Looting of National Heritage in Iraq

Great Debates
1

I honestly don’t know where this belongs, here or great Debates or whatever.

What is UP with all this looting in Iraq???

I am horrified at hearing about the Iraqi National Museum being looted and stripped bare, mostly because I saw it coming and can’t understand why the U.S. military didn’t do something. I can understand the looting of gov’t offices, Saddam’s Palaces (providing he had no national artifacts there) because of the people’s frustration, but why would you loot a hospital or a library or a Museum?? This is indescribably sad.

So I have lots of questions and maybe you can all chime in with some facts if you know them?

  1. When looting started of other buildings, why didn’t someone do something to protect the museum? From reports, it appears that the museum wasn’t looted until Thursday or so. Why the hell do our military stand by and watch?

  2. Where were all the Iraqis who care?

  3. Did anyone interview any of the looters? Who the hell are they, and why are they smashing national statuary?

  4. I honestly cannot understand why you would take things out of a museum - I read that most of it will be destroyed if it can’t be sold on the market.

  5. Is this sort of thing inevitable in a war? Did Germany or Italy’s people loot their own museums after they lost in WWII?

2

Great debates.

3

This really is one of the most disturbing post-invasion events I’ve heard about. Stealing the mattresses from a hotel is one thing (I’ve stayed in some low-grade Middle East hotels, and they could use some new mattresses!), but the contents of the Iraq Museum were truly irreplacable. A terrible loss for all of humanity.

I can’t offer any opinions on most of the questions this raises, with one exception:

Because of the imprecision of Allied bombing in WWII, most of the major museums in Germany (less so in Italy) were destroyed long before the end of the war. There wasn’t anything left in them to loot. A lot of priceless material was destoyed.

Some of it, however, had been moved to more secure locations (caves, for example), and was recovered by the Allies after the war. The Soviets, however, did manage to cart off a lot of what they found; some of it has since been returned to Germany, but some of it is still in Russian museums.

Finally, because of the sheer number of Allied troops in Germany at the end of the war, the local citizens probably never even had a chance to do much looting, even if they had been so inclined.

4

I am coming to the conclusion that social order is a very fragile thing and mobs can go crazy very easily as was the case in the several racial riots in the US.

The USA is doing a lousy job of keeping the peace and providing humanitarian aid. Seeing images of the looting and American soldiers standing by and doing nothing when they could easily have stopped it is very disturbing.

The looting of public buildings is quite indiscriminate but the looting of private property, which is also widespread, is more along religious and ethnic lines and can get very bad very fast. I have seen footage of owners firing to defend their property and of men being lynched when they were caught looting. Very disturbing and very much the responsibility of the occupying army.

5

Horrible!

:mad:

This could have been predicted and should have been prevented. What a loss.

6

I can understand that the US army doesn’t want to be involved in maintaining order in the city, for various reasons. However, I’m appaled that they didn’t protect :

  1. The hospitals

  2. The Bagdad museum (I was fearing it would be looted, but since it didn’t happen during the first days, I assumed that it was actually protected. I was so wrong…)

That’s a very limited number of buildings, and I’m quite certain that the US army could have safely diverted some people to protect them.
As the head of the UNESCO stated, if they can manage to divert enough people to protect the oil fields, they could have done the same for the hospitals and the Bagdad museum.He stated too that there has been requests sent to the US governement to make sure that this museum would be protected before the invasion of Bagdad. Anyway, I doubt the american authorities were unaware that there was such an important museum in Bagdad.
On the overall, as the occupying power, the US has necessarily some responsabilities to maitain order. As I already said, I can understand that actually enforcing law in the city wouldn’t be practical for the US soldiers in the current circumstances. But I definitely hold them responsible for not doing the bare minimum of protecting essential assets (which doesn’t necessarily means the oil fields)
By the way, I heard/read many comments from arab people stating their belief that letting things go loose and anarchy popping up in occupied cities was a deliberate american policy. So, even on a pragmatical level, it’s not good thing PR-wise.

As for the whole “looting” thing, I’m not surprised at all. I’ve an extremely limited confidence in human nature, and I expect that when there’s no authority in charge, there will be a lot of people (not necessarily the majority…at least not at the beginning) who will vandalize, loot, rape, kill, etc…And especially if a significant part of the population is impoverished/oppressed or at least feels it is (that would be by comparison with more affluent people in our rich western societies, for instance). Withdraw all the police forces for one week from some major western city, and see what would happen. I’m quite certain the result would be very similar.

7

>> I can understand that the US army doesn’t want to be involved in maintaining order in the city

Fine, they could have avoided that by staying home and watching football on TV but under international law if you occupy a country you have the obligation and responsibility of maintaining order. The fact that even the Red Cross had to pull out just goes to show you the huge mess the occupation has created.

8

I’ve recently learned how ancient Iraq is as a civilization. Many contributions to humanity have come up out of Iraq. This truly is sad.

9

(A) As to the question of “where were the Iraquis who care?” – they were gritting their teeth in frustration at the realization that in a confrontation between scrupulous, upstanding citizens and a furious aggressive mob, you end up with a whole lotta dead scrupulous, upstanding citizens, and merely a minor delay in the furious, aggressive mob’s shopping plans.

(B) Looting of the museums – here’s the logic of the looters: These artifacts are claimed to be precious. This must mean that at some point there will be someone willling to pay a high price for them in Real Money. I am in the middle of a society where my money is either gone or worthless and my property is either destroyed or may be. Helloooo, retirement plan. And so what if I can’t find a legitimate buyer? Even in blackmarket I can get something. “What do you mean heritage of “humanity”? What’s that mean? This is a thing, it is of value, ergo it makes whoever has it wealthy. “Humanity” can go get beaten with shoes. If I leave it in the museum it will just make the next government rich. I’d rather take it or smash it.” See item ©(1) for how come these values are acquired.

© Looting in general – what keeps people from turning to crime in a crisis is either fear or dignity. If for a generation you’ve had your dignity stripped away by a rule of unthinking fear, when the fear is gone you’re not going to act dignified.

©(1) In a more specific sense: the Baath not only replaced Rule of Law with Reign of Terror, but elevated the uncouth bully who does and takes what he wants because he can get away with it, through power and fear – Saddam, Qusay and Uday being the ultimate examples, but going all the way down to neighborhood enforcers. So you have many people in the population for whom “law” was nothing but a way for The Man to put them down, with no intrinsic legitimacy but The Man’s will; and who have “learned” that the goal is becoming someone with power to do his will. So now that The Man is not holding them down, it’s the Jungle.

(D) Defense of the museums by the US forces – alas, the invasion force apparently had not prepared for the need to switch from invasion force to occupation force this soon. Sure, they still had – and still have – a few other tactical balls in the air. For instance, a lot of their main units were already preparing to head North, and it’s as much as they can do to watch out for suicide truck-bombers… but really, didn’t anyone anticipate a need to move in forces to actually take over and control the population?

(E) As stated before, in WW2, collections were moved to safe places if possible, or were looted in an organized, systematic fashion. One thing I just thought – the Iraqi curators probably realized, if we move these things to a secure bunker, those are precisely the places that are going to get bombed the hardest!

10

Looting the museum is very disturbing. I’m somewhat guessing here, but this does not look like desperately hungry people raiding one of Saddam’s graineries. It’s not like someone can grab an ancient treasure in the morning, sell it in the afternoon and have a feast with the proceeds that night. It looks like pure vandalism. People like the blame the US, but where are the responsible Iraqis? The US can’t do everything. If the Iraqis choose to destroy their heritage, they themselves bear that responsibility. Not collectively, but each indivual who chose to participate. I’ve heard news reports of religious leaders getting people to return the things they have looted. Perhaps we’ll see more of this as order gets restored.

11

>> The US can’t do everything. If the Iraqis choose to destroy their heritage, they themselves bear that responsibility.

Nope. It is international law (as well as common sense) that the occupying power has the obligation and responsibility of maintaining order. So, if you cannot maintain order you should refrain from invading. Simple as that. It is the responsibility of the USA. They took it on very voluntarily.

12

So, you want the US to go in in 2 weeks, knock out Saddam and instantly set up a coutnrywide police force? Sorry, it’s just not practical. When we look back on this 2 yrs from now, a day or two of looting will be a footnote. Those Iraqis who looted the museum(s) will have to live with their own consciences and deall with their vandalism like any gang-banger in the US does. Fortunately for them, they’ll have someon like Sailor telling them it “wasn’t their fault. It was the US’s fault”.

13

This is absolutely disgraceful!

Their cultural heritage has been destroyed… but, we secured those oil fields!

Does Bush “feel good” about this? That is, after its been explained to him what a museum is.

14

It is not me but international law as embodied in the Geneva convention of which the USA is a signatory. Not to mention that before the invasion many voices predicted the grave consequences and the US government dismissed them saying their fears were unfounded. The purpose of the invasion was to make things better and, in many ways, it has made things a lot worse. maybe a bit of prudence was called for.

15

Ah ha, but the US isn’t subject to “foreign” laws, remember? :smack:

16

“Their cultural heritage has been destroyed”.

Did you mean to write: They have destroyed their own cultural heritage.

There is a world of difference in those two sentences.

17

I am just trying to understand the mentality of the people looting the museum. They obviously can’t be too dumb, otherwise they wouldn’t know to loot the museum, but why destroy things you can’t take with you? What did the ancient civilization of Ur ever do to you?

I also am trying to understand the mentality of american soldiers. How many american soldiers would it have taken to stand at the door? I see lots of pictures of them lounging around Saddam’s palaces, they had time to feed the lions and cheetahs in his zoo, why didn’t ANYONE in the military have the least bit of sensitivity to the danger these artifacts were in, and at least a bit of outrage prodding them to stand there and keep looters away, even on their own initiative? (and if you don’t think they have initiative, they had enough initiative to feed the zoo animals, so I suggest that they have plenty of freedom to protect what they want to protect)

I feel if I were a soldier or commander or whatever there, I would be thinking of this, and probably would be motivated just by principle and outrage to go and protect those places until someone else could take over.

I think the U.S. gov’t or other agencies should get their butts into gear and offer rewards for the return of the stuff-no questions asked before it’s too late.

18

The USA has directly created the conditions and therefore bears direct responsibility for the destruction of their cultural heritage. How’s that?

19

Since a huge portion of the stories coming out of Iraq are turning out to be false or overdone on further review (and I include reports from the U.S. military in that “huge portion,” lest anyone think I’m being partisan here), has it occurred to anyone to allow additional facts to out before making a judgement?

According to this article, “Looters ransacked the Baghdad museum and seized some items that were hundreds of years old, witnesses at the scene said.” Which, honestly, doesn’t sound all that bad – a few shiny things missing from the collections ain’t gonna kill Iraq’s cultural heritage. On the other hand, it’s accompanied by a picture of the vault that makes it look like folks took pretty much anything not nailed down and maybe some stuff which was. Which would be really bad.

20

How’s that? Well I guess it shows that we have different views of responsibility. I believe that people who commit crimes are responsible for their actions. You believe that other people are responsible for preventing criminals from commtting crimes. I’m happy to see the soldiers defending lives and that means putting museums at a lower priority, so be it. Could the US have done more? Perhaps. Could the Iraqis have tried to be more civil? Absolutely.