Palmyra's Temple of Bel 'destroyed'

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

There had been earlier reports of an explosion at the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, which is held by militants from Islamic State (IS).

Syria's antiquities chief had earlier said the basic structure of the 2,000-year-old site was intact.

But UN satellite analysts say the image shows almost nothing remains.

"We can confirm destruction of the main building of the Temple of Bel as well as a row of columns in its immediate vicinity," a statement from the UN's training and research agency, Unitar, said.


Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34111092

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https://twitter.com/UNOSAT/status/638463273944391680

[Old Crow]

1. Horrific.

I'm really at a loss for words. The stupidity and evil are ming-boggling.

[sakabatou]

2. Same

[Yupster]

13. That does it

We need to have a committee meeting to compose a strongly worded denunciation. This time they've gone too far.

[Old Crow]

3. Here's a photo of some of what was destroyed.

I see someone has already done the sad labor of changing many of the sentences in the Wikipedia entry to past tense. From "The temple is an outstanding example of..." to "The temple was an outstanding example of...."

To think that it withstood 2,000 years of human history to be destroyed in an instant by a band of idiots with a crate of explosives.

[gvstn]

5. this has been going on for a while.

Remember the Taliban was doing this stuff back in 2001. I always thought if we had done more to stop them we might have avoided some of the problems in Iraq and maybe even 9/11. Don't think it could have ended up worse.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1326063/After-1700-years-Buddhas-fall-to-Taliban-dynamite.html

[Old Crow]

7. Yes, I do remember when the Buddha statues were dynamited.

But I'd forgotten that it occurred prior to 9/11.

I don't even know what to say about this destruction; it leaves me angry beyond words. I suppose that's part of the vandals' intent.

[6chars]

4. Oh well. Nothing to be done.

The Islamic State recognizes the value placed by its international foes on archaeological ruins and the propaganda value in destroying them, said Amr al-Azm, a history professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio, who is Syrian and is involved in efforts to preserve the country’s heritage from the ravages of the war.

“It’s all part of a carefully crafted message that ISIS can act with impunity and the international community is incapable of stopping them,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/islamic-state-destroys-a-treasured-palmyra-site/2015/08/30/961815c4-eb6e-4524-9a6f-28e43ac86c5e_story.html

[scarletwoman]

6. Ignorant assholes. nt

[AuntPatsy]

8. Horrible

[brooklynite]

15. ...the difference being that the Greek Gods were "competing" for adherents at the time...

Nobody's been worshiping the Roman Gods for 1600 years; what's there to be afraid of?

[McCamy Taylor]

10. What if the "destruction" is designed to cover up looting? ISIS is basically an organized crime

syndicate. They kidnap people and hold them for ransom. They pay their members in sex (rape of captive members). What if they are selling these artifacts on the black market for money while pretending to "destroy" them?

[romanic]

11. That's what I've been wondering.

I heard most of the artefacts from the Mosul Museum were sold off while only a select few were destroyed on tape.

Still all of that doesn't make up for these barbarians from destroying cultural antiquities. The world needs to do something about this and fast.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Quite possible for the more portable stuff

though for the main buildings, I'd think the market wouldn't be there.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. ISIS? Trying to cover something up? Nah!

They sell the pieces that are small enough to get to market, then destroy the buildings. No apology from these guys, no excuses, no cover-up.

[MosheFeingold]

31. Bingo

They strip off the frescos and anything portable and then blow the rest up.

I have friends in the art business and tons of amazing statuary are showing up.

Undoubtedly finding their way to our oligarchic leaders' homes.

[Nihil]

38. That is exactly what has been happening:

First, Isis sells the statues, stone faces and frescoes that international dealers demand.
It takes the money, hands over the relics – and blows up the temples and buildings they
come from to conceal the evidence of what has been looted.

“Antiquities from Palmyra are already on sale in London,” the Lebanese-French
archaeologist Ms Farchakh says. “There are Syrian and Iraqi objects taken by Isis that
are already in Europe. They are no longer still in Turkey where they first went

...

“Every single antiquity (Isis) sells out of Palmyra is priceless. It is taking billions of dollars.
The market is there; it will take everything on offer, and it will pay anything for it.
Daesh is gaining in every single step it takes, every destruction.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/isis-profits-from-destruction-of-antiquities-by-selling-relics-to-dealers--and-then-blowing-up-the-buildings-they-come-from-to-conceal-the-evidence-of-looting-10483421.html

Read the entire article.

[Yupster]

12. Somebody needs to tell someone

so someone can do something about these guys.

[Vinca]

16. Why do countries in the Middle East do nothing?

They seem to not care at all and then, for whatever reason, the U.S. decides it's a threat and sends in a trillion dollars worth of troops and equipment.

[closeupready]

22. Saudi Arabia has been destroying antiquities in its jurisdiction for decades.

If you didn't know that, it's because the Western mainstream media's paymasters see no profit in stopping that sort of destruction. Indeed, doing so could interfere in oil production. So bomb away. Who cares. It's not important.

That's why they do nothing - it's just not that big of a deal, and probably a good portion of people there agree about the notion of idolatry.

[6chars]

17. People are speaking up

[sufrommich]

18. Disgusting theocratic fascists.nt

[whatthehey]

21. Theocratic? How DARE you blame religion and their sincerely held beliefs!

Just because an organization named after a religion, using religious messaging to recruit soldiers, calling for a religious government to impose religious rule, issues a statement decrying the irreligiosity of a site dedicated to another religion and then destroys that site referring to it in religious terms, it's pathetic atheistic verminous thinking to infer they were motivated by religion. Religion only motivates nice things like soup kitchens and foreign aid. It has no power whatsoever to motivate evil no matter how many times evil religious people say they had religious intent. No! A thousand times no! These people are all either mentally ill, students of 19th century history still incensed about western hegemony, or just lack a social support structure. It's absolutely impossible they can interpret Islam to warrant violence, because that nice man on Little Mosque on the Prairie is so peaceful and that's what I as a latte-drinking Volvo-driving hemp-wearing middle class Berkeleyite who took one comparative religion semester in the 80s know Islam really is! What the hell do people born and steeped in a thousand year old Islamic culture know about it?

[jberryhill]

29. The ones who built it, or the ones who destroyed it?

[AngryAmish]

20. Where will I worship my golden calf now?

[freshwest]

23. Worse are the numbers of people killed by the Daesh to take over Palmyra:

Isis beheads elderly chief of antiquities in ancient Syrian city, official says

Islamic State 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.

Isis, whose insurgents control swathes of Syria and Iraq, captured Palmyra in central Syria from government forces in May, but is not known to have damaged its monumental Roman-era ruins despite a reputation for destroying artefacts militants view as idolatrous under their puritanical interpretation of Islam.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/isis-beheads-archaeologist-syria

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027090236

It's their pattern:

Reports: ISIS bulldozed ancient Hatra city in Mosul

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants bulldozed early Saturday the ancient city of Hatra founded 3rd or 2nd BC by the Seleucide Empire, activists and Kurdish media reported.

Spokesman for the 14th branch of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) in Ninveh province Saeed Mumuzini told Rudaw news website that “ISIS militants used buldozzers to destroy Hatra city.”
...
Hatra floused during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD as a religious and trading center after it was captured the Parthian Empire.

Later on, the city became the capital of possibly the first Arab kingdom in the chain of Arab cities running from Hatra, in the northeast, via Palmyra, Baalbek and Petra, in the southwest.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/03/07/Reports-ISIS-bulldozed-ancient-Hatra-city-in-Mosul.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141030661#post42

[They_Live]

24. Thank you

for these links.

[suffragette]

25. "...he apparently refused to reveal where valuable artefacts had been moved for safekeeping."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/isis-beheads-archaeologist-syria

“He had a huge repository of knowledge on the site, and that’s going to be missed. He knew every nook and cranny. That kind of knowledge is irreplaceable, you can’t just buy a book and read it and then have that.

“There’s a certain personal dimension to that knowledge that comes from only having lived that and been so closely involved in it and that’s lost to us forever. We don’t have that any more.”

[freshwest]

26. The Daesh is reputedly killing 400 to 1,000 every single day. It's genocide to make room for them.

We just see a few stories. It's continous killing in all the places they or their supporters control. They are said to be working so fast and so brutally to bring about a new world (order?) to bring their version of the Messiah back to finish the killing and keep them in power forever.

And then there will be world peace, in their view. For millions it would be a hell on Earth, although many people have and are living through hell now. I don't want to live in their world. I bet they'd help my exit from life, too.

[suffragette]

32. Death, destruction and profit

Agree that we see only a few stories of what they are doing. They are obliterating people, culture and heritage to then impose their own new world on the ashes and dust.

At the same time, they are scavenging any items of value, from the buildings and likely from the people, to sell to keep the bloodshed and destruction rolling on.

And those they don't kill, they keep as slaves.

It's as brutal and hellish as the Nazis.

I wasn't familiar with the term "Daesh." I read up on it a little after your post and agree that is a more appropriate term for them.

[freshwest]

34. I prefer the Daesh as their acronym means 'trampled upon' according to the French.

The Daesh took great umbrage to the French saying that. So the French bombed their HQ the next day to make the point...

'Real life is stranger than fiction.' That's a saying, just as 'May you live in interesting times,' which is said to be a curse from China's literature.

I do wish things would get boring for a while. Just a childish fantasy, I guess.

[suffragette]

36. Thanks for the additional info about the term

Very to the point.

Agree that it would be great to have a nice, long boring stretch.

[woodsprite]

27. Beyond words.

My daughter interned the past two summers with the team who had restored the temple.

Kinda wish she had chosen a different concentration - like restoring paintings that little boys tumble through in museums. Instead, she wants to do archaeological art conservation.

[mainer]

28. Hope it's not a preview of what will happen to Leptis Magna and Luxor

if ISIS gains ground in both Libya and Egypt.

[Wolf Frankula]

30. See The Noble Fruit of Regime Change

This is the result of supporting the nonexistent Syrian 'moderates'. You know the half dozen hanging around European hotels, the cabinet minister who thinks he should be president, the two cabinet ministers in financial and legal trouble, the two colonels who think they should be generals and the ethnic minority leader who thinks his minority should be independent, autonomous, running the country. There are NO Syrian moderates.

And where does the US get off in trying to promote 'regime change'? What would be the response if some foreign government announced they would be aiding the 'moderate' teabaggers and militia nuts to promote 'regime change' in the United States?

Wolf

[pampango]

33. Juan Cole disagrees. We should avoid 'regime change' and 'dictator support'/

Top Ten Myths about the Arab Spring of 2011

The Arab Spring is a Western plot. This allegation was made by the Qaddafis in Libya and is currently asserted by many in Syria’s Baath Party. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is quite clear that the upheavals in the Arab world came as a surprise to the G8 nations, and were mostly at least initially unwelcome. France’s minister of defense offered help with police training to Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s Tunisia once the demonstrations got going last year this time. The US initially signalled support for Hosni Mubarak during the rallies against him of late January. Hillary Clinton said she was sure that the Mubarak regime was “stable.” Vice President Joe Biden was constrained to deny that Mubarak was “a dictator.” Obama only saw the writing on the wall with regard to Egypt at the last minute, and was starting to be a target of protest posters in Tahrir Square. The US was reluctant to lose an ally against al-Qaeda in Yemen such as Ali Abdullah Saleh, and still has never sanctioned him for killing hundreds of innocent protesters. Washington was likewise unhappy with the uprising in Bahrain, and at most urged the king to find a compromise (the US Fifth Fleet is headquartered in the capital, Manama, and so the US did not feel itself in a position to support the protesters strongly). Obama was famously reluctant to get involved in Libya. There is substantial ambivalence over the upheaval in Syria, and so far the main form of intervention is targeted financial sanctions. If there is anything that is already clear as we catch history on the run here, it is that the uprisings were spontaneous, indigenous, centered on dissatisfied youth, and that and presented the status quo Powers with unwelcome challenges.

http://www.juancole.com/2011/12/top-ten-myths-about-the-arab-spring-of-2011.html

Cole had said that Assad and Gaddafi were the two most brutal dictators in a region with many dictators.

The "Assad" strategy for dealing with massive protests is something all dictators should learn.

1: When massive peaceful protests occur, repress them as them as violently as you can get away with - snipers, arrests, torture, etc.
2. This may work to quell the protests. If so, reward your military and security services and go back to being a dictator.
3. If #1 doesn't work right away and massive peaceful protests continue, keep up the repression. (You have to come up with a strategy to keep the international community at bay. Get a country on the UN Security Council to run interference for you.) Start talking about the presence of "criminal gangs" or "terrorists" among the protestors. There may not be any yet, but it's good to get the talking point out there for future use.
4. If your military and security forces continue to prove to be ineffective in suppressing dissent, don't worry. Keep up the armed repression. Eventually frustration will build up among factions of the protesters and some will become willing to resort to violence given the apparent futility of peaceful protest. Or outside groups will begin to take advantage of these frustrations.
5. At this point you can unleash your military and security forces to the full extent and hope you don't lose the civil war you have created.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=378947

I think this is a strategy that is workable in many repressive countries when populations get fed up with living with no rights.

[Calista241]

35. These guys are giant assholes. n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. Islamic State 'blows up Palmyra funerary towers'

Jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS) have blown up three funerary towers at the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria's antiquities chief has said.

Maamoun Abdul Karim said they included the Tower of Elahbel, built in AD103 and one of the best-preserved.

The multi-storey sandstone monuments, standing outside the city walls in an area known as the Valley of the Tombs, belonged to rich Palmyrene families.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34150905