[lbo-talk] Juan on looting then and now

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Sep 4 08:05:51 PDT 2005


http://www.juancole.com/2005/09/looting-there-looting-here-fallujah.html

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Looting There, Looting Here

<snip>

In April of 2003 the US military stood by and allowed Baghdad to be

looted. Not only were private establishments emptied, but all the

major ministries (except the Ministry of Petroleum) were looted and

burned. When Iraqis complained to the new occupation authority, the

GI's informed them that stopping the looting was "not the mission."

The documents from the Baath Foreign Ministry that might have shed

light on the dealings of Reagan, Bush senior, Schultz and Rumsfeld

with Saddam Hussein before 1990 were helpfully burned. The modern

history of Iraq, including cabinet meetings from the 1930s and 1940s,

mostly went up in smoke (it would be as though the US National

Archives for every administration since Roosevelt was burned, along

with all microfilm copies). The Iraq Museum, a key repository for

ancient Iraqi civilization and the history of humankind, was looted of

dozens of major pieces and thousands of lesser ones.

The widespread looting and the breakdown of order started Iraq on its

descent into chaos. [iraq_looting.jpg]

What was the response of the man responsible for one of the most

damaging debacles in the history of modern Iraq? Secretary of Defense

Donald Rumsfeld said,

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and

commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said . . . Looting, he

added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant

social upheaval. "Stuff happens," Rumsfeld said.

In late summer of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina recast New Orleans as a

latter-day Atlantis, displacing a million persons and reducing

hundreds of thousands to dire poverty, a wave of looting broke out in

the city. Some legal scholars argued that where people felt their

lives were in danger because of a natural disaster, they actually had

the right to take food, medicine and water--and other materials

necessary to their survival-- from abandoned stores. [orleansloot.jpg]

So the Bush administration treated Louisiana's Walmart managers the

same way it treated Iraqi property holders, right? After all, "stuff

happens," right? Free people are free to make errors and commit crimes

in times of crisis, correct?

Nope.

' "Saying he was carrying a message from U.S. President George W.

Bush, New Orleans U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said police and

prosecutors were ready to hunt down a small group of criminals

responsible for "horrendous" crimes in the stricken city. "The

streets of New Orleans belong to its citizens, not the violent

thugs who have stuck their heads up out of holes in an attempt to

exploit a national tragedy," Letten told reporters. "Not one inch

of that city is going to be ceded to the criminal element," he said

in Baton Rouge. "Not one inch." '

So I guess it just depends on whose property is being destroyed and

looted, whether Bush bothers to send in US troops to stop looting.

The Iraqis are noticing the contrast, and remarking on it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/02/AR2005090202174.html

<snip>

Michael



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list