The front page of the White House
Web site has a nice picture of Dubya awarding a medal to a Marine. "So what?" you say.
Well, this wasn't a military decoration - it was the National Humanities Medal. The medal goes to Americans who have made singular contributions to the field of humanities. The irony here, of course, is that Col. Matthew Bogdanos' medal-winning effort to recover stolen Iraqi antiquities wouldn't have been necessary if Bushco had bothered to make a plan for occupying Iraq, or if they had invaded with enough troops in the first place.
Bogdanos himself makes that point in a USA Today piece.
More below the fold...
The National Endowment for the Humanities
says the medal honors those "whose work has deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans' access to important resources in the humanities."
Strange that it never mentions "mitigating tragic disasters in the field of humanities caused by ideologically fueled incompetence." But Bogdanos does:
"Frankly, those who have argued that U.S. forces should have done more to protect the museum present a compelling argument," he acknowledges.
"The more pointed question, however, is why no unit before the battle had been given the specific mission of protecting the museum," Bogdanos says in the journal.
As the Washington Post notes, "The danger was obvious."
Two months before the 2003 invasion, a small group of experts warned Pentagon officials about the possibility of looting once the shooting stopped. It had happened in the chaos after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and U.S. forces could expect the same this time, they said.
Bogdanos' recovery effort, documented in his book "Thieves of Baghdad," was wrapped up in 2003. But the looting goes on:
Stony Brook University archaeologist Elizabeth Stone, however, has been leading an effort to compare "before and after" satellite photographs of well-known sites in southern Iraq, and has found holes "denser than Swiss cheese."
So what does Bush do? Pin a medal on the guy whose efforts resulted in the recovery of 5,359 of 13,864 missing objects. 39 percent of the job done? Well in Bushthink, that's "Mission Accomplished." Give someone a medal and move on. And Col. Bogdanos? Be sure and wear your uniform for the cameras...