Historic City of
Ur basking in the glow of depleted uranium weaponry -JH
Not only do the coalition forces risk destroying the
civilian infastructure, with many deaths and casualties amongst
the Iraqi population, but they are in danger of destroying many
sites of world heritage status.
Much attention is currently being paid to the struggle
in and around the Tomb of Ali in the southern town of Najaf, with
the realisation that the US and British may earn the undying emnity
of the followers of Shia Islam if their most holy site is damaged
or desecrated.
However, it is probably of interest to the whole of
humanity that both this site, and the earliest sites of human 'civilization'
are not pounded into dust by the barbarity of modern warfare.
It is worrying that as the US Army approaches Babylon,
Nineveh, Ur, Eridu and all those ancient cities, ziggurats and temples
which are the foundation of all we have today in this great society,
its stock of guided munitions has run perilously low.
Along with reducing Iraq " . . .to the Stone
Age", as Henry Kissinger once so famously threatened to do
to another small nation (illegally) in South -East Asia a few decades
ago, the Bush regime will also manage to eradicate the roots of
human history.
But what can you expect of people who hear the word
'culture' and reach for their guns?
Mesopotamia is the suspected
spot known as the "Garden of Eden." Ur of the Chaldees, and that's
where Abraham came from, (that's just north of the traditional site
of the Garden of Eden, about twenty-five miles northeast of Eridu,
at present Mughair), was a great and famous Sumerian city, dating
from this time. Predating the Babylonian by about 2,000 years, was
Noah, who lived in Fara, 100 miles southeast of Babylon (from Bab-ili,
meaning "Gate of God"). The early Assyrians, some of the earliest
people there, were known to be warriors, so the first wars were
fought there, and the land has been full of wars ever since. The
Assyrians were in the northern part of Mesopotamia and the Babylonians
more in the middle and southern part. (see
links for more information)
