First the museum, now the library, destroyed by looters and arsonists. Why would people do that to their own culture, their own heritage? Why would the "liberators" stand by and do nothing to help stop this? Did nobody think this might happen?
Just seems like Bush et al were so concerned about securing the oil wells, they neglected to secure other vulnerable treasures. For some reason, this upsets me much more than the Taliban destroying the buddhas. Books and ancient artifacts aren't human lives... but the Iraqi people have lost something very important in their lives, whether or not they realize it yet. (Obviously, the head librarian and chief curator do.)
--> www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/ 04/15/international1522EDT0692.DTL
Relevant snippets
Pillagers sack, burn Baghdad's most important libraries
CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent Tuesday, April 15, 2003
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(04-15) 12:22 PDT BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --
Looters and arsonists ransacked and gutted Iraq's National Library, leaving a smoldering shell Tuesday of precious books turned to ash and a nation's intellectual legacy gone up in smoke.
They also looted and burned Iraq's principal Islamic library nearby, home to priceless old Qurans; last week, thieves swept through the National Museum and stole or smashed treasures that chronicled this region's role as the "cradle of civilization."
"Our national heritage is lost," an angry high school teacher, Haithem Aziz, said as he stood outside the National Library's blackened hulk. "The modern Mongols, the new Mongols did that. The Americans did that. Their agents did that," he said as an explosion boomed in the distance as the war winds down.
