Malwiya – “Today’s barbaric occupiers display Mongol-like disrespect for their imperial prize.”

The 52-metre (170-foot) Malwiya tower in City of Samarra has been Damaged

“U.S. forces subdued the city [Samarra] on the Tigris last October [2004], but some of the city’s resistance fighters regrouped in Fallujah, the City of Mosques, which was of course destroyed by a ferocious attack in November. Samarra itself has been a site of ongoing military action, so the U.S. troops who now own it have naturally sought to employ its highest buildings as lookout posts.

Appropriating everything they wished, they established a lookout atop the minaret, and posted snipers there. According to Reuters, “Crouched behind sandbags, U.S. sniperssometimes fired at militants from the minaret.” Local people wrote letters of protest about this abuse of the holy place. (added emphasis)

According to al-Jazeera, U.S. forces left the post two weeks ago, but Iraqi police report that after their departure the top floor was blasted by insurgents. The Boston Globe reported that two men were observed entering the structure and that they placed a bomb that produced the explosion before fleeing the premises. Debris of crumbled brick and clay was blown down onto the ramps, and Agence France Press reported a jagged hole on the top level.

It’s hard to understand why any insurgent faction would target the mosque. It is a Sunni mosque, but respected by the Shiites, and Shiites haven’t been attacking Sunni mosques anyway. A colleague in Middle Eastern history suggests that insurgents might have wanted to prevent it from being used as a sniper position in future.

… What I was raised to consider “Judeo-Christian ethics” are conspicuously absent in occupied Mesopotamia. U.S. troops have tortured and sexually abused innocent civilians, and killed tens of thousands. From the bizarre killing of the Baghdad Zoo’s prized Bengal tiger to the contamination of land, rivers and atmosphere, to the doubling of child malnutrition, the invasion piles up crime upon crime. It is as though it were seeking to so impress the subject population with arbitrary cruelty that it will be terrorized into submission (added emphasis).

Indeed, Iraqis compare this occupation with the Mongol invasion led by Hulegu Khan in the 1250s, which destroyed Baghdad’s canal network, sacked the library, and slaughtered 80,000 men, women and children. Hulegu (grandson of Genghis Khan) had demanded that the last Abbasid caliph, al-Mutasim, recognize Mongol sovereignty, rather like George W. Bush demanded Saddam grovel before U.S. imperial demands. Al-Mutasim refused, thinking the Muslim world would rally to his side should the Mongols invade. He miscalculated.

Today’s barbaric occupiers display Mongol-like disrespect for their imperial prize.“Let’s take over the minaret,” they reason, and if that usage makes a precious monument a target, and it gets damaged, well, it’s the Iraqis’ just desserts. (added emphasis) The foot soldiers of the new Golden Horde are encouraged to believe that Iraqis must be subdued in order to protect the U.S. from more 9-11s.

Better their buildings get blown up than ours, even those of theirs that have been there for hundreds or thousands of years. History doesn’t matter. Like Bush told CBS’s 60 Minutes last April: “History? We don’t know. We’ll all be dead.” And what will the dead (or the “raptured” (added reference)) care about Iraq’s National Library or the Ishtar Gate or the Malwiya Minaret?”

The Bombing of the Malwiya Minaret April 4, 2005