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April
10, 2003
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April 14,
2003
Was Saddam Right?
Are
Americans the New Mongols of the Mideast?
by
WAYNE MADSEN
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 to 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.
Wayne Madsen
is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He wrote the introduction to Forbidden
Truth.
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
Yesterday's
Features
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
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