Errors of Omission and Cultural Destruction in Iraq

Most Interesting Sentence: "When they were asked to protect the National Library, U.S. soldiers informed the librarians that 'our orders do not extend to protecting this facility' and that 'we are soldiers, not policemen'" (Knuth, 204).

I find this quote ironic seeing as in 2008, American soldiers are most certainly just heavily armed policemen hoping to quell endless violence in Iraq, but that is neither here nor there.

The point of this article is that when confronted with protecting the precious history and documents of Iraqi museums (and in this case, the National Library), American soldiers simply turned away. I do not believe that this is their fault, however. The Bush Administration took responsibility for Iraq back in 2003 under false pretenses, and never actually took responsibility for it in the process.

One of the greatest achievements in the history of Western Civilization was the preservation of, well, its history. It was translated and shared, and it formed the basis of our education via Aristotle for a great number of years. As with so many things in the Iraq War, the Bush Administration turned a blind eye to the destruction and looting of history.

While I know that the author of this article is controversial and has even printed a retraction of sorts in the past (I even found a glaring typo without even trying), that does not change the simple fact that with prior warning from the academic community, nothing was done to protect treasures that were not just important to Iraq, but the world.