What do people think about the US military destroying and crapping on Babylonian ruins?

Question

.....knocking down walls and pavement that are more than 2000 years old in Iraq.
Does anyone know the rich history of civilization in Iraq and by ransacking the place, does this make us look more like conquering imperialists to the rest of the world?

...the man:
we are supposed to be waking up from history. We as a civilized country in the west, who should have respect for ancient history should be on the same page about preserving history with the rest of the civilized world, which we actually SHARE a history with. This is not us or them, this is WE. That is why the Europeans seem to hate our guts WE have turned into the Barbarians of modern times in their eyes and things like this prove it.
You can't take crap that people have done hundreds of years ago and compare that to now. We are supposed to KNOW BETTER...and THAT is the difference.

turboweegie:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon

jakob:
that is a ridiculous comparison. It shouldn't take a seemingly complex thinking mind like yours to realize that
1) Iraq didn't take down the towers!!!!!HELLOO.
and
2) The towers were built in the 70's., yes, no one denies that was a barbaric act, and terrorists are barbaric people who cut peoples heads off with steak knives, however, That doesn't mean that you should crap all over some one elses country in the persuit of oil, after all, there are probably more of the type of "terrorists" we are looking for living in England and Germany-- And how about Saudi Arabia?--the nationality of almost all of the hijackers, including osama bin laden!!!! THOSE were the type of terrorists who knocked down the towers.
How the simple minded always get confused with 9/11 and the Iraq war!!!!
I think it's time to stop watching fox news, your brain cells are in danger of being lost for good!

Answer 1

I admit that destroying ruins is somewhat evil, but defecating on them is hardly bad. Local fauna have been doing just that for several thousand years.

Answer 2

This sounds more like a rhetorical question. Anglo/Euro conquerers have never shown respect for the various ethnic groups they have conquered. This sort of reminds me of the domination of the Native Americans. Europeans rape, killed and destroyed and were able to rationalize in their minds that they were savages so they would feel better about the slaughter. Well, today it's not the Native American but the Iraqi. We don't call them savages...the term insurgent or terrorist is the only term we need to know to clear our conscience about the killing. With the native American the resource was land..today it's oil and American tax dollars. The native American was easy to conquer due to the many tribal factions. There was no unified front. Well, similarly, the Iraqis are also divided into tribes, this time by religious lines..also making them easy to conquer..so the parallels are everywhere..the white man trying to dominate the world and take resources by force is absolutely nothing new at all.

Answer 3

One of the more deplorable elements of war is the loss of human cultural legacy. To say that the US military is solely responsible for destruction of ancient Babylonian ruins is a bit of a stretch, however; and not to go pointing any fingers but religious crusaders under Divine instruction have destroyed far more than American troops likely ever will.

Having said that, I must point out that I have many international friends, many of whom live outside of the USA. The thing that they uniformly point out is that Americans, for as loud and brash as we are, do NOT seem like a nation of conquering imperialists. Instead, many see us as the first VICTIMS of conquering imperialists who have effectively hijacked our country. Whether you agree with this or not, I think it's a startling revelation that begs a response from the American people. The American government (and by extension, the military) is supposed to be something FOR the people, OF the people, and BY the people, and yet our illustrious (and ill-spoken) leader consistenly presents the image that he is as much an autocratic rich man with a messiah complex as any of the more efficient and better spoken autocratic rich men with messiah complexes throughout human history.

The deplorable thing about this whole situation is the fact that as the Taliban made its rise to prominance, it destroyed the cultural legacy of Afghanastan by literally blowing up ancient Buddhist monuments, and now American troops in Iraq (honestly and quite admirably doing their jobs) run the risk of doing the same thing: not because we are conquering imperialists, but because our military is like a canary in a coal mine in a sense; they act as our leader acts and if the President says that it's okay to disregard what other people say, and that it's okay to frighten our international neighbors--or at least disregard them--then our military and its actions will reflect that.

Are we conquering imperialists? No.
Are we as theocratic as the Taliban? NO!!!!
Do we disregard others? Well--we try not to, but aren't always successful...but hey, we DO try to be fair and that counts for something.

And the man in the big white house? Well, he IS a conquering imperialist and rather theocratic, and if he wasn't so busy disregarding what others think, then maybe he'd fix the problems that face this country up to and INCLUDING the capture of Osama bin Laden, rather than inflicting "democracy" on one of the world's premier oil producers for reasons that have very little to do with democracy or the war on terrorism.

Answer 4

Ahhh... how easy life must be for the simple minded.

Of course knocking down the two largest buildings in NY (with everyone still in them) is not barbaric at all... I mean... it's so insignificant why even mention it.

Thanks for the 2 points.

Answer 5

I think it is sad to lose ancient relics and sites of any kind. So stop pissing us off lol. The more you push the harder we will. We are americans and we are on top and intend to stay there. Get it through your heads you cant teach us anything, your morals and beliefs are your own. Your outrage only fuels the fire. We can destroy you anytime we like. How long do you think we will tolerate your bad behavior. I would be afraid if I were you.

Answer 6

I'm all for it but I am against them knocking down structures that are 2001 years old, if we do then we do become the barbarians.

Answer 7

they knock down building we knock down walls

Answer 8

And you have a factual basis for this question?

Answer 9

Yeah, and we say that THEY'RE the barbarians.