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