(“In 1258, the Mongol General Hulagu Khan marched on Baghdad. Unlike previous seiges, Baghdad was sacked even after it surrendered, and the once-shining city was torn apart, with a degree of ferocity so intense that, as the grafitto above (below- ek) reflects, his name has been synonymous with barbarity and mindless cruelty ever since.” – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Someone has scratched on a wall inside the National Library [Baghdad], “Hu-LA-gu Khan has returned and knocked on our door once again”.
As the LA Times reports today, the civilain death toll in Iraq may have topped One Million People. This is on top of the estimated 2.3 Million Iraqis who have fled the country as refugees (you can read an account by Iraqi blogger Riverbend, an educated secular sunni Baghdad resident here, as her family finally flees to Syria), and quite likely another million or two displaced as refugees within the country but without the means to leave Iraq. Nearly half of the once-proud Iraqi middle class have fled, and few of those who have stayed have any ability to put their educations and skills to work, since the American occupation prefers to hire foreign contractors rather than Iraqis, and nothing stands for long without getting destroyed at any case.
I get so sick of the talk about Iraqi “responsibility” by American politicians, as if all that stands between their current bombed out lake of fire and prosperity is their unwillingness to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or some such blather.
We bombed, starved, bombed, invaded and occupied their country. We divided them by sect and ethnicity in hopes of getting short term allies. We trained the Shiia death squads posing as police. We dissolved the Iraqi government and military and left nothing in its place. We encouraged the rise of sectarian militias to maintain order. We levelled city after city under the auspices of “counterinsurgency,” practicing collective punishment with on any city with citizens that dared to shoot back.
Now we talk about allying with the same sunni tribes in al-Anbar that form the backbone of the sunni insurgency, to try and gain a short term PR bounce and the image of progress. We form alliances with actual Iran-linked Badr brigades while trying to blame Iran for a sunni insurgency. We talk incessantly about “al-Qaeda,” as if that handful of hated foreign terrorists is anything close to a major player in a country with at least three major civil/sectarian wars (shiite v. shiite in Basra, sunni v. shiia in the increasingly ethnically-cleansed Baghdad, Kurds v. Arabs and Turcomans in Kirkuk) and multiple insurgencies targetting our troops. Madness and lies, ever pointing the finger at everyone but the country actually occupying Iraq, in vain hopes that noone will notice the other four fingers pointing back.
All of this has been done in our name.
And all the time, the Iraqi people got caught in the crossfire, and we let them die and flee in the millions. I could care less about the politicians and militia thugs, but what does a decent human being say to the beleaguered engineer abandoning his home and extended family for penniless exile in a foreign land, or the poor day laborer getting burnt out of his neighborhood because of his ethnicity? Sorry, but we are not responsible for the consequences of our actions, we meant well, buck up old chum? Is that all this country has to say in its defense?
And then the outrageous nonsense about “we have to stay or things will get worse,” as if a million dead and four million driven to be refugees isn’t horrible? As if that disaster wasn’t the direct consequence, predicted by millions of protesters before the war began, of our bloody policy? As if the eventual consequence of our refusing to ever leave won’t make things that much worse down the road as well? As if our work to divide the country along sectarian lines for our own political benefit had no consequences? As if there is some magical option B of everything turning out OK if we just bomb more urban areas, kick more doors in and search families at gunpoint, switch sides in Iraqi civil wars yet another time, if we just shovel more dollars into military contractors and mercenaries’ pockets?
How stupid do they think we are, to think that one can make things better by doing the same damn thing for a longer time?
In 1258, the Mongol General Hulagu Khan marched on Baghdad. Unlike previous seiges, Baghdad was sacked even after it surrendered, and the once-shining city was torn apart, with a degree of ferocity so intense that, as the grafitto above reflects, his name has been synonymous with barbarity and mindless cruelty ever since. The Tigris and Euphrates were chokes with corpses, Baghdad’s legendary libraries were put to the torch, the cultural center of the Abbasid Empire never regained its former glory.
It is a source of great shame for this American that we are beginning to rival Hulagu Khan for historical legacy in Baghdad.
Originally at surf putah. Credit to Marisacat for the image of the graffitto
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what else is left to say?
… strongly with this:
It’s an obscene thing to say, and I’ve heard both Dems and Repubs say it. It just stinks.
Well said, wu ming.
That reminds me of the story of Alexander’s sack of Persepolis. His xenophobic monster Macedonians had endured the boring welcome/surrender of first Babylon, whore of cities, and then Susa, the Great King’s winter digs, and then (I believe) Ekbatana, where all the real loot was.
By the time Alex got over the Zagros his boys were itchin’ for rapine and plunder, and he knew the way to take the heart out of Persia was to raze one of its most holy places.
Buhbye Persepolis…
It is just fucking STUNNING that America…that WE….have done this.
That is of course why no one steps back and thinks about it.
The biggest War Crime since WW2 without a fucking doubt….just for its pure blatantcy.
don’t seem content with simply just sacking Baghdad. What we have dine in the name of Freedom should make even Christians weep.
Those who do not know History are condemned to repeat it. What was Bush’s college major? History? And his grade? A Gentleman’s “C”. What did we expect from a “Legacy”?
One example is Nero in Baghdad: Watching the History of Civilization Burn, which was published soon after the looting of the Museum of Antiquities and the burning of the National Library. Concluding his article, Michael Sells, a professor of religion at Haverford College, wrote:
There once was a people in Texas.
These poeple were an unruly brew, being the best of Prussia and Spain.
Two old world powers who had settled an unruly land even unclaimed by native americans, a place that would be called Texas.
These people defeated the Nepolan of the West, who called himself Santa Anna.
Though only the Americans remember the Alamo, which was a glorious battle, but it only concerned gold. See, all the gold of Texas was there. And so the true story was forgotten.
But after the Americans died in the Alamo, wbich became a war cry, the Spaniards and Freething Prussians defeated Santa Ana, giving Texas its independence.
Glory was this country, that the gods of the ancient named Texas.
We were happy.
But then a great evil came from the East, a Nothing called USA. And they subjectated this glorious country.
The Texans accepted this, having a small army against a superior nation, but the vowed to take it over.
And they did.
In Brazoria, where Texas began, a plan was hatched. What if we attacked Babylon like ever other Western power, but we make our oppressors take the fall?
The people of Brazoria thought the idea was good, a lesson of hubris for the Americans.
So we elected the dumbest guy we could find of a family who wanted this war, and so it was written, and so it began.
America attacked Babylon, who had subjected the Tejanos. We watched in horror as the war began, but we knew history would sing our praises as we took down the last super power. The Tejanos knew this was good, as the world waa destined to be global village.
And so America spent its military might and economic fortune on Babylon, and the Tejanos watched in horror as the people cheered it on.
In a few years, America will be so broken by this war, Texas will once again declare its independence and there will be nothing the USA can do.
And so it will be written in the books of history that the Tejanos not only attacked Babylon, but we made another country take the fall for the aggression.
And then the world will finally smile on the Tejanos for equating the playing field and bringing about the global village.
They will say, Los Tejanos, never cross them, for they mean well. And if you pretend to take them over, they will use you for their own means.
Ssy like LBJ, and making civil rights a reality.
Or Sam Rayburn, and the quality of a once goldem infrastucture.
But do not ever cross these people, for the hammer of doom will be your grace, because they only act stupid, but yet are the most clever people on the planet.
For they have patience of hundreds of years.
The level of writing here is a mindblow, and stunning. Thank you Wu Ming.
that thing never quit – sorry i ever traded it in
heartbreaking… but keep breaking our hearts… maybe when enough of us can no longer bare the weight of what our government has wrought… we will all rise up and stop it
omg………… is this my country?
Bush and his neo-gang. We break it we buy it. The Powell doctrine has been taught in military schools for many years. And the poeple…. all the lives and generations we have desecrated. Shame doesn’t even begin to describe the way I feel.
I’m a first time poster here. Found my way here from Dailykos. At Kos my name is Khloemi. I’m looking forward to learning a lot from this site.
This is the inevitable consequence of American empire. This kind of death and killing was what commanders and Nixon envisioned for Vietnam, before the public and the Democratic Congress killed the funding for the enterprise.
I know that here in the US that investigators look for the bits and pieces of the bomb in order to track down who is responsible.
Does anyone know if this is being done in Iraq?