Looters Ransack Iraq's National Library

Former Member · April 2003

The cultureless Yankee barbarians have done it again. They are the true successors to the Mongol Hordes of Genghis Khan. . .

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Looters and arsonists ransacked and gutted Iraq (news - web sites)'s National Library, leaving a smoldering shell Tuesday of precious books turned to ash and a nation's intellectual legacy gone up in smoke.

They also looted and burned Iraq's principal Islamic library nearby, home to priceless old Qurans; last week, thieves swept through the National Museum and stole or smashed treasures that chronicled this region's role as the "cradle of civilization."

"Our national heritage is lost," an angry high school teacher, Haithem Aziz, said as he stood outside the National Library's blackened hulk. "The modern Mongols, the new Mongols did that. The Americans did that. Their agents did that," he said as an explosion boomed in the distance as the war winds down.

The Mongols, led by Genghis Khan's grandson Hulegu, sacked Baghdad in the 13th century. Today, the rumors on the lips of almost all Baghdadis is that the looting that has torn this city apart is led by U.S.-inspired Kuwaitis or other non-Iraqis bent on stripping the city of everything of value. . .

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20030415/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_lost_treasures_2

Former Member · April 2003

I think it was done with purpose.

The Purim Moon

Ariel Sharon. Richard Perle. Paul Wolfowitz. Douglas Feith. David Wurms. Ari Fleischer. Jack Straw. Elliott Abrams. William Cohen. James Schlesinger. David Frum. Bill Kristol. William Safire. Charles Krauthammer. Joe Lieberman. You know the names. Perhaps you can think of others.

They won't be on the battlefield. They won't be shot at and killed. They won't suffer from the effects of some new form of
Gulf War Syndrome.

But for weeks and months the rats have been scurrying about in a frantic effort to bring about a war for others to fight. And all of it for the sake of a particular ethnic agenda, rather than the true interests of America.

Now they have succeeded.

As darkness fell this evening at the start of the Purim festival.* a puppet president read a speech prepared for him by his handlers, in which he issued an ultimatum that amounts to a virtual declaration of war** against a country which has not attacked us. Speaking from behind a lectern bearing a presidential seal in which a conspicuous Star of David is embedded, the symbolism could not have been more obvious.

It is no coincidence that there is but one other country in the world where a vast majority of citizens support this wanton and blatant act of unprovoked aggression. That country is, of course, the Jewish state of Israel!

And it will not be doing the fighting. That will be left for others.

It is the full moon, Purim 2003. The slaughter of tens of thousands is about to begin.

* Purim is the traditional celebration of the slaughter of tens of thousands of aryan Persians in the days of Queen Esther and is the most joyous day on the Jewish calendar.

As the day does not begin for Jews with the rising sun, but with the coming of darkness. their Purim festival commences this year on the evening of March 17 and culminates on the 18th. They are gathering with special anticipation this year, as the kabbalistic number 18__6 + 6 + 6 __is sacred to them, as is the single cardinal number 6.

** There once was a time in America when, under the Constitution, only the Congress had the right to declare war.

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66

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
Jews see significance in Purim war

FROM THEIR OWN MOUTHS

For rabbis, itas no coincidence war on Iraq again linked to Purim Jewish Telegraph Agency Tuesday, March 18, 2003

By JOE BERKOFSKY

NEW YORK Purim celebrates the ancient Jewish victory over evil in Persia, but this year it also signaled war against Iraq.

Few Jewish leaders and thinkers failed to hear the historic echoes.

Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Conservative movementas Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and a tough critic of the war against Iraq, pointed to the Fast of Esther, which precedes the holiday and falls on the 13th of Adar on the Jewish calendar, which this year came on Monday.

"We are on the 13th of Adar, we are on the dark side of Purim," Schorsch said. "It will take some time before we reach the light side."

Schorsch, who called Iraq "a paper tiger that we have turned into a mortal enemy" despite greater threats from countries such as North Korea, was not alone in drawing historic parallels between Purim and the Iraq war.

Others drew very different lessons.

Blu Greenberg, an Orthodox feminist leader based in New York, supports the Bush administrationas campaign against Iraq as a "preventive war," much as the ancient Jews defended themselves against Haman's plot to destroy them.

TALMUD: 'KILL THEM!'

Watching President Bush's speech to the nation on Monday, Greenberg said she was struck by the similarities between the talmudic principle that "if someone comes to kill you, you should rise up and kill them first."

While she remains "ambivalent" about the war and would have
preferred a diplomatic solution, "this seems to be a war of self-
defense in the long-range scheme of things."

Though some Jews criticize the intensity with which the ancient Jews fought back against Haman and his kin, "to me it's always
mind-boggling that when someone comes to kill you and you defend yourself, you're accused of being bloodthirsty," Greenberg said.

Like the Purim story in the Book of Esther, there is no mention of God in this conflict either, she added.

Conservative Rabbi Mark Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, posted an online davar Torah, or interpretation of the Torah, linking Purim and the war.

Diamond timed his writing for Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath before Purim, when Jews are told both to remember their ancient enemy Amalek and not to forget him.

Jewish sages have interpreted Amalek as a source of evil that reappears in different form from generation to generation.

Like others, [Rabbi Yosef] Kanefsky also found it hard to ignore Purim's messages, particularly since the 1991 Gulf War also ended on Purim.

SADDAM COMPARED TO HITLER

"On Purim, the Jews gathered and put their enemies to the sword. At the same time, they did not take the booty of war," Kanefsky said. "That is the Megillah's way of saying war is not about personal gain or plundering, but about saving our lives and our children's lives."

Rabbi Martin Weiner of San Francisco, outgoing president of the Reform movement's rabbinical union, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, used Shabbat Zachor to draw a line from Amalek to Hitler to Saddam.

A modern-day Amalek, Saddam has attacked four of his neighbors, gassed tens of thousands of his own people and pays stipends to suicide bombers, Weiner said, so "it's terribly important to remove him."

Last September, Weiner was among those who backed a resolution from the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations urging a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, if Congress supported it and U.N. backing was sought.

But for Reform Rabbi Don Rossoff, of Temple B'nai Or in Morristown, N.J., Amalek casts a very different shadow.

Rossoff said he has refrained from publicly sermonizing this Purim about the war, which he opposes, because he is "haunted by Baruch Goldstein, who called the Arabs Amalek."

Goldstein, a doctor in an Israeli settlement near the West Bank city of Hebron, shot to death 29 Palestinians praying in Hebronas Tomb of the Patriarch on Purim Day in 1994.

Saddam is "a tyrannical, murderous dictator" who "would probably wipe out Israel if he could," Rossoff added. "But heas not the only one around. His name just starts with SH,' ? like Haman.

OPEN SEASON FOR ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACKS

Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for the New York based Orthodox Agudath Israel of America, said war has made it open season for anti-Semitic attacks in the form of slander just as Jewish tradition holds that Amalek represented cynicism, and Haman symbolized evil speech.

Shafran pointed to Conservative pundit Pat Buchanan, who accused Jews of egging on the 1991 Persian Gulf War and has made similar comments this time around, and Rep. James Moran (D-Va.), who has blamed Jews in the Bush administration for pushing the United States toward war.

Instead of making outright anti-Semitic comments, such slander is
"snide and insinuating," Shafran said, and is accepted as political criticism.

"Once again, everything is focused on the Jews," Shafran said. "If we're not baking Christians into our matzah, we must be warmongering."

For Rabbi Mordecai Finley, of the unaffiliated Ohr HaTorah Congregation in Los Angeles, Purim has taken on new meaning.

Last Purim, Finley recalled, he sensed a wave of anti-Semitism coming from Europe and left-wing groups in the United States.

Now he is "heartened" that Bush is "willing to draw a line" against evil, he said.

"Last year it felt like the 12th of Adar," Finley said, referring to the day before the Jews began fighting back against their enemies. "This year I feel like it's the 13th of Adar. The battle has begun."

Remember the LIBERTY!

Former Member · April 2003

terrible isn't it, but if there was a war on here and there had been sanctions for years I think I'd break into the museums too!!!

Former Member · April 2003

of course we could blame the 'looters' for the 'looting', that would seem sensible.

Oh fuck it, lets blame the americans, Imsure its there fault some how in some twisted perverted way :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Former Member · April 2003

Originally posted by Semper Eadem
of course we could blame the 'looters' for the 'looting', that would seem sensible.

Oh fuck it, lets blame the americans, Imsure its there fault some how in some twisted perverted way :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

The looting was resulted by American attack, also they are guilty for not preventing it.
I suppose they was more busy guarding oil platforms :rolleyes:

Former Member · April 2003

The looting was resulted by American attack, also they are guilty for not preventing it.

I think it was more to do with, we the Iraqi people have nothing and look at what our leadership has got, its not the americans fault at all, they arent the ones looting.

I suppose when a bomb goes off Europe you are gonna blame the chinese for inventing gunpowder are you? :rolleyes:

Former Member · April 2003

Originally posted by Semper Eadem
I think it was more to do with, we the Iraqi people have nothing and look at what our leadership has got, its not the americans fault at all, they arent the ones looting.

The crime was committed by anti-Sadam, pro-American mob. NOT THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ !

Former Member · April 2003

I suppose when a bomb goes off Europe you are gonna blame the chinese for inventing gunpowder are you?

No, i'm going to blame bush'n'blair for electing themselves the worlds protector, police, detective, big brother, judge, jury and cheif executioner.

Besides, if the bomb that goes off is gunpower based I don't think too much damage will be done.

Looters Ransack Iraq's National Library

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