America’s Contempt For History (Other Than Its Own)

Allowing the destruction of Iraq’s art shows the contempt the United States has for other cultures. “The notion that Iraq even has history – let alone that 7,000 years ago this land was the cradle of civilization – is not likely to occur to the neocolonialists running a brawny young nation barely more than 200 years old. The United States’ earnest innocence is the charm that our entertainment industry markets so successfully around the world, but it is also the perennial seed of disaster as we blithely rearrange corners of the planet we only pretend to understand.”