*Ø* Blogmanac | US gov't adds insult to Iraq museums injury

It has been likened to the burning of the Library of Alexandria in ancient times, a cultural loss almost without parallel. And now Shrub wants to throw some loose change at the benighted people of Iraq and instruct his PR men to give his largesse maximum spin.

The USA government has proudly announced that it will disburse $2 million to help patch up the looted museums of Iraq. The administration of the richest country in the universe will now congratulate itself on its generosity and a significant number of its peons will doubtless continue in their chronic myth that Americans are the biggest aid givers of all nations (in fact, per capita, they come about 18th). What is $2 million worth? Oh, about eight middle class houses. Maybe half a house of a corporate executive. Two million bucks won't even get you a cluster of cluster bombs. Not to put too fine a point on it, $2 million is chicken feed and an insult not only to the Iraqi people but to the citizens of the world. We have sustained an enormous, preventable loss.

While American officials early on reported that only around 25 cultural objects had been looted, it's more like 1,000. Let us not forget that -- by some foul quirk of Bush/Rumsfeld policy, one which we shall probably only know the reason for decades from now when White House and Pentagon documents are declassified -- this tragedy was sanctioned. A quarter of a million Coalition of the Killing soldiers in and around Iraq were ordered to stand by while hospitals and museums of antiquities and all sorts of institutions (all, except, for the guarded Ministry of Oil, independent journalists reported) were trashed and burned by mini-busloads of unknown men. (This aspect of the story has been largely neglected by the media, which has emphasised rampaging individuals rather than the armed and mobile units that were mentioned in dispatches.)

Once again, the Bush administration's spin was preposterous: these men were allegedly paid agents of Saddam Hussein. Once again, the media lapped it up. Well, they're lap dogs, after all. One can only wonder how many Americans will believe that gangs of thugs would run around burning hospitals, museums and virtually the entire bureaucratic infrastructure of Iraq (for that is what happened, apart from the oil wells and administration) because Saddam had paid or had promised to pay them. Hussein was missing, presumed dead. Baghdad was occupied by the might of the American and British armies. The town was crawling with soldiers. If Hussein had pre-paid the goons, why should they do the job now he was without authority, maybe even dead? Wouldn't they take the money and run? If the dictator had promised to pay them after doing the job, why should they do such a dangerous thing literally under the gaze of heavily armed marines and other troops? Who would pay them?

Pull the other leg, Shrub, that one's got bells on it.

A lousy $2 million: read it and weep
US cultural advisers resign over Iraq looting

While we're on the subjct of Iraq, this story at Indymedia covers rather well the complicity of the media. And What, exactly, are we Never Forgetting? has some very useful links, especially with regard to the Coalition's refusal to count the bodies of those they laughtered in Iraq. It's a page at bumperactive.com where you can make bumper stickers ... pretty cool.