I love architecture, and so it’s with a little twinge that I see the methodical, surgical demolition of the array of fabulous governmental buildings and palaces that Saddam had built over the past few decades (including during times when his own people were said to be starving under UN sanctions).<\/p>\n
But only a twinge. Yeah, just as there’s a fascination about the hubris-in-stone of the old Nazi architecture of Germany, so too there is a fascination in what Saddam wrought. But not only will Iraq be better off without it, the surgical demolition of these structures can only further demoralize the remnants of the government and military leadership.<\/p>\n
I regret more the destruction of records in those buildings. It’s that sort of thing that’s important in war crimes trials.<\/p>\n
It seems ironic that, thus far, more coalition casualties have come from helicopter accidents, rather than enemy (or even friendly) fire. <\/p>\n
I did see one disturbing thing on MSNBC this evening. A hoarse-voiced father of one of the Marines who was killed in actual fighting was angrily holding up a photo to the camera. “I want President Bush to see this. That’s the only son I had.<\/i>“<\/p>\n
And he enlisted in the Marines, sir.<\/i> I grieve for his loss, though obviously less than you do, but don’t diminish, in your grief, the sacrifice he <\/i>made, of his own free will<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I love architecture, and so it’s with a little twinge that I see the methodical, surgical demolition of the array of fabulous governmental buildings and palaces that Saddam had built…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":128188,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/30\/sometimes-destroying-things-is-as-elegant-is-building-them.html","url_meta":{"origin":3842,"position":0},"title":"Sometimes destroying things is as elegant is building them","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 30-Sep-15 12:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"I often find the demolition of structures to be equal parts fascinating (deconstruction in the truest sense) and depressing (thinking of the effort that went into building and using the locale in the first place). But controlled demolition of this sort is so artistic that it just becomes ... fascinating.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135017,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/09\/building-go-boom.html","url_meta":{"origin":3842,"position":1},"title":"Building Go Boom!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Oct-17 7:14am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Jones Cable building has seen better days from a business perspective, with the parent company having sold off its cable business a couple of decades ago and thus losing the need for a headquarters structure. But it was still a very cool, modernish building along I-25 that I passed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/unnamed.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":33176,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/13\/because-narrow-surgical-strikes-always-work-right.html","url_meta":{"origin":3842,"position":2},"title":"Because narrow surgical strikes always work, right?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 13-Apr-13 9:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"And because there is no international problem that cannot be solved by lobbing missiles \/ bombs \/ drones \/ Marines at it, right?Reshared post from +Paula JonesThe war hawks are already hitting mainstream media. I just can't buy the idea of a pre-emptive \u00a0strike on North Korea. Bomb North Korea,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43608,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/16\/demolition-for-the-goose-should-be-demolition-for-the-gander.html","url_meta":{"origin":3842,"position":3},"title":"Demolition for the goose should be demolition for the gander","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 16-Jul-14 12:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Where judicial actions are applied unevenly, by intent, it is by definition injustice.\ufeff Should Israel Destroy the Homes of the Jewish Suspects Accused of Murdering a Palestinian? The government of Israel says it will treat the July 2 abduction and murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian boy, the same\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134579,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/07\/ufo-bank-turns-50.html","url_meta":{"origin":3842,"position":4},"title":"The “UFO Bank” turns 50","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 7-Sep-17 8:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"Alas, not all buildings of the future will (or did) look like this. But it's pretty keen. The bank building was designed by Charles Deaton, who, not surprisingly, also designed the \"Sleeper House\" that overlooks I-70 west of Denver. 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In fact, I remember it so well that I remember when it was all brand new and pretty and used extensively in various science fiction TV shows and movies as What\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}