I read the partisan rancor in faulting news outlets for not saying things that are patently false, such as “oh, the people that worked there hid most of the stuff to keep it safe–it wasn’t missing at all.”

The only case so far as I know that the “most of” might approach anything near the truth is in the case of the Basra library, where the librarian Alia managed to get 70% of the collection out before the rest was bombed and burned during the invasion. The full story is here. The losses from the national library in Baghdad were far larger and its fate far grimmer. Read the details here.

More than that, you also said:

Actually, we are only responsible for the things we did, not for what other people have done. That’s rather my point.

My point is that I disagree with that strongly. If you shoot the guard and smash a hole into the wall of the bank, you don’t get to say you’re blameless for the subsequent looting.

Of course Rumsfeld even pish-toshed that, saying, and I quote, “Let me say one other thing. The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it’s the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, ‘My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?’”

If there’s any justice, he’ll have that engraved on his tombstone. I’d prefer his forehead, of course, but the tombstone will do.

*confused look* Maybe you need to re-read my post. You might justifiably say that I have news-outlet rancor, but I fail to see where I showed any partisan rancor.

I’m confused because I don’t see where, exactly, I said that The US troops and Donald Rumsfeld or whoever else was NOT responsible for the damage done on their watch. I’m all for preserving heritage (as long as preserving humans lives comes first) and for taking responsibility for ones actions. Where did I say that Iraqis as a people group were awful people and are to blame for everything? All I said was that that area of the world has a long history of fighting…especially fighting without regard to preserving what we modern westerners would consider valuable historical objects and sites.

Kevin said: “Everything that’s happened since the invasion is our responsibility, so suck it up.”

Actually, we are only responsible for the things we did, not for what other people have done. That’s rather my point. However, the main thing that I was trying to say to Alison is that damage to these things is a hard thing to prevent since there are so many ways that damage is occurring. There’s not much that I, personally, can do to stop it from where I live. However, I can help build a new library (of sorts). Building is a logical response to destruction, in my opinion, not an obscene response (to use Alison’s word).

To be honest, though, I’m sending books because I have friends serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and know how much they enjoy the books. I’ll shut up about the subject now.

Hmm. Yes, well, media outlets aren’t always as accurate as we’d like to think they are. They often neglect to say, “opps, the damage wasn’t as bad as we said” or “oh, the people that worked there hid most of the stuff to keep it safe–it wasn’t missing at all.” Probably “it’s all destroyed!” sells better. But, yes, precious, irreplaceable things of all sorts get destroyed when there’s fighting going on. But locals fighting things out or stealing things to sell on the black market have done more damage than our people.

Remarkably chirpy there, Debbie.

As for “our people,” the Geneva convention rather explicitly states the occupying forces have the responsibility to maintain order and safeguard lives and property, including cultural treasures. Since this happened on our watch, then it’s our bad, as per the rules, and neither you nor Donald Rumsfeld gets to dodge blame by saying “Oh, those awful Iraqis!” Everything that’s happened since the invasion is our responsibility, so suck it up.

As for the books and other cultural treasures, yes, some were destroyed, some were stolen, some were hidden by people with more foresight than Donald Rumsfeld and recovered afterwards. But I’ll raise an eyebrow at “most of” anything being recovered, which is I think a lie on the order of saying “all of” anything has been destroyed.

The plain fact is that significant portions of the library and museum collections were destroyed or scattered, and the way libraries and museums are, there’s no way of knowing what all was lost or destroyed. Librarians and currators are always finding amazing things tucked away in uncatologued or misfiled portions of the collection, so even saying “They saved the most important stuff!” rings false because as any librarian or currator can tell you, the best you can do is to save “the most important stuff that you know about.” An otherwise dumpy Book of Hours can be discovered to be the Archimedes Palimpsest.

But anyway, let’s step aside from the partisan rancor and get back to the point of the exercise which is sending more books.

Hmm. Yes, well, media outlets aren’t always as accurate as we’d like to think they are. They often neglect to say, “opps, the damage wasn’t as bad as we said” or “oh, the people that worked there hid most of the stuff to keep it safe–it wasn’t missing at all.” Probably “it’s all destroyed!” sells better. But, yes, precious, irreplaceable things of all sorts get destroyed when there’s fighting going on. But locals fighting things out or stealing things to sell on the black market have done more damage than our people. Not to mention ancient armies duking things out and razing places. Heck, I’ve even seen tourists destroying the very places they came to see so that they can ‘take a piece home’…and I’ve yelled at them about it. And weather and time do their share of damage. That doesn’t change the fact that physical heritage get destroyed, but I think it’s silly to put all the blame or one person or one nation or whatever.

As Kevin said, all we can really do is try to rebuild what was lost, and donating books is one way to do that.

Honestly, when originally posting this, I thought to say something about the burning of the Baghdad Library, the neighboring Q’uranic library, and the general smashing and scattering of archaeological treasures but it just got me depressed. And I wanted to keep this upbeat and nonpartisan and do something more constructive than designing Dantean punishments for Donald Rumsfeld and not coming up with anything more fitting than having him star in live-action remakes of certain scenes from Farenheit 451.

As it stands, the only constructive approach I can take to the destruction of several libraries is the building of another. Obviously this can neither restore nor replace what has been lost, but speaking as an author, if some evil warlord burned my works–Genghis Khan, Donald Rumsfeld, other assholes yet to be born–I think other authors sending their works in that general direction would be the best answer.

Obviously the Ziggurat Con library is not going to be a permanent thing. Some of the books will be lost and worn out, others will wander to private hands and used book dealers and with time filter into the antiquarian trade, and some remnant of what’s sent may form a collection that languishes in a corner somewhere until donated or otherwise acquired by a library who finds the flyleaf inscriptions an interesting historical documents. They may even be correlated with this post if there’s some graduate student working on his or her thesis and some archive of this blog survives. Hard to know. The immortality of Sappho is a tricky thing.

But I do know that some things survive, and while I can’t unburn a library, I can at least write more books and hope that the ones lost weren’t the only copies.

We can touch these brave men and women. Thanks for the reminder.

Carol