Why did the invasion of Iraq result in cultural destruction and killings of intellectuals? Convention sees accidents of war and poor planning in a campaign to liberate Iraqis. The authors argue instead that the invasion aimed to dismantle the Iraqi state to remake it as a client regime.
Post-invasion chaos created conditions under which the cultural foundations of the state could be undermined. The authors painstakingly document the consequences of the occupiers' willful inaction and worse, which led to the ravaging of one of the world's oldest recorded cultures. Targeted assassination of over 400 academics, kidnapping and the forced flight of thousands of doctors, lawyers, artists and other intellectuals add up to cultural cleansing.
This important work lays to rest claims that the invasion aimed to free an educated population to develop its own culture of democracy. .
the
perpetration of crimes against history and culture. Cultural Cleansing in Iraq
gathers together a great deal of hard evidence demonstrating the existence of
cultural genocide, the deliberate obliteration of Iraq's rich history and
historical memory, its libraries, museums, universities, and laboratories.
Equally heartbreaking is the systematic extermination of the purveyors of the
nation's culture, science, and learning, the death squad assassinations of
thousands of Iraqi intellectuals.
