If Donald Rumsfeld is to be believed, war has a price and the costs should not be evenly distributed. Death, loss of life, and destruction of property are but a small toll to pay for freedom – the former American Defense Secretary declared that the process of liberation is, more often than not, “untidy” and full of difficulties. From a moral perspective, such phrasing is not only insensitive but improperly biased towards the furthering of an ideological or political cause. Should something as complex as death or as irreversible as the degradation of a culture be regarded as simply “untidy?”
When asked about the multiple incidences of looting that sprung up across Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Rumsfeld’s response was curt: stuff happens. He attributed a number of crimes to pent-up feelings, claiming that most sites targeted were symbols of the old regime. There’s no debating that a great many Iraqis were certainly happy to see Hussein gone:
(poor example on my part - the US Military was responsible for taking this one down, though the official story was that their tanks only assisted the efforts of Iraqi citizens)
But is it wise to associate looting, which is something of a social phenomenon, with exhilaration over having been recently freed? Taking a look at the statue pictured above, it takes not even the briefest moment to discern that a stone statue of Saddam Hussein is not a historical marker or monument. Rather, it was but one of many features that contributed to the formation of his “cult of personality” – pictures were hung of the leader in every Iraqi classroom, a tradition concurrent with those of Stalin and Mao.
So, using the logic of Rumsfeld, it’s perfectly sensible that an oppressed people might want to strike back at their oppressor in any way possible. Indeed, multiple statues of Saddam were crushed, portraits burned, and murals erased. Yet it’s not so easy to play off looting as the result of a bad mood or emotional outburst.
Take the National Museum of Iraq. While it, as a government building, was in large part propped up and championed by Hussein, it was not a particularly large cog in the nation’s propaganda machine. If anything, the looting of the NMI would seem a good counterpoint to freedom-newly found – the theft of ancient artifacts is almost always detrimental to a culture’s historical integrity. The ramifications of the NMI’s stripping were likely multi-tiered and compounded by a number of other regional, wartime factors. If the United States fails to recognize the value of Iraq’s heritage, it is, in the end, only hurting its own cause.
Though Rumsfeld made his dismissal of looting nine years ago, his words and casual tone still may reverberate in the international community. With two long and expensive wars behind it, America cannot afford to alienate the people it claims to protect with callousness and an uncaring eye. Quaran burnings, indiscriminate airstrikes, and the forceful implementation of political doctrines have all harmed our efforts in the Middle-East. While I personally am not in favor of either war (or, as is the case now, our war in Iraq), it would seemingly make sense to quell a rebellion by helping the populace in any well possible.
Undoubtedly, much progress has been made in stabilizing Iraqi security in recent years.
