ghaith and i spent a little quality time at the national museum. i was interested in seeing it because i had heard that coalition forces (i’m really getting tired of that term) had blown out every ministry except the one that runs the oil and energy. from what i could tell this was true (though i didn’t look at EVERY one, this was confirmed from the 8 or so i did see). i heard from more than a single eyewitness in baghdad, as i had in basra, that the ministries were blown open by troops and then, once the doors were unlatched, they let the locals in to help themselves.

cultural eradication like this seemed monstrous and sensible, like assassination, only on a far, far larger scale.

a reporter for the Independent, named Robert Fisk claims to have been there at the museum and to have seen it. according to his report he saw the fires, and went to get help from something that resembled a local authority; the US Marines. Fisk wrote in The Independent, “I gave the map location, the precise name in Arabic and English. I said the smoke could be seen from three miles away and it would take only five minutes to drive there. Half an hour later, there wasn’t an American at the scene and the flames were shooting 200 feet into the air.”

now i dont know the first thing about taking over a country, but i have to say that this makes a certain sooty sense to me. if i’m going to be importing a new culture then i need to do a pretty good job of getting rid of the old, right? and if that process requires some level of violence (let’s face it, heart surgery isn’t pretty) then, being under the media’s scrutiny and the world’s watchful eye it would make sense to me to let all that violence be done by the local residents; displace the blame and get the job done.

so what i think happened was just that; the troops blew the locks on the ministries they wanted revamped (that is, all but the energy ministry), let the unwashed masses in, these folks make a big mess of things, and then the US army can sit back and make two claims: 1) Well, that wasn’t our fault. The Eye-raqis did it, not us. and 2) See? They need a firm hand of governance to help them run things round here. Damn good thing we’re here, ain’t it, Joe?

war is never, ever clean, but this comes close. because being “clean” has more to do with blame than intent.

war these days is first about the media. second about the military.

What do the Iraqis think of all of this? Well wait a second, that is a bad sentence. That is something CNN would say, as if asking a few people their opinions entitles you to speak on behalf of the entire country. All right then, what did the people with whom Meadows traveled think of all this?

my final, most vivid memory of baghdad was of driving through the goddam heat, with the melting ice in the back, and arras and manal in front. they were singing. they started singing nonsense songs, just repeating the word “freedom” over and over again, or arras hanging out the window and screaming his friends names, just to say hello, or screaming “fuck sadddam” out the window as if (as it might have been) the first time he had freedom to do something like that. we would drive by some image of saddam (all these faces of his were destroyed) and arras would laugh a victory laugh and seemed in a state of violent prayer.

they seemed not only content with what is happening to their country, but elated. if the devil himself had invaded….

i dont know what will happen to the people of iraq. but, by their estimation, they are in better shape today than they were a year ago. they tell me that their appreciation will hold if the united states treats them fairly.

i suppose now is when the work really begins.

Amen to that.