Are Americans the New Mongols of the Mideast?

[integer at www.god-emil.dk]

rasche 

> >So, it is not only Iraqis and/or US soldiers that looted museums. It
> >is Western journalists that joined in the looting!!!! One would think
> >that highly paid war reporters would not need that. But than, human
> >nature is sometimes very strange...
> 
> american tax payers loot the planet each moment of waking life
> in the most estimable of ways ... by being looted


Are Americans the New Mongols of the Mideast?
by WAYNE MADSEN
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen04142003.html
      Earlier this year, Saddam Hussein appealed to
      his countrymen to defeat the "new Mongols," his euphemism
      for the American military poised to attack Iraq. Hussein appears
to have been correct in his prognostication concerning the after
      effects of an American invasion of Iraq. In 1248, the forces
      of the Mongol chieftain Hulagu Khan invaded Baghdad and laid
      waste to the city. Sumerian, Babylonian, Mesopotamian, Assyrian,
      Ninevehan, Islamic Arab, and other historical relics of Iraq's
      storied past were destroyed by the invading Mongols. Baghdad's
      irrigation system was also destroyed and the effect of that action
      on the population of the country lasted for more than a century.
      Compare the invasion of Hulagu Khan in
      1248 and America's invasion of 2003 and stark similarities quickly
      emerge. Like the Mongols, the United States has severely disrupted
      the water supply system of Baghdad. This has drastically affected
      public health, medical care, and sanitation in a city of over
      5 million people. If such a calamity were to occur in a city
      of similar size from a natural disaster, international aid would
      quickly arrive. Yet, the United States is barring international
      relief efforts for Iraq unless it can control humanitarian workers
      and administer the distribution of assistance.
      And like the Mongols, U.S. troops stood
      by while Iraqi mobs looted and destroyed artifacts at the National
      Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. They also reportedly joined looters
      who pillaged other lucrative targets like office buildings,
stores, and private homes. The Bush regime ignored calls from Koichiro
      Matsura, the head of the
     United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), who appealed
      to the United States to provide protection for Iraqi museums.
      His calls, like those from the governments of Jordan, Russia,
      and Greece, went unheeded by Bush regime war officials.
The looting and wanton destruction of
      the Baghdad museum not only deserves international condemnation
but falls well within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal
      Court for a full investigation and the issuance of indictments
      against perpetrators, both Iraqi and American.
One could feel the pain experienced by
      the museum's deputy director when she tearfully told Western
      journalists that 170,000 priceless artifacts dating back thousands
      of years to the very cradle of human civilization in the
Tigris-Euphrates Valley, the fabled home of the biblical Garden of Eden,
were looted or destroyed. She said one tank and one or two American
      soldiers would have been sufficient to protect the museum from
      the vandals. But instead, American troops stood idly by while
      7000 years of Iraqi history was cleansed. Even irreplaceable
      archaeological files and computer disks were destroyed. Museum
      employees blamed U.S. troops for the carnage. The Bush regime
      seems intent on remaking Iraq in the same sense that it is turning
      American democracy into a corporate fascist entity.
The fact that looters were permitted
      to destroy and burn rare Islamic texts at a time when fundamentalist
      Christian aid workers are poised to arrive in Iraq with water
      and revisionist Bibles raises the possibility of a future bloody
      clash of religions. Giving a free rein to fundamentalist
Christians missionaries working for the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry
Falwell with the full support of a future neo-conservative U.S.
      civil administration led by the pro-Israeli Likud retired U.S.
      Army General Jay Garner, gives many the awful feeling that George
      W. Bush's past references to "crusades" may, in part,
      be influencing America's current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
      and potential future wars in Syria, Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon.
Among the artifacts that may have been
      carried off by looters are the tablets containing Hammurabi's
      Code and the 4600-hundred year old Ram in the Thicket from Ur.
      The 4300-year old bust of an Akkadian king was destroyed by vandals.
      What was not destroyed by the Mongols in 1248 was allowed to
      be destroyed by the Americans in 2003. Gone are the artifacts
      of ancient Sumeria, Assyria, Babylon, Mesopotamia, Ninevah, and
      Ur.
      Just consider how far the United States
      has sunk since the end of World War II. America launched the
      Safehaven Program to recover European art looted by the Nazis.
      Today, the United States aids and abets the looting of art and
treasures thousands of years older than the European art it helped
      salvage some 60 years ago. In days past, U.S. military and intelligence,
      including the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of
      the CIA, helped recover and restitute historical treasures looted
      by the likes of Hermann Goering and Alfred Rosenberg. American
      generals like Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, and George Patton,
      Jr., personally oversaw the recovery and return of artwork seized
      by the Nazis.
      Compare those truly professional military
      leaders to Generals Tommy Franks and Vincent Brooks, who blandly
      shrugged off the looting of Iraqi museums and one starts to
understand what Saddam Hussein was getting at when he compared the current
      U.S. armed forces to the Mongol hordes. To make matters worse,
      Brooks lied at a Central Command briefing when he stated to the
      world's media that, "We remain committed to preserving the
      rich culture and heritage and the resources of the Iraqi people."
      If Brooks were telling the truth, which he was not, contingency
      plans would have been put into effect to protect Iraqi centers
      of art and antiquities the minute U.S. troops entered Baghdad.
      It is clear that by aiding and abetting
      the looting of Iraqi art and antiquities the United States military
      violated Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949
      and Article 2 (g) of Optional Protocol I of 1977 to the 1949
      Geneva Conventions. The International Criminal Court in The Hague
should begin proceedings t
      o investigate whether or not to charge
      U.S. military and government officials with criminally violating
      international law prohibiting the willful destruction of cultural
      heritage. The United States and Britain have always shown a disdain
      for the protection of cultural heritage. They are among the few
      nations of the world to have refused signing The Hague Convention
      on the protection of cultural heritage during hostilities. Ironically,
      that convention was ratified by France, Germany, Canada, Russia,
      Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Norway, Finland, Belarus, Austria, China,
India, Iran, Indonesia, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Syria, and other countries
that refused to be a party to Bush's "coalition
      of the willing." And to make matters worse, The Hague Convention
      was also ratified by Saddam Hussein's government, making the
      so-called "Baghdad Butcher" legally more committed
      to the protection of cultural heritage than either the Americans
      or British.
      INTERPOL, which already has an arrest
      warrant out for Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's favorite to become
      the future leader of Iraq, should immediately issue White Notices
      on all stolen Iraqi cultural objects. UNESCO, INTERPOL, and the
European Union should jointly combine their activities to identify
      stolen items that might wind up in American, British, Israeli,
      or other hands. Arrest warrants should be issued appropriately.
      America's turning the siege of Baghdad
      into the pillaging of Baghdad should be condemned by every nation
      and person. The study of human history, indeed, humanity's very
birthright, has suffered a terrible blow from the Bush regime. No amount
of monetary compensation from oil revenues will ever
      compensate the Iraqi people, the Arab nation, and the world for
      the loss of a crucial record of world civilization. The Bush
      regime and its modern-day Mongol vandals must be made to account
      for their crimes against humanity.