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Originally Posted by The_Rorschach
You are the political equivilent to Phil Collins Jen. Honestly.
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ENOUGH WITH THE PHIL COLLINS BASHING!!!
So anyway, on the issue, I feel it's irresponsible on our own parts to sum it up simply to the Iraqi "hooligans," and move on. As Abcdxxxx has noted before, you can't necessarily blame people who have been oppressed for years for venting some of that frustration.
Ror, you seem to be condemning these people through a Western, or Lockean kind of lense. With that perspective, a lack of respect for property, and the rule of law must be blamed on the criminal. However, I think it's risky to view it that way, because you are dealing with people who lived under a man who had a rape task force, and likewise gauged out the eyes of children while their parents watched. This is
not what we here in America are accustomed to, and to expect these people to abide in a fashion similar to someone who has lived in a relatively free, prosperous, and democratic society strikes me as a bit unfair.
I think it's unacceptable what has happened. Like Max said, the museum is acceptable perhaps, but the Library too??? What about the government buildings that were looted? What about the UN offices that were looted, in which thousands of UNICEF documents were ruined? Our troops are only human, and they can only do so much. And they're damned either way. If we put tanks on every building they'd be criticized for running a police state. However, at least according to this article, the UN predicted wel in advance that this might hapen, and even outlined the appropriate precautionary measures. Perhaps it was spite that made us ignore such warnings, but I feel that the only ones who will suffer from such spite will be the Iraqi people.
Mesopotamia? Not a potentially HUGE tourist attraction? Doesn't Iraq have the second largest mosque in the world? There's much that will/could/and should attrack visitors from all around the world to this place, and to prioritize a fossil fuel over this based solely on short sighted economic reasoning is naive and unfortunate, IMO.