Destroying Babylon

There was a report this morning on NPR about the ancient ruins of Babylon and Camp Alpha, the army base that has been built on top of it. To say the least I'm frustrated and disappointed. This is one of the oldest cities in the world, the cradle of our damn civilization... and we're bulldozing helicopter pads and filling sand bags... this is above and beyond allowing the looting that we did, this is like pissing on the grave of humanity.

I found a couple articles about it, like this one...

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wobaby133848417jun13,0,4603741.story?coll=ny-worldn ews-headlines

but it seemed from the NPR report that things were worse than the official story out of the CPA. go figure. http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1973682
not just at Babylon but at some of the other 10,000 some sites in Iraq.

It just shows me the utter lack of respect that we would even build bases on historic sites. It's everyone's history. Tragic loss... I'm so pissed.

•  This can't be true ?!?

  The backlash from the rest of the world (the civilized world) would be incredible. Fuck this has just disgusted me beyond what I believe I could bear from this administration.

  by banjon on Thu Jun 24, 2004 at 08:25:01 AM PDT

  •  believe it

    in a twisted disgusting way i'm impressed... can any other administration claim to have fucked up the present, the future, AND the past?! bastards...

    by gregonthe28th on Thu Jun 24, 2004 at 08:31:42 AM PDT

•  Revelation?

  Inquiring minds want to know:  Does Babylon figure anywhere in the literature of the Christian apocalypse?  Would destroying Babylon be part of bringing on the Second Coming?

  by Dancing Larry on Thu Jun 24, 2004 at 08:38:24 AM PDT

  •  The Whore of Babylon

    figures quite prominently in the Book of Revelation.  That said, there is very little consensus about what she represents.  Variously, folks suggest it might signify: a)The Roman Catholic Church; b)Rebuilt Babylon; c)Apostate Christianity; d)Rome; e)The Evil World System; f)Jerusalem.

    What exactly we are to make of the destruction and reconstruction of Babylon, the, is up for grabs hermeneutically.
    

    by Chazz on Thu Jun 24, 2004 at 08:46:51 AM PDT

•  In the run up to war

  and the invasion there ws talk on certain boards of taking down Babylon, or a siege on Babylon.  Som e of it was posted in threads at dKos and elsewhere.  Whatever it may mean in Revelations, it has been conveniently coopted.
  For some it always was a crusade, that that too likely included BushCo seals it.

  I'd really like this odd American christianism out of my life.

  by Marisacat on Thu Jun 24, 2004 at 09:31:34 AM PDT

•  I'm sure we'll fix any damage we've done

  After all, the above article tells us how Saddam made his lasting mark on Babylon:
  Saddam Hussein put his own mark on Babylon, stamping his name into bricks used in a 1980s reconstruction of Nebuchadnezzar's palace walls. His bricks read: "The City of Babylon was reconstructed during the era of the victorious Saddam Hussein, President of the Republic, protector of the great Iraq, the modernizer of its renaissance and builder of its civilization."

  All we need is a slight name change, maybe a few corporate logos, and the entire Middle East will be thanking us for the newly restored Babylonian theme park.  It's all about hearts and minds, isn't it?
  

  by SB in GR on Thu Jun 24, 2004 at 10:15:25 AM PDT

•  Two hundred years from now...

  this vandalism may be one of the blacker marks against GWB's name. I mean, Napoleon upended the world of his time, redirected the flow of history, but... people also remember that it was his soldiers who shot the nose off the Sphinx, for target practice.

  by Canadian Reader on Thu Jun 24, 2004 at 10:27:42 AM PDT