US must help protect world’s cultural heritage in Iraq

by Jabbar Jaafar via “FoxNews“

Despite having developed advanced technology and having access to a huge reserve of weapons, including jetfighters and drones, the U.S and its allies failed to prevent ISIS terrorists from destroying  and  bulldozing irreplaceable archeological sites in Mosul earlier this year. The sites, Nimrud and Hatra, are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

The terrorist group has mocked the American superpower and its allies and succeeding in successfully destroying a part of mankind’s cultural heritage. Statues, artifacts of the ancient  Mesopotamian civilizations have disappeared before their eyes. There was no reaction to that savage act.

If a superpower like the United States fails to prevent the ISIS terrorist group from destroying our cultural heritage sites, sites that are an integral part of the lives of the people of Iraq and the cultural heritage of the entire world, how can it expect to build and promote a strategic relationship with the people of the region where its vital interests lie?

After the catastrophe took place the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, declared that the protection of these archeological sites were not on the military’s list of  priorities.

If a superpower like the United States fails to prevent the ISIS terrorist group from destroying our cultural heritage sites, sites that are an integral part of the lives of the people of Iraq and the cultural heritage of the entire world, how can it expect to build and promote a strategic relationship with the people of the region where its vital interests lie?

This is the second time that top military generals from the United States have disappointed Iraqis in the United States and sapped confidence in their leadership.

The first time happened when coalition forces, led by the United States, entered Baghdad and toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime. Military forces only offered protection for the country’s Ministry of Oil, whereas the country’s other governmental organizations, including its financial institutions and the national library — where thousands of invaluable books and manuscripts were set on fire — where left unprotected. Iraq’s national museum was also left vulnerable to burglary and thousands of irreplaceable artifacts and relics were looted and smuggled outside the country.

All of this happened right before the very eyes of the U.S. military which took over Baghdad.  When military leaders were asked why they allowed this to happen they offered the same excuse, “the protection of the cultural establishments is not on the list of our priorities.”

The carelessness indifference of the U.S. military’s leaders has bolstered speculation and rumors —  dating back as far as 2003 — by Saddam loyalists and fundamentalists that American forces occupied Iraq in order to steal the country’s oil wealth along with its other fortunes and serve to its own interests unilaterally.

These concerns and suspicions convinced a lot of ordinary Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq that the U.S. occupation forces must be resisted by force. And that’s what happened. It also led to more than 4,000 casualties suffered by U.S forces in Iraq.

Unfortunately, the same thing happened again this year — in 2015. It is said that history repeats itself. And it did.  . . . .

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ISIS thugs take a hammer to civilisation: Priceless 3,000-year-old artworks smashed to pieces in minutes as militants destroy Mosul museum

by Julian Robinson via “Daily Mail“

Islamic State thugs have destroyed a collection of priceless statues and sculptures in Iraq dating back thousands of years.

Extremists used sledgehammers and power drills to smash ancient artwork as they rampaged through a museum in the northern city of Mosul.

Video footage shows a group of bearded men in the Nineveh Museum using tools to wreck 3,000-year-old statues after pushing them over.

Scroll down for video 

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Extremists used sledgehammers and power drills to smash ancient artifacts at a museum in the northern city of Mosul

Militant uses a power tool to destroy a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity at the Ninevah Museum in Mosul, Iraq. The statue dates back to the 9th century B.C.

One of the items, depicting a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity, dates back to the 9th century B.C.

A man shown in the video said the items were being destroyed because they promoted idolatry.

‘The Prophet ordered us to get rid of statues and relics, and his companions did the same when they conquered countries after him,’ the unidentified man said.

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ISIS Starts to Dismantle Iraqi Archaeological Site of Hatra: Officials

by Elisha Fieldstadt via “NBC NEWS”

ISIS militants have begun dismantling the ancient archaeological site of Hatra in northern Iraq in their ongoing effort to eliminate the region of what they consider idolatrous imagery, Iraqi authorities said Saturday.

The militants have destroyed parts of Hatra, about 70 miles south of Mosul, and started to pilfer antiques from the city, Qais Hussein Rashid, deputy minister of tourism and antiquities, told NBC News. He called the attack “a new crime against the Iraqi civilization and humanity in general.”

The ancient city was classified as a World Heritage Site by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1985. Hatra, largely built in the 2nd century B.C., was the capital of the first Arab Kingdom and survived invasions by the Romans in 116 and 198 A.D. because of its thick walls surrounded by towers, according to UNESCO.

ISIS has embarked on a campaign to destroy relics and historical sites that they apparently view as heretical. Last week, the group released a video that showed militants purportedly using sledgehammers to smash ancient artifacts in northern Iraq. On Thursday, the Iraqi government said the group had “bulldozed” the city of Nimrud, a 13th century B.C. Assyrian archaeological site just south of Mosul. UNESCO called the destruction of the city a war crime.

“The world and international organizations should stand against such a brutal assault on the human heritage,” Iraq’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement. “Otherwise,” the ministry added, “these gangs will commit more crimes and violations against the civilization.”

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UNESCO welcomes UNSC resolution to protect cultural heritage in Syria, Iraq

via “KUNA“

PARIS, Feb 13 (KUNA) — The Director-General of the UNESCO Irina Bokova welcomed on Friday the adoption of a new UN Security Council Resolution 2199 that condemns the destruction of cultural heritage and adopts legally-binding measures to counter illicit trafficking of antiquities and cultural objects from Iraq and Syria.
“The adoption of resolution 2199 is a milestone for enhanced protection of cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria, extending to Syria the prohibition of trade of cultural objects already in place for Iraq since 2003,” Bokova said.
“It is also a clear recognition that the pillage, destruction and trafficking of cultural heritage are more than a cultural tragedy – this is also a security and political imperative to be taken into account in all peace efforts,” she added.
Bokova warned that the pillage of Iraq’s and Syria’s culture has reached an unprecedented scale in Iraq and Syria, adding that the revenues of such as fuel the conflicts by providing money for armed groups and terrorists.
“This resolution acknowledges that cultural heritage stands on the frontline of conflicts today, and it should be placed at the frontline of security and political response to the crisis”, she said.
She also welcomed the strong call to the responsibility of all parties in the conflict to protect cultural heritage. She commended also the overwhelming support by Security Council Members in favor of this resolution.
“The protection of the cultural heritage of Syria and Iraq has strategic implications – it is fundamental for the identity and social cohesion of all Iraqis and Syrians and it is a precondition for future reconciliation and recovery”.
Welcoming the explicit role attributed to UNESCO by the Security Council, Bokova reaffirmed the Organization’s commitment “to stand by Member States to ensure the full respect of the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property”.
“The destruction of the unique cultural heritage of Syria and Iraq is a loss for all humanity and it is our common responsibility to stand up for its protection,” she concluded.

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ISIS and the Decimation of a Culture

by Eileen Toplansky via “American Thinker“

In the foreword to Catastrophe: The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past, Gil J. Stein, director of the Oriental Institute, writes that “when we think of the awful consequences of war, the deaths of the soldiers and civilians always remind us that futures have been destroyed[.]  But war in the third millennium AD has brought us an entirely new and different horror – the destruction of an entire past.”

In 2003, the world’s attention was focused on the looting of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad.  The 15,000 stolen artifacts had, for the most part, been “scientifically excavated and carefully recorded and identified by trained professional archaeologists and museum staff.”  Thus, there existed the scientific knowledge of their archaeological context, or a means to reconstruct “how an ancient civilization developed and functioned.”

Archaeological context refers to the “immediate material surrounding an artifact such as gravel, clay, or sand; its provenience or horizontal and vertical position within the material; and its association with other artifacts.”  But once an artifact is ripped from the ground by looters and/or terrorists, context and association with other artifacts is irretrievably lost.  In essence, the wholesale destruction of the artifacts being stolen or totally demolished results in a “creeping annihilation of an entire culture.”

As a result of the looting of the Iraqi National Museum, a web-accessible database was established to document the destruction and theft of the artifacts.  The database is accessible here.  Though “as many as 5,000 objects were reported to have been recovered[,]” other pieces will “remain difficult if not impossible to recover.”

Fast-forward to ISIS, that “JV” organization that Obama so nonchalantly dismissed.  How is it being financed?  What does an Islamic caliphate have to do with the wholesale destruction of historical and cultural artifacts?  And are we seeing an instant replay of Nazi looting of museums less than a hundred years later vis-à-vis Islamic jihadists?

According to the Guardian, in June 2014, the seizure of 160 computer flash sticks that “included names and noms de guerre of all foreign fighters, senior leaders and their code words, initials of sources inside ministries and full accounts of the group’s finances” was a key discovery into the workings of ISIS.”  Amazingly, in a mere three days, “ISIS [had] seized control of Mosul and Tikrit.”  Before Mosul, ISIS cash and assets were $875M.  After ISIS robbed banks and looted military supplies, total cash and assets rose to $1.5B.

ISIS’s massive cash flow comes from the “oilfields of eastern Syria which it had captured in 2012, the smuggling of raw materials pillaged from the crumbling state, as well as priceless antiquities from archaeological digs.”

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