Where are those who protested the actions of the Taliban government today? Especially the U.S. voices who were the loudest opponents of destroying the statues.

Iraq is undergoing tragic destruction of the history of its past. Sometimes the statues and architecture are from ancient times, while others are from the 20^th century. The U.S. has helped destroy items of antiquity and those that the U.S. does not, the current stooge government in Iraq does, all the time with no opposition from its Washington masters.

On October 19, 2005, the statue of Baghdad’s founder, Jaafar al Mansour, was destroyed. It was not a piece of antiquity, but it was a rallying point for all Iraqis, regardless of political views.

On November 3, 2005, Mohammed Alawsy of Knight Ridder wrote an article called "Destruction of Beloved Baghdad Statue Emblematic of Violence’s Toll." He stated:

Speculation has it that the Mansour statue will be replaced by a bust of Ayatollah Sistani, if the change has not yet been made. Some reports have stated that a new statue of Sistani is already erected, while others say it is in the planning stage.

Now, the well-known crossed-swords monument, Hands of Victory, is in the process of the first stages of its destruction in Baghdad. The monument was built to honor those Iraqis who fought in the Iran-Iraq War. This, like the al Mansour statue, is not a sectarian symbol. Many Shi’tes, Sunnis, Kurds and other portions of the Iraqi population, bravely fought against Iran, despite their backgrounds or political views. The Hands of Victory were meant to symbolize Iraq and Iraqis, not one particular segment.

The Hands of Victory was not built exclusively as a war memorial. The area included a beautiful park in which Iraqi families visited and held picnics while enjoying nature. The road under the arches had speed bumps imbedded so vehicles could not drive on it. Thousands of Iraqis visited the area daily for a peaceful outing.

The Hands of Victory are in the Green Zone. Once the U.S. established the fortress inside Baghdad, Iraqis were no longer allowed to go near the Hands of Victory. Soon after, the road, once the speed bumps were removed, became a drag strip for U.S. Humvees.

Once again, mainstream journalism was remiss in reporting the imminent destruction of the Hands of Victory. Newsweek’s headline for the demolition was: "Iraq Dismantles Saddam’s Big Monument." First of all, "Iraq" will not tear it down. The Iraqi stooges inside the Green Zone gave the orders, with the acceptance of the U.S. Secondly, it was not Saddam’s monument. It was Iraq’s and was built by many Iraqis. The headline infers that Saddam built or bought the monument and the Iraqi people will tear it down.

The archeological condition of Iraq is in shambles. All the qualified and experienced people have been removed by the Malaki government and have been replaced by fundamentalist Shi’ites who have no knowledge of archeology. They have openly stated that only post-Islamic archeology is acceptable. In other words, more than 5,000 years of Iraqi antiquity will be allowed to disappear. Most foreign archeologists have been forbidden from entering Iraq by the current Iraqi "administration." Iraq’s entire archeology program is now in the hands of people who will destroy, or allow to rot, the glorious history of Iraq before Islam became the religion of choice.

Malaki has stated that he wants to rid Iraq of anything that commemorates Saddam Hussein. He wants to erase Saddam from Iraqi history. However, many things being destroyed are not exclusively remnants of Ba’ath Socialism or Saddam Hussein. They are Iraqi.

The true intentions of Malaki are evident: he wants to erase the concept of an Iraqi citizen. Don’t forget, Malaki was so "proud" of his Iraqi heritage that he fled the country and lived outside for decades. His first allegiance has always been to Iran, not Iraq.

The U.S. rewrote all of Iraq’s history. The books now in Iraqi schools (those still open) do not mention the Ba’ath Party, the Iran-Iraq War, the first Gulf War, the embargo, or the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. The books stop Iraqi history in the 1950s and restart it in 2003. There is not one mention of the hundreds of thousands of foreign troops stationed there. To a young Iraqi, they are just part of the country.

Some people have expressed the outrage of a bunch of foreign stooges now calling the shots in Baghdad to unravel Iraq’s archeological history as well as the destruction of more modern symbols that typify Iraq, not a particular segment of the population. However, the number of organizations or people who have cried "foul" is minuscule. Where are the hoards of people who denigrated the Taliban for tearing down the Buddhist statues? Many are now actively involved in allowing the destruction of Iraq’s history and culture. They’ve already killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis since March 2003. What’s the big deal about tearing down monuments and re-writing Iraqi history so it does not resemble anything near the truth?

When one says a country has been destroyed, he/she usually is speaking of the infrastructure of a nation. In Iraq’s case, 5,000 or more years of history have been demolished just as much as the infrastructure of the country. The infrastructure can be rebuilt, but the damage done by wiping the history of a country off the Earth can not.

In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, a U.S. military unit was ordered to blow up a building in southern Iraq. The explosion created unexpected damage to the surrounding area as well as the deaths and injuries of several Iraqis. A young soldier approached an officer and asked, "Should we clean up the mess and take care of the injured people?" The officer replied, "Hell no. This is Iraq."

The same callous about Iraq has been inherited by the Iraqi stooges in the Green Zone. The difference is that they are supposed to be running Iraq, not destroying it. They and the U.S. officer who dismissed a soldier’s question of humanitarianism are of the same mold.