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.

[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.

[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.)

[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]

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

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

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

[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]

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

Until the Taliban took over Afghanistan was the most progressive country in the Middle East. Women had full rights and it was thoroughly modernized. My father spent time there as part of the State Department in the late forties/early fifties (until he got RIFfED out for being a "leftist with leftist tendencies" by Harold Stassen.) He loved the people there. He was also fortunate enough to see the two enormous ancient Buddhas before the Taliban blew them up.

I must agree that a communist Afghanistan would have been much better than the Taliban. The soviets would never have destroyed such precious antiquities, nor would they have reduced the status of women.

[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.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Your father sounds pretty cool. My subject line was attempting to evoke that history. Destroying symbols. Funny, but I don't feel the same about blowing up swastikas and such.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Nothing "sort of" about it.

[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]

"Fortunately they haven't dug up to destroy the two lying Buddhas that are buried in the same area. "

Agreed. I didn't know there were more. Cool.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

They found them through radar and ultrasound. Isn't that cool! Now if only they can be kept safe...

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

Swastikas, KKK robes, you name it, I have no compunction about blowing them up.

My father was awesome. A solid liberal Democrat and agnostic to the end. Not long before his death he had a fall and the firemen came to help him up. They asked him a few questions to make sure he was okay. One of them was, "who is the president of the United States?" His answer: "That bastard, Bush!" Yep, they knew he was okay at that point.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

slick!



And:

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Swastikas, KKK robes, you name it, I have no compunction about blowing them up.

Agreed, but I wonder: would we feel differently if 5,000 years had gone by? Anyway...

One of them was, "who is the president of the United States?" His answer: "That bastard, Bush!" Yep, they knew he was okay at that point.

Best story ever!

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You have a point.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Finding them was the first mistake.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

And my condolences.