# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2003, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/121 "2003-04-15T23:03:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by G-Unit \* > \*\*So your kids growing up without a father doesn’t bother you. You are willing to put your children through that over some artifacts? > Ferrous, Lissa, and everyone else crying about this damn museum, go enlist and do something about it. Until then you can all kiss my USMC ASS!!! \*\* Hmm…I was responding to **Will** ’s comment as if he was sympathizing with the _looter’s_ children. It now occurs to me that he meant the child of a soldier who died to protect the museum. But you know, I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but that’s the chance you take when you join the armed forces. You might die protecting whatever your superiors tell you to protect. And personally, I would consider it a more fitting and honorable way to go if I died defending a museum than a stupid oil well. But that’s just me. In any case, even if I _had_ joined up out of a fervent desire to protect Iraq’s cultural wealth, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity, because no troops were assigned to that task. As for your charming invitation, thanks, but no. And by the by, being in the USMC doesn’t give your opinion any special weight as far as I’m concerned. ---
**Author:** ![WillSantini](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ed8c4c/32.png) [@WillSantini](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillSantini)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2003, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/122 "2003-04-15T23:03:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ferrous \* > \*\*Oh, bullshit. Having a child who would miss me doesn’t absolve me of responsibility for any crimes I might commit. \*\* Or perhaps let’s send your children over there, put them in a fire fight to protect some museum pieces. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2003, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/123 "2003-04-15T23:11:23Z")
wouldn’t it be interesting to have a thread like this that **didn’t** get into the personal “well, we’ll just have your child stand guard and be slaughtered and see how you like it” kind of crap? It is horrible that the museum was sacked. More so 'cause it was entirely predictable and at least possibly preventable (remember all the pre-war threads where some of us were asking 'ok, so what’s his plan post war?). as was pointed out - I think by **gobear** - you can’t destroy the infrastructure of a city- including fire, police resources- w/o having a plan in place and not expect wholesale chaos. ---
**Author:** ![Esprix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprix/32/7899_2.png) [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2003, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/124 "2003-04-15T23:13:37Z")
Oy. My little historical heart is breaking after reading the OP. ☹ Esprix ---
**Author:** ![WillSantini](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ed8c4c/32.png) [@WillSantini](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillSantini)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2003, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/125 "2003-04-15T23:13:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lissa \* > **I do respect human life, but I can also step back and examine the matter from the broad perspective of human history. In the grand scheme of things, one human life is but a blip, whereas these artifacts had survived for thousands of years, and would have survived for thousands more had they not been abandoned to the destructors.** A **BLIP**??? I’m sorry, but my life (and those of my loved ones) is more than a blip. Maybe your life is meaningless to you, but I see life as more than a blip. You are willing to die for material objects? ---
**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 15, 2003, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/126 "2003-04-15T23:15:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ferrous \* > \*\*Seems to me that by that logic, you think it’s never okay to use force to protect property. If you do, fine, that’s your opinion, but I disagree (and so does the law, for the most part). > > What if it were your house being burgled, and the only way you could stop people from stealing all your posessions was to use force. I’d do it. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but there it is. \*\* Well, there’s force, and there’s deadly force. If I found someone walking out of my house with my computer in his arms, I’d pop him one in the mouth. I wouldn’t _kill_ him, legal sanction not withstanding, because a computer isn’t worth a human life. Nor, IMO, is a cuniform tablet. And I’m not saying that the US forces in Baghdad _should_ have done nothing. The linked article even says that an Abrams tank detered looters for about half an hour, before the soldiers were forced to move on. What I am saying is that, in an urban war zone, there are bigger priorities, and we apparently couldn’t spare the man power to cover those other priorities (including protecting the oil wells, among other things) _and_ protect this museum. It may very well turn out that we _could_ have spared the manpower, at which point I’ll be the first to register my outrage. But not one single person in this thread is in a position to state affirmatively that that was the case, which makes all this partisan firebreathing a waste of time and effort. **Lissa** , I’ve got two things to say to you. First, you failed to properly attribute that last quote. The comment about “corpses riddled with holes” was from **Libertarian** , not me. Second, you said, > [@](#): > > I do respect human life, but I can also step back and examine the matter from the broad perspective of human history. In the grand scheme of things, one human life is but a blip, whereas these artifacts had survived for thousands of years, and would have survived for thousands more had they not been abandoned to the destructors. That pretty much sums up my definition of “evil.” I never trust anyone who starts talking about the value of human life “in the grand scheme of things.” That way lies tyranny. Thankfully, you’re unlikely to ever have a position of more importance than “Museum Tour Guide,” so I suppose future generations can rest safe for the moment. ---
**Author:** ![WillSantini](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ed8c4c/32.png) [@WillSantini](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillSantini)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2003, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/127 "2003-04-15T23:16:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > **wouldn’t it be interesting to have a thread like this that didn’t get into the personal “well, we’ll just have your child stand guard and be slaughtered and see how you like it” kind of crap?** Kinda makes you think, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2003, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/128 "2003-04-15T23:16:28Z")
Amen, **wring**. And thank you. This hostility from certain quarters was making me a bit edgy too. Your post helped me maintain my legendary cool. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2003, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/129 "2003-04-15T23:25:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Miller \* > **And I’m not saying that the US forces in Baghdad _should_ have done nothing. The linked article even says that an Abrams tank detered looters for about half an hour, before the soldiers were forced to move on. What I am saying is that, in an urban war zone, there are bigger priorities, and we apparently couldn’t spare the man power to cover those other priorities (including protecting the oil wells, among other things) _and_ protect this museum. It may very well turn out that we _could_ have spared the manpower, at which point I’ll be the first to register my outrage. But not one single person in this thread is in a position to state affirmatively that that was the case, which makes all this partisan firebreathing a waste of time and effort.** I don’t disagree with this statement at all. It seems to me, though, that we should have figured on needing some certain amount of manpower to protect things like museums and hospitals, and that if we didn’t have enough troops to both take the city _and_ maintain order in it afterwards, maybe we should have held off taking it until we did. What was the big rush? Also, I don’t think anyone can reasonably accuse me of “partisan firebreathing”. I’m about as middle of the road as they come. I have permanent marks in my ass from all this fence-sitting I’ve been doing. My original point in entering this thread was only to dissent with those who held that the US has _no_ responsibility for the looting. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2003, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/130 "2003-04-15T23:52:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by WillSantini \* > \*\*A **BLIP**??? I’m sorry, but my life (and those of my loved ones) is more than a blip. Maybe your life is meaningless to you, but I see life as more than a blip. > > You are willing to die for material objects? \*\* I did not say that life was meaningless. I can recognize, however, that three hundred years from now, no one will ever know I existed. Thus, in the course of human history, I am a blip. Today, I have people who love me, and friends who care about me. To me, my life is precious, and so are the lives of those I love. But in the future, those people will not exist, nor be remembered except as a name on a stone. Thousands of generations have come before, and thousands will come after. The only way we can be remebered is by the artifacts which we leave behind. If for no other reason, those artifacts are amazing because of their immortality. They were the work of a nameless artisan thousands of years ago. In a way, a part of his story has survived for eons, more than I can ever hope for. It’s not so much the material things, but the history which accompanies them. - Posted by \*\* Miller \*\* \* > [@](#): > > \*\*Thankfully, you’re unlikely to ever have a position of more importance than “Museum Tour Guide,” so I suppose future generations can rest safe for the moment. \*\* And I am equally gratfeul that you will never be in charge of anything as important as historial preservation. I think we’ll both sleep better at night. Actually, leading tours is only a small part of my job. I clean, conserve and prepare artifacts for storage, as well as research and document them. I get immense satisfaction from my work knowing that I am preserving history for the future. - Posted by \*\* G-Unit \*\* \* > [@](#): > > \*\*So your kids growing up without a father doesn’t bother you. You are willing to put your children through that over some artifacts? \*\* You think they would be more comforted by the fact that daddy died defending an oil well? If it were my husband, son or father who died, I wouldn’t really care \* why. \* I’d grieve equally whether he died taking a bullet for the President, or was shot defending a work of art. ---
**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, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/131 "2003-04-16T00:15:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ferrous \* > \*\*I don’t disagree with this statement at all. It seems to me, though, that we should have figured on needing some certain amount of manpower to protect things like museums and hospitals, and that if we didn’t have enough troops to both take the city _and_ maintain order in it afterwards, maybe we should have held off taking it until we did. What was the big rush? > > Also, I don’t think anyone can reasonably accuse me of “partisan firebreathing”. I’m about as middle of the road as they come. I have permanent marks in my ass from all this fence-sitting I’ve been doing. My original point in entering this thread was only to dissent with those who held that the US has _no_ responsibility for the looting. \*\* Actually, I didn’t mean to accuse you of partisanship. I was thinking of comments like, (and I’m paraphrasing here, as I don’t want to bother trying to get the first page to load) “I will never forgive the Bush administration for letting this happen.” As for the first part of your post, I expect we did make such preparations. But you can’t prepare for every possible contingency, and the speed with which we took Baghdad, I suspect, surprised everyone. The “rush” was to try and fill the Sadam-shaped power vacuum as quickly as possible, to prevent even worse tragedies from occuring. Invading a foreign nation, especially one on an entirely different continent, is a mind-bogglingly complicated task. Considering the extreme, historically unheard of efforts the US undertook to prevent damage to the hundreds of historical landmarks in front of our troops, the fact that people are complaining this loudly about the one site we weren’t able to protect is a little galling. ---
**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, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/132 "2003-04-16T00:37:48Z")
**Miller**. w/a/d/r and all, and understanding ‘you can’t predict every contingency’ and all, if you’ve undertaken the task of invading a city, you don’t **start** it until you have **in place** what predicatably you’ll need. The US/coalition invaded. Bush promised the Iraqi people that it was done for their welfare. Bush promised to ‘protect’ the resources of that country for **their** future. One of those resources was this museum. invading the city prior to having sufficient personnel in place to move in and **maintain order** was wrong. they sure as shit made sure they had sufficient troops in place where the oil wells were. ---
**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, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/133 "2003-04-16T00:44:52Z")
Well, **Miller** , the museum is hardly the _only_ site we failed to protect. It’s just the only one (AFAIK) whose loss has repercussions beyond the immediate short-term physical and economic welfare of the Iraqi people. It’s a loss for the whole world and future generations. I’m also appalled by the reported gutting of hospitals. Rather less so about the stores and factories and so on. That, I could almost write of to “redistribution of wealth” or something. In any case, those are crimes against Iraqis by Iraqis. It’s understandable, I think, that we don’t feel those losses so keenly. ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/134 "2003-04-16T01:01:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by WillSantini \* > \*\*Yeah, tell that to the child who just lost his/her father “Well kid, too bad, no more daddy for you, but hey, here’s a coupon for free admission to the museum.” :mad: \*\* Oh bullshit you moron. That proves what? “Well kid, too bad, no more daddy for you, but hey, at least those Iraqis are FREE!”. This proves what, also? What could be worth more to a kid than the life of his father? You have the logic of a turd. It was the USA’s responsability to protect these artifacts since they created the void that allowed this looting to occur. If the US Army was underpowered to achieve this task I can understand, although I’m more inclined to think they didn’t know or give a shit. ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/135 "2003-04-16T01:08:10Z")
And no Miller you can’t create more Babilonian or Sumerian culture now mater how many tablets and vases you make. Your argument sucks too. ---
**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, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/136 "2003-04-16T01:26:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > \*\ ***Miller**. w/a/d/r and all, and understanding ‘you can’t predict every contingency’ and all, if you’ve undertaken the task of invading a city, you don’t **start** it until you have **in place** what predicatably you’ll need. > > The US/coalition invaded. Bush promised the Iraqi people that it was done for their welfare. Bush promised to ‘protect’ the resources of that country for **their** future. One of those resources was this museum. invading the city prior to having sufficient personnel in place to move in and **maintain order** was wrong. they sure as shit made sure they had sufficient troops in place where the oil wells were. \*\* And the oil wells _should_ be their priority. The value of the items in the museum, while considerable, were largely intangible. Even with the vaunted “tourism value” of the artifacts (which I think is being hugely over-estimated in this thread: how profitable are museums in general?) that’s an income that Iraq isn’t going to see for years and years. The value of the oil wells is immediate and concrete. The bulk of the Iraqi population is going to be employed by those oil wells, in one way or another. And the destruction of those wells would cause unimaginable ecological damage. As for what they’d need to invade the city and wether or not those units were in place, neither of us is in a position to accuractly critique the military on either of those points. There qutite literally might not have been a better option here: there’s not always a “right” solution. I think this was is a better example of that than anything else I could come up with. If the US hadn’t entered the city when they did, things could conceivably have been much worse, in both human and “cultural” costs. **Ferrous** : Cite for other cultural landmarks or repositories of antiquities that the US has either failed to protect or deliberatly destroyed? Not counting other sites in Baghdad: if we couldn’t protect this museum, I assume there were lesser locations we were also unable to protect. On preview, I see that **Pedro** has single-handedly defeated all of my arguments, without so much as the simple ability to correctly spell “Babylonian.” Thus chastened, I shall withdraw from this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/137 "2003-04-16T02:06:02Z")
I dunno, items of intangible value are _my_ most prized, anyway. I find it hard to believe there’s a lot of people that would say, “Oh, please, Mr. Looter, won’t you please take my photo album, the toy sailboat my grandfather carved, and the letters my sister wrote to me before she died; they have practically no objective value! But, for God’s sake, _don’t_ take my PS2 or my five-speed blender–they’re worth real money!” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/138 "2003-04-16T02:14:33Z")
For the record, I do NOT believe that a human life is worth less than historical artifacts. However, I do think that the museum should have been guarded (and the fact that they’re not guarding hospitals is even worse). I can lament the loss of artifacts, without saying that I would rather have lost human lives than artifacts. However, I also understand the symbolism, and the meaning behind these objects. It’s not just the objects-it’s what they stand for. Destroying them, it’s destroying history. It’s destroying culture. Also, what about people shot in robberies? No, money is NOT more valuable than human life-but people are also willing to shoot burglars who enter their houses. Besides, I think these looters were scum. ---
**Author:** ![Dumbguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dumbguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dumbguy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2003, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/139 "2003-04-16T02:17:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eonwe \* > \*\*That’s kind of my question here. Remember those immense statues in Afghanistan (I think that’s where they were) that were blown up a few years ago? Very sad, but in what way would your/my/the rest of the world’s future be different if they were still around? Not very much different would be my guess. One more tourist attraction around is all. \*\* By that argument, why does anything matter? If you fall off a bridge and die tonight, will anyone remember in 50 years? If we had left Hussein in power, would it make a rat’s fart of difference 200 years from now. Personally I think being able to create things beyond what we need for day to day survival is what makes us human. …or on preview, what **Terrifel** said. ---
**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, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771/140 "2003-04-16T02:33:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Miller \* > **Ferrous: Cite for other cultural landmarks or repositories of antiquities that the US has either failed to protect or deliberatly destroyed? Not counting other sites in Baghdad: if we couldn’t protect this museum, I assume there were lesser locations we were also unable to protect.** My apologies, **Miller**. When you said "the one site we weren’t able to protect ", I read it as “the only building that was looted”. Of course it should have been obvious (from the fact that you’re not an idiot) that you meant “the only historical site destroyed”. Which, as far as I know, it is. Sorry for the misunderstanding. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fifty-centuries-of-human-history/168771.md?page=8)