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Showing posts from December 6, 2009

Macmillan: Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why Museums Were Looted, Libraries Burned and Academics Murdered Raymond W. Baker, Shereen T Ismael, Tareq Y. Ismael: Books

Macmillan: Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why Museums Were Looted, Libraries Burned and Academics Murdered Raymond W. Baker, Shereen T Ismael, Tareq Y. Ismael: Books : "W hy did the invasion of Iraq result in cultural destruction and killings of intellectuals? Convention sees accidents of war and poor planning in a campaign to liberate Iraqis. The authors argue instead that the invasion aimed to dismantle the Iraqi state to remake it as a client regime. Post-invasion chaos created conditions under which the cultural foundations of the state could be undermined. The authors painstakingly document the consequences of the occupiers' willful inaction and worse, which led to the ravaging of one of the world's oldest recorded cultures. Targeted assassination of over 400 academics, kidnapping and the forced flight of thousands of doctors, lawyers, artists and other intellectuals add up to cultural cleansing. This important work lays to rest claims that the invasion aimed to free a

Firedoglake

Firedoglake : "In some of the most surreal reasoning yet, that dynamic duo Clinton and Gates argued for the Obama Afghanistan Timeline as a way to make the Afghans step up but at the same time they are also telling the Afghans and everyone else that the July 2011 date is essentially meaningless."