that. It would be about the only really meaningful sacrifice those guys have made since this whole adventure in neo-con priapism started.** Then let me be the first in line to call you an utterly, wholly worthless waste of what might have otherwise been useful protein. I have three friends out there at what is colloquially referred to as the pointy end of the stick. I have not heard from any of them since the “kickoff”, and I check the list of casualties on occasion with a touch of concern. Please understand I want each and every one of them- and _their_ close friends- to return home safe with all their body parts still attached. Further understand that I would have been perfectly happy- cheering even- to see the museum _carpet bombed_ if it meant that everyone returned home safe. > [@](#): > > \*\*And I’d add that by dismissing the lost collections as a few bits of Sumerian crockery, you grossly understate not only its content but also its worth. \*\* By no means did I “dismiss” them as mere bits of crockery. Did you read my post? I know it was long and you kids tend to have somewhat short attention spans these days, but please try and muddle through. I stated in at least two places my honest opinion- the destruction of the antiquities was a tragedy and a crime, akin to melting down King Tut’s coffin in order to gold-plate a machine gun. It was stupid and malicious and an irreplaceable loss. But for you to claim I’m understating the value if these bits of inanimate stone and precious metals, while you yourself grossly underestimate the value of the human, American soldiers’ lives whom you so blithely dismiss as disposable as long as _your_ interests are protected… well, that just _screams_ of hypocracy. We’re told we should have had more men, so that all the vital points could be covered and guarded within hours of our entering the city. The reality is that military recruitment is greatly depressed right now and has been for years. One of those friends of mine? He was due to retire after twenty-three years of service, last spring. He was offered generous bonuses- well, generous by military standards- to stay in, a program they call “stop loss”. You and at least one other person in this thread, when asked why you’re not out there with a rifle, more or less stated that staying here and dusting off your museum bits is more important. Hypocrite. We’re told the military should have known beforehand that the museum would be vulnerable, that we should have tasked specific detachments to secure it. This goes in with the above- you DO understand the concept of “limited resources”, don’t you? The commanders have limited manpower, and if you’d read my first post, you might get the idea that a good commander does NOT simply distribute his men willy-nilly. Two guys off to this store, four over there to that building, six sent off five blocks away to secure a museum, four more over here to this mosque. The opposition forces’ playbook calls this “divide and conquer”. Individual or small groups of soldiers without backup and support become vulnerable- to wit, the 504th Maintenence group, or, more tragically Mogadishu. The wider you spread your forces, the more men- geometrically- you need for security, front line protection and internal supply and support. To say they should have handled it differently or that conditions should have been different… that’s just worthless, irrelevant armchair quarterbacking. Perhaps you read the article a few days back where the Iraqui _firemen_ couldn’t fight any of the dozens of fires in the city, because their firetrucks, hoses and equipment had been looted or stolen? Perhaps the US Military should have conscripted another 20,000 men to not only guard the firehouses, but to help put out the fires. Fires, after all, are a known, expected consequence of bombing campaigns. Perhaps we should have pulled men off the projects to restore drinking water to five million impoverished citizens, in order to secure the museum. Or tell the crews trying to restore electricity to parts of the city so the doctors at the hospital aren’t working by flashlight and gasoline lantern, that the museum is more important. You armchair quarterbacks have given them a lose-lose situation: They are being villified for not protecting the museum now, but had they been there, they very likely would have been forced to kill looters at the very least in self-defense. (That is, after all, how one “secures” a building in a war zone.) In that case, there would be villification for having killed civillians and noncombatants. Even without that highly likely scenario, someone else would be villifying them for having soldiers “standing around with their thumbs up their ass” when there’s hospitals being looted, buildings burning down, electricity needing to be restored, food and water to be delivered, etcetera, ad nauseum. The city was NOT secure and was NOT largely safe for US personel at anything less than detachment strength, and the museum was NOT a military or even governmental objective. ---
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/185 "2003-04-16T20:23:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > **Your comments and suggestions are just like those of all the other disgruntled armchair generals: worthless.** All of them? Or just the ones who disagree with you? What are your criteria for who is allowed an opinion on the way the war is conducted? \*\* > [@](#): > > I just saw live interviews with four wounded soldiers at Landstuhl. While relating their stories, they told of their concern for the civilians around them, the other soldiers around them, and the enemy forces who were firing on them. Wounded, bandaged, and in wheelchairs — oddly enough, not one of them ever mentioned any museum. \*\* Very moving, I’m sure. Since you apparently missed it the first half-dozen times, I’ll repeat: This is not a “support the troops” issue. No one here is saying this was the fault of the soldiers, or that they should be blamed for not thinking of the museum. We’re criticising the decision by their leaders to send them into a city and destroy its civil government without being able to assume that government’s role in keeping public order. So all that pathetic wailing about Brave Sergeant Jones has exactly zero relevance. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/186 "2003-04-16T20:57:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blalron \* > \*\*I would willingly give me life if it meant keeping priceless artifacts intact for countless future generations to enjoy. \*\* Who was “enjoying” the artifacts that have been looted? The museum has been closed to the public for several years. In all likelihood, the looters were the first people outside of museum staff and a few scholars _to_ see those precious artifacts in all those years. Also, how many of these artifacts were representative of excess at the time of their creation, not unlike the expensive furniture and golden guns we are finding in Saddam & Co.'s palaces? Yet, we decry that excess now. I guess if we wait a few millenia, “excess” becomes “priceless treasures that represent the heritage of mankind”. At what point does a vase made to please a rich merchant or whatever become a priceless artifact of humanity? Certainly, _some_ of these pieces might contain (or might have contained) valuable knowledge. I would disagree that all did. > [@](#): > > _Originall posted by Pedro_ > \*\*“So you are against the death penalty but you advocate shooting someone over a vase?” > > How is this comparable. You have a criminal sitting in jail waiting a penalty. And you have a civilian in a war scenario looting a building protected by soldiers. Somehow these are equivalent situations.\*\* I would think the comparison was obvious, but since I have to spell it out: The looters are guilty of theft, and, perhaps, vandalism. Maybe a few other crimes as well. People who advocate shooting them where they stand are, in effect, advocating a penalty of death for said crimes. Without a trial, mind you. And yet, some of those same folks are against the death penalty here in the U.S. That strikes me as remarkably inconsistant. ---
**Author:** ![Doc\_Nickel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5fc32e/32.png) [@Doc\_Nickel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doc_Nickel)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/187 "2003-04-16T21:01:17Z")
> [@](#): > > **All of them? Or just the ones who disagree with you? What are your criteria for who is allowed an opinion on the way the war is conducted?** All of them. Yours, mine, Libs, Hicks, Pedro’s, RTAs, everyone. We are ALL second-guessing. None of us were privy to prewar planning, none of us were there to lend advice, none of us were contacted by US officials on how to properly handle museum security. None of us were there in Baghdad, none of us have any solid idea of what it was truly like there, what the tactical situation was, or what it’s like to be under fire by random loyalists and snipers who walk, act and dress just like all the civvies that want to walk up and hand you flowers. But many of you assume that the local unit commanders not only _knew_ the museum was being looted, but also had free, idle troops ready to dispatch to quell the looting and that that part of the city was declared secure and safe for US personel. You assume that field commanders, while under sporadic fire in a war zone, with constantly-changing tactical and strategic situations, in the most potentically critical phase of the taking of the city (when fighting could have been at it’s most vicious and bloody with door-to-door close quarters battle) and with a long list of objectives including killing or capturing various Iraqui commanders, maintaining or restoring water and electrical power, keeping their own troops from falling prey to snipers and land mines, would ALSO not only _know_ that Baghdad even _had_ such an important museum but also had the presence of mind and werewithal to dispatch badly-needed troops to be stationed at a fixed location outside “front lines” and with insecure supply and backup. You have information _now_ that they did not have _then_. That, son, is armchair quarterbacking. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/188 "2003-04-16T21:06:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > \*\*your point re: death penalty and this situation is incorrect as well. > > In any crime fighting situation, since police are armed, and some criminals are as well, the potential for violent death is there. Execution is the planned response for criminal conviction, not a response to an immediate threat. \*\* And walking off with a vase or two is an immediate threat to whom? ---
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/189 "2003-04-16T21:11:54Z")
**Doc** , I’m not your son, and I know what armchair quarterbacking is, thank you. And I’ll say this one last time, and then I give up: No, I’m NOT criticizing the local unit commanders, or the field commanders. I’m criticizing the planners and strategists, the president and his direct advisors, for being in such a goddamn hurry, and for not being prepared to prevent the territory they took from being wrecked by opportunists. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/190 "2003-04-16T21:12:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Darwin’s Finch \* > \*\*" I would think the comparison was obvious, but since I have to spell it out: > > The looters are guilty of theft, and, perhaps, vandalism. Maybe a few other crimes as well. People who advocate shooting them where they stand are, in effect, advocating a penalty of death for said crimes. Without a trial, mind you. And yet, some of those same folks are against the death penalty here in the U.S. That strikes me as remarkably inconsistant. \*\* not at all. I’m surprised that you have to have this explained to you. In the state of MI, we don’t have the death penalty, however there’ve been several instances of people being killed by the police during the chase, incident to the arrest, even after the arrest. Two different things completely. Stuff happens when you have armed police, potentially armed criminals. this in no way advocates for the ‘death penalty’ for theft, drug possession, or whatever. Hell, there was a case in mid MI where a guy was resisting arrest (he was a prisoner being returned to the prison for rule violations, not new criminal offenses), and he ended up dead. and **Doc**? changing battlefields etc etc etc - the commanding officer has the obligation to insure that, for example, his forward troops don’t move too far ahead of their supply system. If they should do so and tragedy results it isn’t a case of “armchair generaling” to point out how stupid that sort of action is. When this war was being bandied about, some of us were busy saying "ya know, there needs to be a plan **in place** for ‘what to do when the regime falls’. It seems quite apparent, there wasn’t. The US/coalition invaded a country, brought down their infrastructure, removed all controling forces, and then withdrew 'cause (apparently) there was insufficient troops available to patrol the city and maintain order. Not a whole lot different then having your forward army strike out past the reach of your supply train and then get cut off. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/191 "2003-04-16T21:12:56Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by kingpengvin_ > Ahhh so concepts are worth dying for then. The ideas of liberty and freedom are worth losing your life even if this may be all that there is. That is also a noble thing even though by dying you get nothing from it. We have no problem with young men dying to preserve our freedom and we shouldn’t. _Some_ concepts are worth dying for. Specifically, those concepts whose absence would make life unbearable: freedom, liberty, justice, love. Nostalgia, I would argue, is not such a concept. > [@](#): > > But men dying to preserve our legacy is also of value. > > Sure, you may not see that Vase or those clay tablets as worth anything but to those who claim they’d guard it see it in the same way you see the concepts you would die for. They represent a continuation of human life the larger chain in which we are tiny links. Those who claim that these objects are worth dying for, you will note, are those least likely to lose their lives doing so. _You_ think this stuff is worth dying for. What gives you the right to tell someone else to live by _your_ values? What gives you the right to tell _someone else_ to lay down their lives protecting this antidiluvean trash? > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by RTA_ > I’d be the first in line to say that. It would be about the only really meaningful sacrifice those guys have made since this whole adventure in neo-con priapism started. Jesus! What is it with you museum types? I’ve met biker gangs that were less bloodthirsty! > [@](#): > > And I’d add that by dismissing the lost collections as a few bits of Sumerian crockery, you grossly understate not only its content but also its worth. Well, what exactly is its worth? I’ve read a lot about how much we could have learned from these artifacts, how they were this great resource of knowledge irretrievably lost. So, I want a cite here: what exactly could we have learned from this stuff? That Sumerians really liked hazel nuts? That there was once this king who did some stuff then died? That ancient people had really big butts? Pre-history -archaeology in general- is a fascinating field, but it has almsot no direct impact on out day-to-day lives or on our future as a species. Is there anything useful about these objects beyond the fact that they’re really neat? > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Pedro_ > No, not all of them, just the one that made my ass itch. Have you ever had your ass itch? It can drive you nuts let me tell ya. Learn to wipe properly, then. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/192 "2003-04-16T21:13:27Z")
To me, it’s a tragedy that artifacts were lost, and many destroyed, but it would have been a greater tragedy if more people were killed. If it were a case of simply posting a few guards at the museum and that being enough to keep looters away, that would be one thing. That doesn’t appear to be the case in this situation. Doc Nickel, I agree with your post from above. Miller, you make some good points but your attitude toward relics bothers me. Artifacts aren’t more important than people, but they are important. Do you know if we’ve learned all we can from those things? I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/193 "2003-04-16T21:15:56Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by wring_ > and Doc? changing battlefields etc etc etc - the commanding officer has the obligation to insure that, for example, his forward troops don’t move too far ahead of their supply system. If they should do so and tragedy results it isn’t a case of “armchair generaling” to point out how stupid that sort of action is. Which, I’d like to point out, is very likely the precise reason why the museum was unguarded. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/194 "2003-04-16T21:18:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Darwin’s Finch \* > \*\*And walking off with a vase or two is an immediate threat to whom? \*\* Didn’t recall saying it was. However, as I’ve spelled out yet again, when the ‘policing force’ (in our country it’s the cops, in Iraq currently it’s the occupying soldiers etc) are attempting to enforce law and order, there will be occasions where some one gets hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/195 "2003-04-16T21:28:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Darwin’s Finch \* > \*\*And walking off with a vase or two is an immediate threat to whom? \*\* The difference between a looter and a house-robber is that instead of just one family being affected, instead \* everyone \* has been robbed of something. Of course, some seem to put very little value on cultural heritage, but nevertheless, humanity has lost a treasure. > [@](#): > > - Posted by Ben Hicks: \* > > \*\*No, you have a dead murderer and a dead looter. If the latter died for stealing and if we take as a given the proposition that theft is a less serious crime than murder then to be opposed to the first fatality, as Lissa is, and ambivalent to the second betrays both a logical inconsistency and a worryingly skewed perspective. \*\* I know we disagree, but I see a world of difference in shooting a robber who invades my home (and potentially means to do me harm) on the spot, and killing a man in a ceremonious fashion after a lengthy trial and long period of time in which he is (safely) incarcerated. If I should post a guard at the front door of my home, and someone insists on trying to invade it, is that guard wrong in shooting them to protect the house? When it come to the looters in Baghdad, I’ve already expressed doubts that extreme force would have been necessary. At most, I think, our troops might have needed to fire into the air to prove they meant business. However, if the crowd continued to advance, they pose a risk to our troops in the first place, in that they are willing to do them harm. We’ve shot quite a few Iraqis already because they refused to stop at a checkpoint. How is this much different? Had looters been shot, or any of our troops harmed, I would have called the loss of life regrettable, but I still think what they would have been trying to defend is worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![Protesilaus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Protesilaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Protesilaus)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/196 "2003-04-16T21:40:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*_The Last Remake of Beau Geste_ (1977): > > Michael York: Look, Digby, they’ve got our flag! > Marty Feldman: Well, haven’t we got another one? \*\* Of course, when you’re talking about 5000 year old tablets, there’s the real possibility that we haven’t “got another one.” (Sadly, the Mesopotamians had the misfortune of living in the period of time before Xerox was founded.) ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/197 "2003-04-16T22:22:49Z")
I sure as hell know that if I was a soldier and assigned to protect a museum housing some of the more priceless and important objects that define our cultural and human history, I would consider it a very important task, and one worth my own death, if it came to that. Further, it’s not like it would have been a huge manpower commitment to protect this museum–a few squads maybe, maybe less even. There are a quarter million American and British soldiers in that theater of war, it’s not like there weren’t some to spare, and it certainly wasn’t an either or, this or the oil refineries. Certainly not. It’s pretty obvious that human nature, such as it is, is going to be destructive under the conditions in Baghdad. This is an example of the puppetmasters of an invading force not giving a damn. Why didn’t THEY care? What is the purpose of humanity if not to create things of beauty, of art, to project our frail mortality into the future by our proud creations? Surely the purpose of human life is beyond the consume, procreate, excrete existence of lower lifeforms on this planet. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/198 "2003-04-16T23:00:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > \*\*not at all. I’m surprised that you have to have this explained to you. > > In the state of MI, we don’t have the death penalty, however there’ve been several instances of people being killed by the police during the chase, incident to the arrest, even after the arrest. Two different things completely. Stuff happens when you have armed police, potentially armed criminals. this in no way advocates for the ‘death penalty’ for theft, drug possession, or whatever. Hell, there was a case in mid MI where a guy was resisting arrest (he was a prisoner being returned to the prison for rule violations, not new criminal offenses), and he ended up dead.\*\* The soldiers who everyone is clammoring to have guard the museum _aren’t police_. They’re _soldiers_. They do not have police authority, or even police training; they have miltary authority and military training. They are not guardians of the law, to serve and protect. It is, in my opinion, therefore completely irrelevant what authority _police_ have in a civilian situation. Even then, however, would you advocate the police shooting looters on sight here in the U.S.? I would certainly hope not. The individuals who did the looting are certainly criminals (if you can even define a criminal once the rule of law has disintegrated). That does not make them deserving of death, whether through trial _or_ from any police authority (or semblance thereof). > [@](#): > > **Didn’t recall saying it was. However, as I’ve spelled out yet again, when the ‘policing force’ (in our country it’s the cops, in Iraq currently it’s the occupying soldiers etc) are attempting to enforce law and order, there will be occasions where some one gets hurt.** Yes, _if_ the situation turns violent. However, my primary response is to those who feel that shooting looters, the majority of whom were likely _not_ violent, is unwarranted and extreme. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/199 "2003-04-16T23:46:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Darwin’s Finch \* > \*\*Yes, _if_ the situation turns violent. However, my primary response is to those who feel that shooting looters, the majority of whom were likely _not_ violent, is unwarranted and extreme. \*\* That doesn’t quite make sense…that’s what I get for posting as I’m running out the door… What I meant to say was: “my primary response is to those who feel that shooting looters, the majority of whom were likely _not_ violent, is warranted; I disagree, and feel that it is both unwarranted and extreme.” I would also like to add that **wring** ’s scenarios include cases of shooting in self-defense, which is very different from shooting for the crime of looting in itself. To advocate the latter, is, in my opinion, tantamount to declaring that theft is punishable by death. ---
**Author:** ![Claptree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58f4c7/32.png) [@Claptree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claptree)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/200 "2003-04-17T02:08:02Z")
I don’t have a map of Baghdad handy, so I don’t know about the distances involved, but just to bring up a point which has been mentioned, but not enough. While the looters raided the museum, there were coalition troops on guard duty by other sites of interest in Baghdad. Like the offices of the Oil Ministry. Which makes me feel that the planners of this operation actually had a plan for guarding some sites they felt were important. Just not places like museums or hospitals etc. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Darwin’s Finch \* > \*\*Who was “enjoying” the artifacts that have been looted? The museum has been closed to the public for several years. \*\* Actually, the museum opened to the public again in April 2000, after having been closed in 1991. Just a nitpick. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771.md?page=11)