ISIS destroys irreplaceable artifacts of Iraqi and Assyrian culture

February 26, 2015 • 1:32 pm

Well, the one good thing you can say for this ISIS-released video is that the only heads that are lost are those on statues. Still, it’s deeply disturbing to see people so violently hyped up on their faith that they eagerly smash the artifacts of their own past. According to the International Business Times, the vandalism occurred in a museum in Mosul:

IS fighters are seen unveiling old statues in the Ninawa museum dating back to the Assyrian empire and then dragging them down to the ground, where they fall into pieces.

Then, they are depicted pounding 3,000-year-old sculptures with hammers until they are completely shattered. Tens of militants are seen using ladders, hammers and drills to destroy every statue in the museum, including a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity dating back to the 7th century BC.

Here’s a partial transcript of the video provided by the IBT:

“These ruins that are behind me, they are idols and statues that people in the past used to worship instead of Allah,” a bearded IS militant tells the camera, with the immense, partially-demolished winged-bull in the background.

“The so-called Assyrians and Akkadians and others looked to gods for war, agriculture and rain to whom they offered sacrifices,” he added, with reference to the ancient civilizations that lived in Mesopotamia for more than 5,000 years in what is now Iraq, eastern Syria and southern Turkey.

“The Prophet Mohammed took down idols with his bare hands when he went into Mecca. We were ordered by our prophet to take down idols and destroy them, and the companions of the prophet did this after this time, when they conquered countries.”

“When God orders us to remove and destroy them, it becomes easy for us and we don’t care even if they cost millions of dollars,” he continues.

Apparently the winged bull they destroyed is actually on the Iraqi currency, or so says a tw**t:

Screen Shot 2015-02-26 at 1.11.07 PM

 

ISIS didn’t stop there; according to the Fiscal Times, they also burned 8000 rare books and manuscripts by bombing the Mosul Public Library.

The former assistant director of the library Qusai All Faraj said that the Mosul Public Library was established in 1921, the same year that saw the birth of the modern Iraq. Among its lost collections were manuscripts from the eighteenth century, Syriac books printed in Iraq’s first printing house in the nineteenth century, books from the Ottoman era, Iraqi newspapers from the early twentieth century and some old antiques like an astrolabe and sand glass used by ancient Arabs. The library had hosted the personal libraries of more than 100 notable families from Mosul over the last century.

During the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the library was looted and destroyed by mobs. However, the people living nearby managed to save most of its collections and rich families bought back the stolen books and they were returned to the library, All Faraj added.

If you want to see a really sad and misguided apologetic for ISIS, one that not only urges us to ignore their Islamic background but also pins the blame for ISIS on the United States’ invasion of Iraq, read Robert Wright’s piece in the New Yorker, “The Clash of Civilizations that Isn’t.” Wright, who claims to be an atheist, has nevertheless been a constant apologist for religion (he’s the son of a Baptist preacher), and in his piece he urges the U.S. to stop saying that ISIS is at war with Western civilization. That, he says, would promote a self-fulfillng prophecy, for it would just inflame ISIS further and bring them more recruits. Here’s his advice: “But you could also argue that, if something like an apocalypse is possible, putting undue emphasis on the group’s religious character could hasten it.”

Well, he’s right in one way. ISIS isn’t at war with Western civilization. Its latest behavior shows that it’s at war with all civilizations, including its own. It’s at war with all civilization in the sense that it despises and spurns all civilized behavior.  If Wright had his way, we’d just try diplomacy (right!) and mend our own ways, which certainly will stop ISIS in its tracks! Wright counsels against any military action, but what else is there to do?

Perhaps Graeme Wood is right in saying that when ISIS runs out of territory to conquer, they will disappear, for the caliphate needs to constantly expand and conquer to have credibility. But how will they run out of territory so long as they keep drawing in recruits, unless someone with real force stands up to them? We are faced here with an enemy of almost Hitlerian stripe, one that needs Lebensraum and is committed to genocide to get it.

 

129 thoughts on “ISIS destroys irreplaceable artifacts of Iraqi and Assyrian culture”

  1. It is so sad to see the destruction of historical items, especially really old artifacts like these ones. I remember when al-Qaeda destroyed Buddhist statues and it was very sad. I think that was my first introduction to that group.

    1. It might make you sad, Diana, but for some reason this makes me chuffin’ furious. It’s like giving Alzheimer’s to the human race.

      On the tendency of nihilism to implode, there was a Radio 4 programme the other day tracing the Syrian black market trade in antiquities to IS leaders making money out of it. So there obviously is a split between dumb thugs and capitalists in IS. Let them fight it out between themselves.

      While they’re at it, if these jokers come across any Zoroastrian or Jewish treasure, maybe they’ll pause and consider the influence of the Torah and rabbinical thought and of Zoroastrian beliefs on the hadith.

      Which brings us back in a circle. They don’t even know that they’re killing their own past. Because they have forgotten it.

      Allele akhbar. x

        1. Aralish, doc. ‘The allele is great’. Although it would be great if an Arabic speaker could tell us the Arabic for ‘God is not great’. It must surely look summat like ‘Allahu akhbar’. x

          1. I must say, Dermot, I like that “allele”-ic substitution!
            My guess was based on appreciated and presumed similarities between Hebrew and Arabic: “Hu” means “he”, so “Allah hu akbar” is more like “God, He is great.” “Lo” is “no” and sometimes “not” in Hebrew and very close to the Arabic version of same. Transliterated spelling being what it is, “le” could do. Hebrew, and apparently Arabic, have no “to be” in the present tense. It’s just assumed. So, “Alle le akbar” seems mighty close to “God is not great.”
            All this could be completely wrong. Please wait for verification from someone who knows a lot more than I do. 😀

          2. Wow, doc, I think we might have evidence for a linguistic mutation being naturally selected in a cultural and environmental context. Dan Dennett needs to know about this.

            Alle-le akhbar! x

    2. This brought that same event (the statues) back to me. It is such a tragedy to the whole world to lose these books and artefacts. I find this almost as shocking as killing people.

      The battle to take Mosul back can’t happen soon enough. I wish the Iraqis were ready.

    1. A very strong reason to not repatriate such treasures.

      And a very strong reason for the British Museum to increase security.

  3. If I were the British Museum, I’d put a couple of extra guards near the Assyrian artifacts….

    2. Couple? I’d move this particular statue, at least, to a vault for some time. It’s to iconic and connected to the other one.

  5. I thought that I’d seen the worse of this kind of insanity when the Taliban were run out of Kandahar in 2003.

    These people are more insane than I could have ever imagined possible without seeing them self-destruct almost immediately.

    These bearded nutcases are too stupid to be alive. Their stupidity is so gross that I think it may actually be violating a physical principle. The stupidity is simply inexplicable with the constant use of the word, “insane,”

        1. Terry Jones* would disagree with you:
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Jones'_Barbarians

          (It grieves me that we should be perpetuating Roman propaganda with the terms ‘barbarian’ and ‘vandal’. I think I’d like to see ‘Roman’ right up there with ‘nazi’ as a term of opprobrium for miltaristic authoritarian imperialism).

          * Terry Jones the Python not Terry Jones the pastor.

  6. Same kind of stupidity happened during the dark ages and thousands of years of history and knowledge were lost.

    Based on some of the reports coming out on the areas where ISIS is now in charge, it may not last very long. These clowns are not up to running anything, let alone a civilization.

    1. Yeah, I thought of that too & how so many works of art and scientific information was either destroyed or lost out of neglect. Buildings suffered the same fate with some remaining (like the Pantheon because it was used to house saints) or others left to ruin (like the Colosseum – or as it should be known not by its mediaeval name but by it’s ancient name: the Flavian amphitheatre).

    2. It also happened during the conquest of the Americas by the Spaniards. Entire cities built by the Mayans, the Aztecs and the Inca were destroyed in the name of “civilization” and christianity. The mayan libraries containing thousand of codices, which included all their fantastic knowledge of mathematics and astronomy were burnt. The catholic priests in charge boasted about the destruction.

        1. Not to mention the Library of Alexandria which was destroyed in stages by Christians and Muslims alternately, I believe.

          F’in all religions…

          1. Actually, that was less to do with religion than politics at the time…

            http://www.cracked.com/article_21696_5-iconic-groups-from-history-everyone-pictures-incorrectly_p2.html

            “… but the repeated attempts to burn it down make more sense when you consider Egypt was using it as a symbol of power and subjugation”

            Doesn’t change the tragedy of what happened, obviously. Served in either religious or political flavours, all forms of extremism are equally hideous and poisonous.

          2. When the government is the seat of religion and vice versa, there really is no distinction. Was the Egyptian government at that time not saturated in religion?

  8. Doesn’t this pretty much prove the are religiously motivated? Why else would such destruction be part of their scheme? I’d love to see Reza Aslan convince himself this was done to…what…solve the unemployment problem? Win back the power and respect of the world? Good God.

  9. I am sobbing reading and watching this. I have shed many tears for the people they and their ilk have visited their vile barbarism on too and I feel slightly guilty for being so upset at their destruction of artefacts when real live people are being destroyed too but I can’t help it. This makes me despair.

    2. Meh. Antiquities damage has been a constant feature of the Syrian War. This was 100% predictable as soon as Obama decided that the Iraqi army was pretty much on its own in June of last year.

      1. The decision to pull out may seem unfortunate now, but it was pretty much the only thing to do, politically. It was to be on a deadline. The Iraqis really wanted us gone and the American people also wanted us gone. The conditions for us staying in significant numbers were so onerous that both Republicans and Democrats wanted nothing to do with it.

        1. Maliki was begging for help in June of last year, if you remember. I agree the decision to pull out in December 2011 was the right one, but allowing Turkey to provide a safe haven for the Syrian rebels without any intention to replace Assad was completely inappropriate.

  10. A tragedy for world culture, but not surprising and not unprecedented. Christians dealt the same to classical sculpture, especially any depicting the gods, the moment they came to power.

    1. Yes, this is a repeat of a common act of religious fanatics of any stripe. The Spanish Christians destroyed nearly every trace of Mayan, Incan, and Aztec sacred art when they came to power here in Latin America.

      1. Yes, but this is now. And we (well, they) are repeating the same old historical crimes from centuries ago. So I have no qualms in calling them backwards marching barbarians.

        2. What I was trying to point out is that this is a consequence of religious fundamentalism, not specifically Islamic fundamentalism. All the same precepts are in the Torah and the Bible, and believers in those books have often acted on those precepts in the past. Secular society managed to tame those religions, but has not had much effect on Islam. I think it is worth trying to figure out why.

          1. True dat. Don’t forget the Puritans went about smashing the stained glass windows and the altars of cathedrals during the English Civil War. And they were members of the same religion.

          2. Image-breaking is interesting. If you think about famous outbreaks of iconoclasm in history, they seem always to be connected to a puritanical, fundamentalist interpretation of the dominant religion. And usually from those who view themselves as disenfranchised, powerless and poor.

            Iconoclasts would include the Deuteronomist historian(s) who sought to break the figurative representation of Yahweh and his consort Asherah in their myriad Syro-Palestinian figurines at the time of the ideological/theological attack on the (polytheistic) Omride dynasty: a dynasty which had vastly civilized the polity and therefore produced huge surplus value and decadent works of art.

            You can think of the inhabitants of Galilee in 66-70 CE, whose mothers and fathers had acquiesced in Herod Antipas’ (mainly aniconic but Greek-influenced) building works, and who destroyed them in the Jewish revolt.

            There is the wave of iconoclasm from Arabia to Constantinople in the 8th century: early Islamic destruction of religious icons and a century-long simultaneous wave of defacing of Christian icons in the New Rome.

            And again intermittently the destruction of religious art and icons from the 1530s to the 1660s in England.

            They all share the common idea of the lower form of civilization trying to take over from the higher, erasing their ‘betters’, a disgust at the art, an assertion of the superiority of the blunt word over the interpretative metaphorical, of the ruled over the ruler and his lackeys.

            And in puritanism you end up with ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’. The book, the word, which nevertheless clunkingly requires metaphor to get its point across: ‘Christian’ the hero, ‘the slough of despond’ etc. One of the least impressive – because young – examples of extended metaphor that you will ever read. x

          3. Iconoclasm during the Reformation was certainly not limited to England. The ‘Low Countries’ (which would include not just the Netherlands and Flanders, but the Flemish part of Northern France) had their massive “Beeldenstorm” in 1566.

          4. And not just the ‘Low Countries’: Geneva, Augsburg, Copenhagen, etc, etc.
            The difference with the destruction by the Caliphate is that no-one is worshipping these statues anymore (for the Bamiyan Buddha’s the Taliban could possibly argue there are still Buddhists around, albeit not in Afghanistan anymore).

  11. I have to agree with Zizek that ISIS here betrays how insecure its faith really is. It must destroy what it thinks of as pagan idols (those these things certainly aren’t idols nor are worshipped as such by anyone). This kind of reactionary behaviour is typical of all those whose convictions are riddled with insecurity (killing those who portray or criticize the prophet is another example). People with secure faith are often indifferent to criticism. This kind of behaviour from ISIS is typical of someone having a crisis and trying to overcompensate.

    1. Indeed. I wouldn’t overlook the magical thinking too. Their advances have been stalled. In the Bible, and I presume the Koran as well, God often punishes his followers in just such a way (loss or stall in battle) for not being sufficiently pure. The Bible is full of stories of God’s followers purifying themselves to the nth degree in order to regain God’s withheld favor. And while I don’t know that much about their beliefs, I would not be surprised if they think the idols themselves have demonic power.

      Magical thinking like this is commonplace. I have Christian friends who won’t allow their family to participate in Halloween because they believe Halloween activites call forth demonic spirits and make it easier for demons to operate in the world. They also believe that some of the pagan gods in the Bible might have been demons.

      I have a friend who is an antiquities collector. At some point he acquired a small Baal statue. Naively, he brought it to a Sunday School class thinking that everyone would be really interested to see an actual Baal statue. He could barely coax them to pass it around. They were clearly made nervous, if not actually frightened, by it’s very presence, and no one relaxed until it was put away. This in a bunch of well educated middle class Americans.

      Superstition is powerful.

  12. ISIS did this act based on a Hadith from the prophet of Islam himself. When the prophet conquered Mecca, he destroyed all idols and set a seventh-century standard for these misguided people who want to totally emulate him.

    Other than that, this is very demeaning for middle eastern people. For decades, people in middle east have believed that colonial powers stole their historical artifacts out of evilness! Some of them can actually get furious over this piece or that one residing in a western museum. What ISIS did, clearly shows these people are not worthy of being in charge of such historical artifacts. They can’t and won’t protect them.

    That is why this stupid debate about ISIS actions being Islamic or not must end right now. It doesn’t matter if they truly believe in Islam or not. What matters is if they believe in secular and modern values regardless of Islam. The primary discussion we should be having then should be this one: how secular-minded people can be empowered in the middle east?

    1. The “idol” destroying command is much older than that. The Bible is full of commands to destroy every vestige of other religions, sometimes both all the people and their artifacts, but always the artifacts.

    2. Empowering the secularists in the middle East is a good idea. I’m sure there are some among the intelligentsia. My fear is that that would take a century or more, during which time a lot of havoc will be wrought.

      1. Unfortunately, external powers have done that in the past, which is partially why we’ve gotten to where we are. For example, Saddam Hussein was at least initially largely secular a ruler (authoritarian and brutal, of course). One has to be very careful with “empowering”. Listen to what the people say, not the powerful, is often a good approach, but by no means sufficient.

        1. I thought that would come to mind. But Saddam Hussein was more of a nationalist than a secularist. Baath party was originally a pan-Arab party. The animosity between Saddam’s Iraq and Assad’s Syria was partly due to the fact that each considered himself the true Baathist!

          By empowering, by no means I advocate forceful installation of some self-proclaimed secularists in those countries, though even that might have been better than what most of them have now.

          What bothers me is that everyone thinks that the secularism project is totally hopeless in the middle east. I just think it still has a small chance to succeed. That’s why I’d have liked President Obama to heed Graeme Wood’s advice(http://goo.gl/JpWHR5):
          “Western officials would probably do best to refrain from weighing in on matters of Islamic theological debate altogether.”

          1. Nationalism can of course shade into religion or near to (as in, say, North Korea) but I don’t think it got that far in Iraq under Saddam.

            You’re right about Baath.

    3. What you said in your first paragraph is correct. Isis is on a quest of their own invention, and are retracing the steps of the prophet in their ‘holy’ book.

  13. these vandals seem to have the same level of understanding of their history as republicans in this county.

  14. I have a Christian relative who was reading about this and got very incensed. But they got this idea from the Bible:

    “Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. 3Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.” – Deuteronomy 12.

    What do you expect from Bible believers? The surprise isn’t that ISIS is doing this, the God character in the Bible insists on it repeatedly, but that the other billions of Bible believers aren’t. After all, the building and destruction of the golden calf is one of the most iconic Bible stories, which ends with God commanding the zealous “Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor”. Then, for good measure, God struck the survivors with a plague. And this is God being merciful! His first impulse (until Moses talked him out of it, so much for immutable God) was to kill all the Israelites except Moses and start over. Making idols was about the gravest thing one could do in the Old Testament. If you really believe that Bible story it is not entirely clear to me how ISIS is different than the Levites who are, perforce, heroes to believing Christians and Jews and, as I understand it, Muslims too.

  15. and this is exactly what many Christians here in the US would do if they thought they could get away with it. they are already doing their best to destroy history and science, art is just one more thing that they don’t around to tell them that they are wrong.

          1. yep, and that’s why everyone should be concerned about the separation of church and state and support groups like the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Americans united for the separation of church and state, etc.

  16. These implacable fools make me ill. What scares the shit out of me is the knowledge that this group would use a nuclear bomb/device without a second thought. shiver

      1. Although I’m beginning to think the Western powers care so little about the rest of the world that for ISIS to use a nuclear weapon would not, in fact, be suicide for it.

      2. Maybe you’re thinking of Iran. Iran is probably not suicidal. ISIS… yeah, I bet they are.

        1. Dunno. It hasn’t launched an attack against the West yet (it could easily do so on NATO bases inside its geographically contiguous implicit partner).

          1. They could but they wouldn’t be able to inflict much damage. With a nuclear weapon they could inflict much damage. Suicide for no gain vs suicide for some gain.

            And how would the West go about destroying ISIS? It would be very messy. Look how much damage the US inflicted on itself trying to rid the world of OBL, Sadaam and their cohorts. Not to mention the damage we caused to bystanders. By any honest measure OBL was pretty damn successful at causing damage to the US. Torture, DHS, TSA, major factor in economic crash and burn, thousands of soldiers maimed for life, let alone the dead, and more. And yet Al-Qaeda still persists.

            But, I have no idea if their leadership is that committed or not. I’ve got no doubt that much of their cadre would be willing to use a nuclear weapon.

          2. Saddam’s regime was wiped off the face of the Earth in a mere month (note: this perfidious act should unquestionably not have been carried out, at least, not in the way it was). Likewise, the process of actually taking out OBL didn’t take very long. The Islamic State is a much weaker state than Saddam’s Iraq and could be wiped off the face of the Earth in less than three days. The question is, how long would the U.S. have to stick around with extended aid for the Iraqi, Kurdish, and Syrian governments after the Islamic State is gone?

            Note: there was no significant immediate economic impact from 9/11. al-Qaeda was a spent force in both Iraq and Afghanistan by the end of 2010. The only reason it revived itself was because Obama allowed it to. A complete victory in the War on Terror isn’t possible until all relevant terrorists die of old age. But Lebanon is more stable today than it was in the 1980s, and Algeria is more stable today than it was in the 1990s.

    1. Yes, I’ve seen this linked at the Slymepit, and it turned my stomach. Pretty much like the video in the OP above.

  18. The destruction is depressing but the article by Robert Price is just infuriating. At one point he admits that any liberal criticism of Islam is a source of concern because then Muslims would realise that it wasn’t just the racist right that was criticising their religion…yes! That’s the point! How does he miss it?

  19. My prediction is that when they run out of new territory, they will consolidate and stabilize briefly before descending into hellish in-fighting, and eventually imploding. I hope it happens soon.

    1. For the results of that, look just so slightly to the West, to Western Syria, where Nusra and the Rebels no longer cooperate as much as they used to. Doesn’t sound like much fun, or a particularly fortunate outcome.

  20. I thought the Graeme Wood piece in the Atlantic was good. He makes a strong case for the government being aware of what motivates ISIS. Actually I doubt very much that it is not. But, like Obama I think it would be a terrible mistake for the US government to emphasize publicly the religious motivation of ISIS. Most likely the majority of Muslims do not support ISIS and they do not deserve to be blamed for its actions and attacked by those who are not careful to avoid assigning guilt by association. We do not need the entire Muslim population of 1.57 billion people for an enemy.

    The behavior alone of ISIS is enough reason to throw everything we can at them.

    1. That’s probably where you’re wrong. Jerry’s post about the Muslim approval of CH killings is more than enough to show that it’s not just ISIS. The whole religion is a f*cking problem.

  21. I bet their bosses are very unhappy with the troops since a large part of their war is funded from selling valuable artifacts. Maybe these were just too big to ship so were sacrificed in a PR exercise.

    Funny how these religions seem to thrive on sacrifice, so long as it’s someone else on the alter.

    1. It’s not a very clever tactical move, either. The antiques could have deterred an allied army from carpet-bombing the place.

      1. Why carpet-bomb? Why not gas?

        (I suspect the answer is there may be civilians around, but carpet-bombing – if sufficient to destroy ISIS – would kill as many civilians as a gas attack, I would think).

        Would I gas ISIS? Yup. Specially if it saved anyone else’s lives. Same argument as Hiroshima, actually. Pity it’s so hard to control.

  22. If I understand it correctly, a particularly stupid part of this sad event is that is really is not emulating an instruction from the prophet. I though his instruction to destroy idols was meant to be directed toward currently competing religions. Artifacts of a long dead culture and its religion is totally off base.

    1. If islamic scripture doesn’t explicitly refer to ancient artefacts, it’s probably because the people of that time didn’t care about antiques either way- if the statues weren’t in the way, they could stay, otherwise they’d have destroyed them without giving it a second thought. This interest in preserving and studying antiquity is a relatively new invention, and mostly originates from the West.

      Even then, Mo’s warriors may have looted and destroyed more than has been reported.

    2. If evolution is cleverer than us, so is religion. Researching the source for Islamic iconoclasm, I came across this in a hadith.

      In Islamic science trees are lifeless things.

      “All the painters who make pictures would be in the fire of Hell. The soul will be breathed in every picture prepared by him and it shall punish him in the Hell, and he (Ibn ‘Abbas) said: If you have to do it at all, then paint the pictures of trees and lifeless things; and Nasr b. ‘Ali confirmed it.
      —Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim”

      The idea is repeated in the saying of Muhammad al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari, if you think that is ambiguous.

      There’s a Christmas comedy toilet book in Islamic science, provisional title, ‘Peer review be upon Him’: it could earn us a fortune. I’ll do the research, any takers for the science?

      Allele akhbar. x

    3. One of the most triumphant moments in early Islam’s history is when the Prophet of Islam destroys all idols in the city of Mecca. I was raised as Shia, and we were taught in school that Ali (first Imam of Shiites) was the only person Muhammad shared this honor with (Another reason to throw in the face of those misguided Sunnis who deny the special place of Imam Ali).

      That’s why ISIS is making a big deal out of it. Unlike the Taliban, they are not merely destroying some statues, they are repeating the Prophet’s work as closely as they can. Did you notice how the footage slows down in the scenes the “idols” are falling? That is the main goal of this video: portray themselves as “the destroyers of idols”.

      Other than that, they are clever thugs and don’t lose a business opportunity. So I will not be surprised if some of these artifacts later turn out in a museum or in a personal collection somewhere in the West.

  23. So they want to destroy idols from antiquity? There’s a Black Stone in the Kaaba in Mecca that has been venerated since pre-Islamic times. Destroy that, and see what hornet’s nest is set loose.

      2. Sorry, wikipediating a bit to be sure of what I’m advancing:

        “In some cases an attempt was made to give a more regular form to the original shapeless stone: thus Apollo Agyieus was represented by a conical pillar with pointed end, Zeus Meilichius in the form of a pyramid. Other famous baetylic idols were those in the temples of Zeus Casius at Seleucia Pieria, and of Zeus Teleios at Tegea. Even in the declining years of paganism, these idols still retained their significance, as is shown by the attacks upon them by ecclesiastical writers.[3] Among monotheists, the practice survives today with Islam’s Black Stone.”

      3. The Kaaba is the cube-shaped building, the black stone in the eastern corner is the alleged meteorite. x

  24. Robert Wright in The New Yorker:

    How could it be a war against “the Muslim world” if most of the Muslims even in these five countries are not the enemy?

    Indeed, how can the Allies be at war with “The Axis” if most of the people in these three countries are not the enemy?

  25. An aspect that bothers me is that these artifacts do not actually belong to any modern nation, let alone ISIS, except in the sense of that nation holding them for safe-keeping. These artifacts are essentially the heritage of mankind, as are the Buddhas of Afghanistan, the Egyptian pyramids and pharaonic tombs, the Parthenon, etc. Any significant work of art is not being taken from Iraq, or Syria, or the Middle East. It’s being taken from everyone alive today and who will ever live.

  27. With all due respect, I do not find the comparison with the Third Reich particularly appealing.
    The Nazi’s were militarily strong, with a military-industrial complex behind them. The caliphate is ridiculously weak militarily speaking.
    The Nazi’s valued art treasures, they stole them on a massive scale, but -correct me if I’m wrong- did not destroy them.
    IS does not want ‘Lebensraum’, no clear ‘Blut und Boden, -the Nazi’s were keen on history (albeit distorted)- while IS just wants to conquer the world, to convert the world, forcibly, to Islam.

    1. Hitler did issue an order to destroy Paris, but that was when he was going down in flames and he just wanted revenge. Fortunately not all the German army agreed with him. But it wasn’t a part of Nazi philosophy.

      There were obviously the Baedeker raids, but – and this is interesting – that name made Goebbels furious, it “effectively admitted the Germans were targetting cultural and historic targets, just what the German leadership did not want to do, and Goebbels took steps to make sure it did not happen again” (Wikipedia – ‘Baedeker blitz’)

      So in this context, ISIS is worse than the NAZIs. As they are in their treatment of prisoners.

      1. really? so destroying 6 million Jews and another 4 million Communists, mentally ill, Gypsies etc isn’t considered ‘treating prisoners badly?”

        1. I never said the Nazis didn’t treat prisoners badly. But I don’t recall NAZI propaganda ever glorying to the world in how sadistically they could kill people. That seems to be a specialty of ISIS. There’s something particularly shocking, arrogant and – juvenile – about that. That was the only thing I was comparing. Probably not a very productive comparison to make, at that.

    2. Yes, contra _The Monuments Men_, Ernst Kaltenbrunner defied Hitler’s orders to destroy the art at the Altaussee salt mine, just as Dietrich von Choltitz (a war criminal responsible for the extermination of thousands of RussianJews after the siege and capture of Sevastopol) defied his order to level the city of Paris.

      /@

    3. Nazis DID destroy works of modern art that they believed were an affront to the preservation of traditionalist values. Art and culture were propaganda tools to them… so yes, while they did respect the past as far as their ancestor’s cultures were concerned, it was largely motivated by political agenda.

      Conversely, they ridiculed and reviled what they called “Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate art), a term penned to collectively describe modernist art and music. Said works were mockingly exhibited with nasty one-liners before being auctioned off for cash. Anything they couldn’t sell was destroyed since it was essentially “offensive trash”.

      Anyway, fuck both regimes. Each has inflicted irreparable damage to their fellow man, and I seriously hope the inevitable fate of IS reaches them much sooner rather than later.

      1. They also twisted things to suit them, often messing with archaeological sites to comport with their ideology.

  28. As an alternate to running out of territory, they need to run out of caliphs. From what I read, there’re supposed to be 12 in all, and they’re on #8 already. Then something about Jeebus.

      1. (I meant to say ‘alternative’ of course.) The recent articles by Graeme Wood and Peter Bergen that PCC posted explains all of this. There are overlaps across sects but IS is uber extreme and seem to be following their playbook to the letter. This level of delusion and insanity is as great and as dangerous as Nazism.

  29. Blaming ISIS on the United States’ invasion of Iraq is certainly shortsighted. It arose not simply from the Iraqi war but also from the Syrian civil war, which created a state-less vacuum in large parts of that country.
    You can tell the world is in a sad state when the dictatorships of Saddam Hussein and Hafez Assad look more stable and law-abiding than the current governments in Iraq and Syria.

    But when it comes to ISIS, I don’t know what would happen if “someone with real force stands up to them.” Real force hasn’t done the US much good in the middle-east. I think pretty much everyone agrees that the US invasion of Iraq has been a disaster. And Libya, after Western intervention deposed Gaddafi, has descended into chaos. Afghanistan is barely holding together.

    The wisest thing for America to do is to keep a low profile, even if heavily involved. ISIS would be delighted to see American troops re-enter the middle east—it would give them plenty of recruits and fit into their apocalyptic clash-of-civilizations narrative. The US should certainly give aid and equipment to those opposed to ISIS, but even that will be tricky. Obama wishes to arm the Syrian rebels, and that might work—or it might end up empowering groups only slightly less worse than Assad or ISIS. Ultimately, the safest and most legitimate way to defeat ISIS would be to have another Muslim entity do so. But just which one is anyone’s guess.

    1. In hindsight it does seem that despotism was the most effective government for those countries.

      I cannot find it now, but I read an opinion piece in (I think) _The Times_ some years ago which argued that (these) countries had to become secular before they could become democratic.

      /@

    2. The U.S. shouldn’t arm the rebels (except to hurt ISIS from the North and West). It should covertly arm Assad. After all, he’s certainly a smart guy, and a devil we know. And he’s sort of a Muslim.

  30. These people are just savage uneducated thugs destroying knowledge. For them is just rock. The real culprits for this irreparable loss of human civilization history are those who organize and finance this monstrous creatures and those who set the scene for a organization like ISIS (and others like them) to exist. So sad that such a rich in history place is haunted by such twisted people… 🙁

  31. All very sad.

    The Assyrian section of the British Museum is my favourite place in London – I can stare at the statues and wall carvings for hours (literally).

    Of course, one of the main reasons the Assyrian stuff is so great compared to other stuff from their time is that they were exceptionally aggressive even by Mesopotamian standards and trashed everywhere else.

  32. They are just showing (in so many ways) that they are not a fit social construct to exist with civilized peoples.

    Wipe them out. And then burn the toilet paper.

  34. My guess is that if the ISIS leadership were taken out, the regional movement would collapse. But that might not be a good thing, as the True Believers would scatter across the globe to cause trouble.

    A sweeping direct confrontation would prove most successful, but I don’t know how that’s achieved given the diplomatic problems involved.

  36. I wonder if the Karen Armstrongs and Rezla Aslans of the world think ISIS do this because of western colonialism?

  37. I can hardly bring myself to see this. I have hardly ever been so very angry. I do not get upset about people like thatin the same way, but this is just irreplaceable, whereas there are plenty of people.

    I hope the ghost of Ashurbanipal pursues them to their hell.

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