US troops set up camp in the ancient city of Babylon and have proceeded to shit all over it.
The fuckers are also paving over large areas to make parking lots and helipads for their fucking genocide equipment. :mad:
This really pisses me off. Iraq’s cultural and archaeological heritage is priceless. The fact that a bunch of ignorant fucking asshole GIs are allowed to deface the fucking Ishtar Gate for souveneirs bugs the living shit out of me. I know GWB is ignorant and uneducated about ancient history. I know he probably thinks that Babylon was “evil” because his Bible tells him so. I know that the neocons don’t give a shit about culture or history and have no feelings at all about protecting precious artifacts. We know they let the museums get looted while they protected their oil. I know they’re fucking scum and I shouldn’t be surprised that they would feel perfectly entitled to set up camp in one of the most historically significant archaeological sites in history and treat it like a vacant lot in Jersey. But reading about it today just burns my ass anyway.
I would at least hope that they could recognize the economic value of Iraq’s historical heritage as it pertains to tourism. Babylon could be a tourist bonanza for Iraq down the line.
But since the neocons don’t stand to make any money from the site, I guess they can’t be expected to give a shit.
Just one more atrocity committed in a long series of atrocities.
Whoever stole the bricks from the Ishtar Gate needs to spend the rest of his life in an Iraqi prison.
I’d like to get behind you on this rant as it makes the blood in my veins boil too, but… Genocide equipment?
You’ve virtually Goodwinized your thread from the OP…
Hi. I was stationed at Babylon from May of this year till December. I’m currently in Baghdad.
Most of the damage was done by Saddam; he reconstructed the ruins to make himself look glorious. I believe the real Ishtar Gate is at the Berlin Museum; most of the ruins were bricked and blocked and spackled over in his efforts to make himself look like a modern-day whatever.
No time for a longer reply, but the ruins were enclosed in brick and cement when we got there. Sad to say, I did encounter some troops picking through the ruins—but I turned in one of these people myself. It’s hard to do the subject justice but this is a bit one-sided.
I’ve posted pictures of Babylon elsewhere and will supply the link if you email me.
And then I saw the term ‘genocide equipment’ and realized I was wasting my breath.
Some of the pavements he’s bitching about had been there so long that trees, growing up through the ornamental little holes in the cement, had cracked and buckled. Also? Helipads and so forth are NOT paved over.
Margin, on behalf of those of us who are listening, and were pretty concerned anyhow, I’d like to hear. I’m pretty sure the things in sandbags are potsherds and so on, but…
In most cases the statement “You hate America and should leave” is just overly patriotic annoying nationalism on the part of the speaker. It does, however, aptly apply to Diogenes.
Could you please try to post more about this, if you have time? I’m interested, as the article Dio posted is worrisome to me, but what you’ve said here is more or less incoherent.
The Ishtar Gate in Berlin is a reconstruction from original bricks excavated at Babylon. The Gate in Babylon was built about 50 years ago as a museum entrance. Regardless, there are still vast amounts of archaeological items of interest there, and it bothers me that our troops are in a position to damage them.
That bothers me too. However, I have to take issue with the OP’s “genocide equipment” and his tone in general.
First of all- not all soldiers who are there want to be there. They damn sure don’t want to wipe Iraq’s population off the face of the Earth.
I’m a soldier in the National Guard. It may surprise the OP to learn that I think the war in Iraq was a dumb idea. It was totally unnecessary. Around 1400 of my brothers and sisters are dead and countless thousands of Iraqis. There’s no end in sight to it. I did NOT vote for the guy who started it all.
Complaining about the sandbag issue…if you were there and wanted protection from insurgent rockets, bullets, mortars, etc, what would you do? They’re using what they’ve got. If sandbags have pieces of 3000 year old pots in them, so be it. Maybe those scraps of pots will help save a soldier’s life. Don’y say you’re above it. Don’t say you’d sacrifice your life to save some piece of shit pottery fragments. You wouldn’t.
The soldiers are making the best of it and trying to get home in one piece. More power to them. There have been a few incidents of abuse/war crimes and those soldiers are facing justice. Rightfully so. I’ll tell you right now, if I had to tear down some ruins to build a stone wall, I’d do it in a heartbeat. NO archeological site is worth MY life. The situation sucks, but implying that all teh soldiers there are bloodthirsty war criminals is just dumb.
Yes. Genocide equipment. Killing a 100,000 civilians for no motherfucking reason whatsoever is genocide.
I don’t blame the soldiers. They’re part of the equipment. They’re doing what they’re told. I blame the civilian leadership. I think the soldiers are victims too.
margin, thank you for turning in the looter. I would definitely be interested in seeing your pictures.
Lee from Texas. Once again, I don’t blame the soldiers themselves (at least most of them) I blame the morons who put them there.
KidCharlemagne, suck my pasty man tits.
Everyone else, I know that Saddam rebuilt parts of Babylon and that the gate was a replica. Even so, there has been a lot of new damage there since the invasion and the site is still a hugely important one which deserves to be preserved.
Wat a sec, how can soldiers be victims and be perpetrators of genocide (a BS charge in itself)? I remember Reagan catching a world of shit when he said the same thing about the SS soldiers buried at Bitburg. You’ve been very harsh (and justifiably so) aobut the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and I doubt you shed a tear for poor Sgt. Graner’s 10-year prison sentence. So if our soldiers are committing genocide (a very big and highly specious if), how can you call them victims, too?
Jah knows I’m opposed to the handling of this war (and if our boys really are wrecking archaeological sites, there will be hell to pay), but genocide? Dude, seriously, amp up (or down) the dosage because you’re not making any sense.
I read that article, too. It made me so sad I couldn’t even think about it.
I’m glad you posted a pit thread.
Reminds me of the drunken soldiers who went to party down in the Baghdad zoo, and how a tiger ended up shot dead because one of the drunken assholes thought playing with a tiger would be fun.
Because, you know, we have lots and lots of tigers left in the world. And who cares about Iraq’s history, anyway. What does it have to do with us Americans?
(sarcasm)
Don’t worry, Dio, the whole thing’s going to be rebuilt, anyway. The Antichrist is going to rebuild Babylon and set up his One World Gummint there.
I hope Gee Dubya enjoys the view from Nebuchadnezzar’s palace.
