James, can you please provide the group with your documentation for your
statement:
"When this line first opened it was the military through orders of
leadership who refused to guard precious treasures in the museums and
libraries of Iraq."   Do you have copies or evidence of orders given NOT to
provide security and guards around 5,000 museums and historical sites, PLUS
all the hospitals and other buildings?   Especially, since the area was not
totally secured and hostile action was still taking place in Baghdad.  Could
that statement be simply be personal bias and opinion?  Thanks.

Back in the battle......

John


----- Original Message -----
From: "James Schulte" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2003 7:21 AM
Subject: Re: Iraqis, looting and the press


>     Ok I promised to remain hush on this issue but I have to somewhat
agree
> with Deb. When this line first opened it was the military through orders
of
> leadership who refused to guard precious treasures in the museums and
> libraries of Iraq. As we all found out , experts in the field warned the
> Bush administration months before they invaded this country of this
> possibility and the need to protect these treasures. This went on deaf
ears
> and resulted in three  resignations in protest to the Washington
> Comission.As time progressed it wasn't the citizens of Iraq attempting to
> smuggle these artifacts out of the country but a few foolhardy soldiers
and
> news coorespondants.As for the media sensationalizing this event , I
believe
> the media has sensationalized the war as a whole and will act upon this
> stoory and others.A question was posed on the group earlier in this line I
> believe and it was "How do we educate our children about this war?" I have
> sat back and contemplated this question because it is very complex. What
to
> teach is the complexity.We have seen journalism reach a new level, we have
> seen what once was a coalition united separated, we have seen world
> organizations created for peace torn apart and used as a ploy and
> unfortuneately as an american we have thus far seen our President, his
> Secretary of State , and our Secretary of Defense use forged documants and
> irresponsible evidence to justify this objective and come up empty
> handed.Through all this I have still given Bush the benefit of the doubt,
> but daily this doubt decreases. We claim to be the worlds most powerful
> country, we claim to have had such conclusive evidence as to where all
this
> crap Saddam Hussein stored and was building, but to maintain world peace
we
> chose not to share this information with the United Nations. We chose not
to
> listen to the worlds experts as to the priceless artifacts and what would
> occur in an invasion. Well I'm sorry but when you have a Bush, Dick and
> Colon running a country are any of you surprised?I as an African American
ad
> mired Colin Powell, but have lost confidence in his leadership
capabilities
> as of late because he played into this crap.The jouranlist do have a
> responsibility in this conflict and it is reporting, and normally it is
bias
> and geared to sympathy.As a historian I dont know what to teach children
> about this war, there are so many angles, so much information, I just hope
> it doesn't come down in a mandate from Bush administrations Department of
> Education
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Deb Fuller" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, May 09, 2003 9:43 PM
> Subject: Iraqis, looting and the press
>
>
> > You know, I don't think I've seen one message in the whole looting
> discussion
> > about how the press has really distorted this whole issue. Yet people on
> this
> > list - who are probably better educated than 99% of the world's
> population -
> > are quick to belive what they read and slam the US and the troops for
> first not
> > protecting the museum adequately and then for trying to gloss over the
> whole
> > incident.
> >
> > Could it be that the press - to use a quaint Southern expression - is
> "letting
> > its mockingbird mouth get ahead of its jaybird behind"? (Sanitized for
> > propriety's sake. ;)
> >
> > I live in the Washington, DC area and during the sniper attacks of last
> year,
> > got a very eye-opening view of how quickly the press is to jump on a
> little
> > fact, irregardless of its significance or validity, and make a
full-blown
> story
> > out of it. I had just been laid off so needless to say I wasn't sleeping
> well
> > and spent many nights flipping channels. After one attack, the vehicle
> > description of the "sniper van" literally changed every hour. The main
> suspect
> > vehicles for the whole incident were a white box truck or a white cargo
> van.
> > For this shooting, it started out that way, then turned to a cream
colored
> van,
> > then a cream colored van with right tail light out, then a cream colored
> van
> > with the left tail light out, then it was a cream colored van with just
a
> tail
> > light out but also keep looking for that box truck and that ubiquitious
> white
> > cargo van. When the sniper was finally caught, he was in a blue Chevy
> > hatchback. Yet the press had everyone in the area practically in a panic
> every
> > time they saw a white cargo van, one of the most common vehicles on the
> road.
> >
> > During the war, the press was criticized for reporting just the war and
> doing
> > very little commentating on it. Wow, for once they were just doing their
> jobs.
> > It's kind of hard to spin information if you are on the battlefield and
> getting
> > shot at and have strict controls on what you are allowed to say. But now
> it
> > seems like the press is more than making up for it by latching on to any
> little
> > story and running with it. The US press is very liberal as a whole and
> doesn't
> > like Bush, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld or getting into this war but rallied
around
> the
> > troops like everyone else. Now the main fighting is over and they are
back
> to
> > picking on the troops, and the whole Bush administration. I'm sure some
of
> it
> > is warrented like the lack of planning for looting. But I'm really
> skeptical
> > about how blown off UNESCO experts were or how little the troops did to
> stop
> > the looting. Given that in the sniper case, a blue Chevy hatchback was
> turned
> > into a white box truck, cargo van and cream colored van with a tail
light
> out,
> > I'm not surprised to hear that the Iraqi museum went from completely
> stripped
> > to "Oh, sorry, we forgot we put all these artifacts down here. We really
> only
> > lost about 30 or 40." Loosing artifacts is tragic, don't get me wrong,
but
> it's
> > a far cry from a bunch of troops sitting on their duffs while people
> blithely
> > walked in and carted off 4000 years of history.
> >
> > So people, please. Don't jump to conclusions about what is in the press.
> Like
> > most major happenings, the whole truth rarely comes out until many years
> > afterwards when it can be looked at objectively from all angles. Right
> now,
> > we're too close to the entire war to really understand what happened,
what
> went
> > wrong and the major impacts of it and probably won't be in a position to
> > understand it for years to come.
> >
> > Deb
> >
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