Islamic State (IS) militants beheaded an antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his body on a column in a main square of the historic site, Syria's antiquities chief said on Tuesday.
IS, whose insurgents control swathes of Syria and Iraq, captured Palmyra in central Syria from government forces in May, but are not known to have damaged its monumental Roman-era ruins despite their reputation for destroying artifacts they view as idolatrous under their puritanical interpretation of Islam.
Syrian state antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said the family of Khaled Asaad had informed him that the 82-year-old scholar who worked for over 50 years as head of antiquities in Palmyra was executed by Islamic State on Tuesday.
Asaad had been detained and interrogated for over a month by the ultra-radical Sunni Muslim militants, he told Reuters.
"Just imagine that such a scholar who gave such memorable services to the place and to history would be beheaded ... and his corpse still hanging from one of the ancient columns in the center of a square in Palmyra," Abdulkarim said.
"The continued presence of these criminals in this city is a curse and bad omen on (Palmyra) and every column and every archaeological piece in it." (AP)
...yeah ya think?
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"...his corpse still hanging from one of the ancient columns..."
Something the Romans whose town this was would have been used to. They'd be confused at out horror, and outrage.
"Hey what's you're problem it's just some guy."
So Isis, and the Romans, and really all of the empires, and city states of that time are on the same page. It's just that we've had a few thousand years of experience to see it was a pretty bad idea.
Isis however is 'old school' when it comes to justice. Basically if you piss them or their gawds off they cut you the hell up...if you're lucky. If not they have a bit of fun at your expense instead.
Sorry gang as I say I feel morally bound to remind you that these guys are still around, and still very much at it.
Why the world community allows this? Well we mostly have our own problems, and we figure It''ll go away after a while.
You know like then Nazis guys or Pol Pot's boys or that ongoing African genocide thing, and maybe that Balkan thing. Ya know yeah it'll solve itself.
Although there's a little good news.
Turkey who's right next door to all this noise. These humanitarians just let Obama's air force use some air bases over there to bomb the bleeping hell out of some Isis positions.
A small step, but hey when it comes to an ongoing genocide we'll take what we can get.
Tip to the Flying Tigers, liberal use of ....500 lb. Demolition Bombs a big taste of Napalm then hose down the target area with 20mm Cannon. Go Medieval on'em. They'll be nothing, but amoebas left.
...wish I could go with you. Never piss off a Pacifist!
Uncle Syd in War time!
Stay Tuned.
The Romans were NOT on the same page as the IS asswipes. Yes, they could be brutal, but they would not have tortured an elderly scholar for a month and then viciously cut his head off for *religious* reasons. That sort of thing is a specialty of the Abrahamic faiths at their worst. There's a level of totalitarianism here that's far beyond that of the Romans, not in the same league at all. For example, the Romans valued *art,* and even commissioned a good deal of it; the ISwipes systematically destroy it as a matter of course.
ReplyDeleteAlso, we are not guilt-free in this situation, not at all. If we hadn't destabilized the Middle East with our invasions and hadn't killed hundreds of thousands of people there who never did us any harm, this would not be happening.
When it comes to standing up for the values it claims to believe in, the West is an absolute failure. Just look at how Germany has been butt-raping Greece, after that country decisively voted No to austerity: that's what the West *really* thinks of democracy. We're a fraud. That's why the IS filth is allowed to continue: our hearts aren't really in defeating it. Wall Street's interests aren't served by putting resources into that objective.
BTW, I've also read lately that the ISwipes have been inducing small children to stone to death gay men who have been thrown from the tops of tall buildings. Such is the beauty of Islam.
There's a form of hatred that I'd like to promote: hatred for war. Why don't people hate war the way they used to, the way they should? What's wrong with us, that we find it acceptable? If we didn't, it's unlikely IS would ever have become a significant force.
Not that I mind seeing IS getting the crap bombed out of them, at this point. Serves 'em right, and I hope they get wiped off the face of the earth, the way their evil belief system should be.
Z
I have to agree with you completely Z.
ReplyDeleteOkay I stand corrected about our political ancestors the Romans. Btw the Turks are being strong-armed into joining the Coalition Air Campaign against Isis.
ReplyDeleteTheir problem is they want to see the Kurds wiped out which Isis is gleefully doing for them. This is what happens when you have a 16 sided war in progress. Also yes there's no real interest by our owners to do anything about this nightmare or any of the others currently in progress.
Genocide is good for business.
Look at history it always has been. The western Europeans sat on their hands for near a decade during the Balkan Genocide. Nobody gave a fuck about Rwanda the Sudan northern Nigeria or Tibet. Business is business.
Nobody cares about the mass migration of peoples caused by the World Economic System slowly collapsing around us. The U.S. build walls that would have put the one that used to be in Berlin to shame.
Australia either turns refugee boat back to sea...some of these sank. some bodies washed up on Australian beaches,...so a few finally made it.Either that or dumps them on off-shore islands till they agree to be deported. Britain, and France are militarizing the "Chunnel" to stop the flow of suffering humanity. Right-wing Brit terrorists tried to drive in a van full of explosives to disable the damned Chunnel so big is the heart of the Sceptred Isle.
So yeah it's the opening act of that 500+ year long Dark Age Event. Some failed States are already up to Chapter three of the production. others as in the west are still in the prologue.
Eh, that means we have TV high speed connection, and they still deliver the pizza. I think we will have for about another 15/20 years. then the middle class vanishes, and only the protected wealthy will have these.
Another 50/100 year later they loose it too, Then only the surviving Wealthiest Corporations, and their Vassal Communities will have internet porn.
Outside of this it will be Mad-Max-Solylent Green time...for a Long Time.
Sure a few outposts of sanity will be guarding literacy arts, and trigonometry. However we'll be very remote, and very quiet. We'll be in it for the long haul, and will re-appear when the times becomes right for laffs again.
Of course i mean all this in a nice way.
Stay tuned.
I think you've got the general picture for the next few centuries basically right, Sid. Usta be I wanted to move to Europe, & maybe I woulda been happier there for the past 20+ years if I'd stayed in Italy in '92 (studied there for a while). But at this point... I think those countries are fixing to be swept under by some of the most colossal population movements in history, mostly from the ME and North Africa. What is now a trickle will become a flood. The historian Oswald Spengler predicted decades ago that Russia would be the next great empire, & that picture seems to be shaping up right on schedule.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't want to get us all into a funk. So lemme point you to some idealism and beauty. Check out something called the Nautilus House, by a Mexican architect named Senosiain. It's the sort of thing we need to be building for ourselves while we copy out our texts on trig and nav. astronomy - ideal for queer Faeries. And you don't need to be no millionaire to live in it - it's quite small & comfy. I want one just like it!
Z
Anon, thanks for your righteous endorsement. It's pretty dispiriting to me how few USA'ers seem to want to know what's really going on in the world. I don't happen to know if other western countries are the same way.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, about Russia - it's really too bad their social agenda is apparently getting set by the ROC & that mossback Milonov, who seems to a sort of Russian-style Jesse Helms. I hope they'll change their minds in the fullness of time, but it doesn't look too promising so far. I wouldn't be surprised if there's already been an uptick in the suicide rates of Russian gay kids on account of that anti-gay "propaganda" law the mossback put through.
Back to visionary idealism!
Z