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The Sack of Nimrud
Topic Started: Mar 7 2015, 04:38 PM (537 Views)
Gregory J. Liebau
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http://news.yahoo.com/iraqi-forces-push-to...-081840604.html

A pity, but not a surprise. IS strikes again.
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Todd Feinman
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Absolutely awful.
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Sean Manning
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What can men do against such reckless hate? I wish that there was more which people outside the affected area could do to answer that question, but as always it will come down to local people risking their lives to hide or protect things.
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Yves Goris
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I've heard they are doing Hatra now...
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Frank S.
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It's hard not to break this forum's "No politics or religion" policy when it comes to this subject. :angry:

Let's hope that these barbarians can be stopped before they destroy even more.
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Todd Feinman
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Frank S.,Mar 8 2015
01:43 AM
It's hard not to break this forum's "No politics or religion" policy when it comes to this subject. :angry:

Let's hope that these barbarians can be stopped before they destroy even more.

Right you are, Frank.
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Gregory J. Liebau
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After I read the article I discussed the issue with my father for a while yesterday, and we came back to a point that I've read before and is actually quite pertinent for my own studies... How much of medieval Germany was decimated by the Allied carpet bombings of WWII? I've come across multiple researcher's estimates that put the destruction caused in that two year period at more than 50% of what remained of Germany's pre-modern historical sites and material in museums...

So, we have to carefully consider who we're pointing fingers at and for what reasons. The fierce and rather primitive motivation that lend IS to being called 'barbaric' is fundamentally charged by many real aspects of the lives these people lead. From miserable poverty and injustice they face on a daily basis, to a myriad of religious and political concepts that are quite justifiable via historical ideologies. To say that they lack sense for what they're doing is not exactly how the issue finds resolve. They know exactly what they're doing and are doing it for reasons that are perfectly aligned with the principles of their fledgling 'state'.

That's as political or religious as I'm going to get, and I do so in order to make a point that the conversation can get sticky fast... My disappointment and reason for posting this is to reveal a destructive pattern of historical sites and its affect on academic considerations... And absolutely not to debate the viability of that destruction for serving organizational means. That is, indeed, to be left for another forum!

-Gregory
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Matthew Amt
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Yes, we bombed Germany to stop the spread of a culture based on hatred, bigotry, and genocide. The historical parts were not the targets. I would cheerfully do it again (though it is generally agreed that city-bombing was WAY less effective strategically than was held at the time!).

The current animals are deliberately *targeting* the history as part of their culture of hatred, bigotry, and genocide. They feel it their holy duty to exterminate anyone who disagrees with them. To them, tolerance is anathema.

Don't even TRY to make this some kind of "Well, look at what WE did" thing...

But we should definitely go with nerve gas rather than nukes this time. That will preserve the history and the oil wells.

And that's all that's worth saving over there.

Matthew
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Todd Feinman
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I have to strongly agree with Matt here. This is an issue deeply wrapped up in politics and religion, but the destruction is so grievous that it needs and should be addressed for what it is. Imagine if a group of fanatical Christians rose up and decided that anyone who did not believe in Jesus was a heretic and a witch and had to be beheaded or shot. And that all of the public libraries should be burned because they promoted blasphemy. And all of the great temples, mosques, and ancient holy sites from Stonhenge to Luxor to Angkor Wat should be bulldozed, dynamited and reduced to rubble, destroying the visages of our ancestors, thereby robbing ancient peoples of their voices and spirits, and cutting off future generations from antiquity and the legacies of humanity. This is what these monsters would do, and are beginning to do now. No god I would value would allow this. And you bet, I'd bomb Germany back to the Stone Age again if that's what it took to crush Nazi power. Sorry if folks think this is a rant; it's just my firmly held opinion. IS and others like them make me angrier than I know how to express --it's more like anguish I guess..
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Gregory J. Liebau
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It'd be easy to make a lot of "look what we did" comparisons to this - including the issue concerning almost the entirety of Native American culture. To stay on point... Germany was carpet-bombed and a lot of civilians and people who were not Nazi supporters and lots of infrastructure old and new was decimated without much concern for targeting by the end of the war. 'Tis why it was called "carpet bombing."

Considering the way that the Nazis were stretched thin on various fronts of the war, there is good reason to presume that we could have defeated the German army without having to obliterate large swatches of their homeland. It says a lot that once the Nazis were defeated a majority of German people proved themselves to have been ever opposed to the regime and immediately fell in with the West after they were actually allowed to recover from their plight peacefully - which had been the huge mistake of the Treaty of Versailles nearly thirty years prior... Which was also our fault.

However, tens of thousands of German civilians who were not of the radical, fanatical, bigoted mindset never had the opportunity to live out the war to see the Reich fall because we blasted them to eternity. And we happened to take a lot of their heritage with them. Pity that. I bring up the German example because the west really screwed up there c. 1919, and 1939 should have been the wake up call that "might is not right." We're still playing that game, though, and in the circumstances it seems more ironic than terrible that some of our enemies in the world actually play along.

I've read quite a bit about IS, and they're essentially a bunch of beep hats who don't deserve any opportunity whatsoever to carry out their mission - which is more or less to create a unified state within Islam in order to harken in the dark days of the apocalypse. However, it is impossible to avoid the fact that a majority of the men who follow through with such fanatical ideologies - be they Nazi or IS - are living in desperate situations with few alternatives for expressing their dissatisfaction with the lot they've been thrown. A lot of peaceful restructuring needs to occur in the Middle East to prevent the unrest that leads to such volatility before it's stopped. Killing them all before they kill us is not how it works, and I believe the same goes in both cases. (And granted, since 2006 there has been quite a bit of aid given to Iraq, but it's hardly been doled out evenly or been put to much widespread effect. And critically a lot of Iraqis haven't really felt it necessary to be grateful considering the aid is being given at gun point.)

As I said in the previous post - based on their historically-inclined and very literal interpretations of Koran law, the Islamic State knows exactly why they want to destroy ancient sites, and ban libraries and enslave women and get rid of all of the other stuff that represents progress in the West. It's because they literally want to take things back to the year 700 and start anew. The way they're doing it has been effective so far, both at gathering followers and at making the rest of the world mad. I'm not really surprised at all that thousands of young men who grew up within the war-ravaged regions of Iraq are willing to dedicate their lives to a backwards, religiously fueled, eternally glorified organization like IS. These men have lived through almost nothing but invasions, terrorism and tyranny during their lives.

-Gregory
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Todd Feinman
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I understand what you are saying, Gregory. Some countries / groups have developed an abiding hatred for the West, as a legacy of colonialism and desperate poverty. With spirits and identity crushed --like the Germans after WW I, there is fertile ground for anger and revenge. To make a somatic analogy, like a body that is repeatedly poisoned and malnourished, cancers can develop; like a two-pack-a-day smoker who laments developing lung cancer --we reap what we sow. Yet, that shouldn't stop the smoker from getting the cancer aggressively removed, though (s)he should make a commitment to a healthier lifestyle.. Frankly, I'm not convinced our world-body is healthy enough to recover and live a long life; when all of its members and organs have done nothing but fight each other, failing to realize they are part of the same body.

I'm not an expert on WW II, but things were so desperate in an age of "dumb" bombs, that taking out the infrastructure and enforced civilian support of the Nazi machine was worth the civilian casualties --we're talking about the fate of the world. I suppose similar arguments could discussed regarding the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, regarding the obliteration of innocent civilians. I think the Nazi war machine was so integrated into the civilian population (on fear of execution) that even the kids defending the homeland felt they had to fight or be killed, in the last days. I also think it was imlerative to make sure Hitler and his high command was destroyed completely; to preclude any further problems. Also the German army had no problem murdering innocent civilians and attacking civilian shipping (IIRC, any ship was a fair target).
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Gregory J. Liebau
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It's all tricky business, Todd. Hindsight is also always better than foresight.

However, I can't help but make one last comparison between the circumstances we've seen develop in the Middle East and in Post-WWI Germany. When the Nazis first rose to power Hitler was considered a heroic figure in the West, by taking on the immense challenge of rebuilding Germany's depleted infrastructure and exciting the people there to stir from twenty years of plight. Yet Hitler was given concession after concession when the Nazis began to clearly violate the principles of the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding not only civilian but military infrastructure - going so far as to participate dramatically in the Spanish Civil War against the side that much of the West was rooting for.

Was not the rise of Saddam Hussein similarly managed, or countless other demagog's that have been placed in power in the Middle East with Western backing since the Ottoman's were ousted in 1918? How much of that influence and acquiescence has turned to outright tyranny, leading to the despair of millions? To suspect anything but the most violent reactions to western influences in Middle Eastern society strikes me as a juvenile hope.

-Gregory
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Todd Feinman
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I agree. A LOT of unconscionable stuff, indeed.... We used to have the Time magazine at our library with Hitler on the front as "Man of the Year".
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