If you meet the Buddha statue on the road, blow it up...

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

(This photo of an 8th Century BC Assyrian statue excavated from Tell Ajajah, near Hasakah on the Khabour River, was taken in May)

See also:
---------
2008: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/making-a-difference/looting-iraq-16813540/
2013: http://www.archaeology.org/exclusives/articles/779-national-museum-baghdad-looting-iraq
2014: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/isis-militants-blow-up-jonah-tomb

Comments

[mudryikot.livejournal.com]

Just bloody terrible. Not even counting what the bastards are doing to women.
Really, should teach the people that secular middle-eastern dictators are better than muslim fanatic alternative.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

The FGM story is a hoax. But ISIS doesn't exactly believe in women's rights:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-jihadists-stone-two-women-death-adultery-1457455

[mudryikot.livejournal.com]

So, the horror story that they have decreed mandatory mutilation for all women between 11 and 48 is a hoax?
Actually I took it at face value, really you can expect anything from religious fanatics and barbarians.
Don't want argue weltpolitik again, but really IMO red Afghanistan would have been a lesser disaster than Taliban and Al-Qaida etc.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

So, the horror story that they have decreed mandatory mutilation for all women between 11 and 48 is a hoax?

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/07/24/3463683/no-isis-isnt-ordering-female-genital-mutilation-in-iraq/

red Afghanistan would have been a lesser disaster than Taliban and Al-Qaida etc.

It would have been better off sans both major invasion. I know hippies who called it a paradise in the early 70's.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/against/archives/2001/10/24/0000108486

[atheistkathleen.livejournal.com]

was saddam's rule secular? i don't know much about him but i always assumed islam played a role in their govt because my friend's parents left iraq when saddam came into power because they are atheists

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

His rule was more secular, but it was still quite criminal,
a sort of thugocracy.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Nothing "sort of" about it.

[mudryikot.livejournal.com]

Certainly a lot more secular than Iran or Afghani talibs or Saudi or UAE. Baath' was a socialist and nationalist party, not islamic fundamentalist. Saddam's government had some christians in it. He was officially a practicing muslim and did quite a lot of public religious stuff to please population and appease islamic states, more of it after 1991. But AFAIK he did not try to impose things like taxes on non-muslims or islami dress-code, or islamic dietary laws or alcohol prohibition.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

What the other folks said: also, it's why the idea that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 was so laughable from the beginning. Al-Qaeda HATED Saddam, because he was a secular leader who wouldn't kow-tow to their brand of religious extremism. He also saw overly religious groups as challenges to his rule (and in some cases, like some trying to infiltrate from Iran and start revolutionary religious groups, he wasn't completely incorrect in viewing them that way.)

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Now I'm having flashbacks to Game Change and Sarah Palin blaming Saddam for 9/11.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Atheists received little love in Iraq under Saddam. He hated Marxists and by proxy atheists.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

That dude constructed massive dikes to divert water away from the swampy center of the country just to piss off the swamp people he hated.

Turned the country into a desert.

[hindustar.livejournal.com]

It makes me sad that they would smash that lovely 8th Century statue and their countries history like that. =(

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I agree. You'd think they would at least protect the site or hold the artifacts hostage for weapon. But to destroy them?

God are so insecure. Allah cannot suffer a statue. Consider the 10 commandments, the first four are all about god's insecurity issues.

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

The Taliban destroyed the two ancient, enormous Buddhas that my father had the pleasure of seeing when he was in Afghanistan for the State Department in the early 50's (before he was RIFfed out by Harold Stassen for being a "leftist with leftist tendencies") Fortunately they haven't dug up to destroy the two lying Buddhas that are buried in the same area.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Observe thou that which I command thee this day. Behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite and the Canaanite, and the Hittite and the Perizzite, and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee.

13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their Asherah poles.

14 For thou shalt worship no other god; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God,

15 lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee and thou eat of his sacrifice,


-Exodus 34


What a lovely book the bible is!.....

[hindustar.livejournal.com]

War has taken so many artistic and historic treasures from this world. Gods are insecure because Man is insecure.

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

The English did great work preserving these antiquities from the Middle East, i'm sure they've got at least a half dozen of those statues that they stole before WW2.

Considering that the mideast has been nothing but strife or tyrants for the last 6 millenia, I'm surprised the statue lasted this long.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You have a point.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The only reason the Sphinx survived, was because it was too big. But you know, you gotta have hopes! (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iv-drip/destroy-the-sphinx-and-the-pyramids-says-egyptian-jihadist-8306477.html)

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Not The USA's Problem. I wish them all the best in working out whatever they want to work out.

[rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com]

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Ugh.

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

F&%k you, ancient statue of a god no one has worshiped for 2600 years!

I can't help but think that anyone who feels threatened by that doesn't really have a lot of faith in their god.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Most of them require lots of constant attention, coddling, and compliments. And they freak if you even think about another god.