Looting of museums, banks, shops, factories--South Central LA writ large

[Tim May]

Baghdad will be a basket case for decades to come...

The power vacuum as the old regime left, and as U.S. soldiers are 
staying out of any police action, has given widespread looting. 
Probably by a mix of the peasants grabbing everything they can, 
factional revenge, and even deliberate arson by "stay behind" forces.

Abu Dhabi t.v. is showing hundreds of scenes of small shops being 
looted. Shop-owners face financial devastation, as their stock is 
taken...they probably either have no insurance (their fault, of 
course), or war exclusions or loss of records as the buildings are 
burning will prevent any compensation.

No fire service, no water for fire-fighting.

It looks from the several satellite channels I am monitoring that more 
infrastructure/business damage is  happening as a result of the looting 
and arson than from the 1991 and 2003 bombing campaigns combined. And 
with no sign that it will stop until every business has been stripped 
bare and torched.

CNN reports that the national museums have been looted, with the 
Sumerian and Babylonian artifacts carted off by thousands of looters. 
One analyst said a lot of ancient artifacts will be appearing over the 
next several years in European art auctions. (In cases where the Sacred 
Bowl of Hammarabi is not being used as a cooking bowl by a family in 
Saddam City.)

The long-term implications are clear: Baghdad will not be much of a 
tourist attraction or regional cultural center for many years to come. 
This will of course worsen the basket case nature of Iraq and will 
probably result in the eventual (maybe sooner rather than later) return 
of a "strong man" regime.

And Americans will be expected to "rebuild" Baghdad.

Ain't gonna happen. Stealing our money to rebuild a country we bombed 
because we didn't like their leader is going to be further grounds for 
action against Washington, D.C.

(Too bad we can't cause its government to evacuate so the negroes can 
rampage and finish _it_ off the way Baghadis are destroying their city.)


--Tim May, Occupied America
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary 
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.