ISIS's Cultural "Cleansing"

by JASmius



I thought I would use a more historically illustrative portrait than Ahmed The Tour Guide, and lede with a question: How bad has the ISIS crisis gotten that one can actually heave a sigh of relief at a story about ISIS "only" destroying cultural artifacts and burning books?:

The Islamic State group released a video on Thursday purportedly showing militants using sledgehammers to smash ancient artifacts in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, describing them as idols that must be removed.

The five-minute video shows a group of bearded men inside the Mosul Museum using hammers and drills to destroy several large statues, which are then shown in pieces and chipped. The video then shows a black-clad man at a nearby archaeological site inside Mosul drilling through and destroying a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity that dates back to the 7th century B.C.

The video was posted on social media accounts affiliated with the Islamic State group and though it could not be independently verified it appeared authentic, based on AP’s knowledge of the Mosul Museum.

The region under IS control in Iraq has nearly 1,800 of Iraq’s 12,000 registered archaeological sites and the militants appear to be out to cleanse it of any non-Islamic ideas, including library books, archaeological relics, and even Islamic sites considered idolatrous.

“Oh Muslims, these artifacts that are behind me were idols and gods worshiped by people who lived centuries ago instead of Allah,” a bearded man tells the camera as he stands in front of the partially demolished winged-bull.

“The so-called Assyrians and Akkadians and others looked to gods for war, agriculture and rain to whom they offered sacrifices,” he added, referring to groups that that left their mark on Mesopotamia for more than 5,000 years in what is now Iraq, eastern Syria and southern Turkey.

“Our prophet ordered us to remove all these statues as his followers did when they conquered nations,” the man in the video adds. The video bore the logo of the IS group’s media arm and was posted on a Twitter account used by the group.

Note: The above was said with utterly no appreciate for the irony of Ahmed The Tour Guide's own words.  Note as well the phrase "conquered nations".  Every country ISIS conquers will meet the same fate, both its inhabitants and its culture.  Because Islam, much like Obamunism, tolerates no competition.  It does not "live and let live".  Sure, nobody will much miss what are, or were, at least, indeed pagan idols.  But when the Islamic State takes over Europe?  Or America?  Does anybody think they won't dynamite the Washington Monument, or take jackhammers to the Lincoln Memorial, or torch the Library of Congress and the National Archives?  To say nothing of decapitating every American leader from the White House and down the line of every House and Senate torso?  Not that the former means much, if anything, to the latter, but still.

Today Mosul, tomorrow Europe, the day after tomorrow America.  That's how ISIS sees it, and it's getting ever more difficult to see how that triumphal "strong horse" mentality isn't terminally prophetic.