Among the tablets is the private archive of a 21st century BC Sumerian princess in the city of Garsana that has made scholars rethink the role of women in the ancient kingdom of Ur. The administrative records show Simat-Ishtaran ruled the estate after her husband died.
During her reign, women attained remarkably high status. They supervised men, received salaries equal to their male counterparts' and worked in construction, the clay tablets reveal.
"It's our first real archival discovery of an institution run by a woman," said David Owen, the Cornell researcher who has led the study of the tablets.
And they should be returned.
Sumer was part of Mesopotamia. A term that still lives on with al Qaeda of Mesopotamia -- more often referred to as al Qaeda of Iraq. Mesopotamia is what is modern day Iraq.
In Patti Smith's "Radio Baghdad" (which she wrote with Oliver Ray and which first appears on 2004's Trampin'), she sings:
Oh, in Mesopotamia Aloofness ran deep
Deep in the veins of the great rivers
That form the base Of Eden
And the tree The tree of knowledge
Held up its arms To the sky
All the branches of knowledge All the branches of knowledge
Cradling Cradling
Civilization In the realm of peace
All the world revolved Around a perfect circle
Oh Baghdad Center of the world
City of ashes With its great mosques
Erupting from the mouth of god Rising from the ashes like
a speckled bird Splayed against the mosaic sky
Oh, clouds around We created the zero
But we mean nothing to you You would believe
That we are just some mystical tale We are just a swollen belly
That gave birth to Sinbad, Scheherazade We gave birth
Oh, oh, to the zero The perfect number
We invented the zero And we mean nothing to you
Our children run through the streets
And you sent your flames Your shooting stars
Shock and awe Shock and awe
Like some, some Imagined warrior production
Twenty-first century No chivalry involved
No Bushido
"We invented the zero." Babylonians in Mesopotamia picked up the mathematical work of the Sumerians who came before them and invented the zero.
A community has a right to its culture.
For the same reason, the trove of Jewish artifacts currently on display in DC should be handed over to the Jewish community. There is none in Iraq now. Nouri al-Maliki has seen to that. Haven't killed off or forced out Iraqi Jews, the government of Iraq has no claim to the Jewish historical artifacts.
There's a piece on Nouri's visit that 7 people have e-mailed on, wanting it highlighted.
We're taking a pass.
I'm not a fan of slap-dash Iraq coverage no matter who does it. So 'name' (political or otherwise) doesn't really impress me.
Fact do. We made Spencer Ackerman the truest of the week and debated that but I argued that you could -- and some did -- say what he did was simple. Telling the truth can be simple. It doesn't have to be complicated. He told the truth and I was happy to argue that he get recognition for that.
If you write "Earlier in the week a group of Senators – all of whom had supported the 2003 US invasion of Iraq – sent a strongly-worded letter to Obama complaining that Maliki was far too close to the Iranian government next door," you had better be accurate.
The fact that you're a politician, a former member of Congress?
That's all the more reason you should have your facts straight.
The letter being referred to was sent on Tuesday and is in that day's snapshot. It's signed by: US Senators Carl Levin, John McCain, Robert Menendez, Lindsey Graham, Bob Corker and James M. Inhofe.
I'm sorry, Bob Menendez vote for the Iraq War?
No, he didn't. As he himself has noted, he stood up against the war long before many of his peers could find their own voices.
He infamously said that he wouldn't vote for any war he wouldn't be willing to send his own children into. For him, the Iraq War was such a war.
Menendez toots his own horn on this frequently. Good. He should. But I point that out not to knock Bob for it but to make clear, this isn't a secret. This isn't hidden history.
Senator Menendez was against the Iraq War and took that position publicly.
To say that he's someone who "supported the 2003 US invasion of Iraq"?
That may be the column's only mistake.
I don't know. I know it's late. I know I haven't been to sleep since I woke up Saturday morning.
I'm not going to sit here and use my time to fact check the entire article.
There's a major error and for that reason alone, we're not highlighting it.
Again, being a former member of Congress, the writer should have gotten the vote right. It does not make me confident in the writer's writing that such an obvious error shows up. I also happen to believe that if someone else wrote a column and referred to the writer as someone who had "supported the 2003 US invasion of Iraq," the writer would hit the roof and insist that people should know how he voted. By the same token, he's really required to know how Bob Menendez voted before (wrongly) stating Menendez supported the Iraq War.
National Iraqi News Agency notes that Nouri arrived back in Baghdad (from the US) late Saturday. If Nouri's spin sounded good to you or his calling publicly for World War Three shocked you, you haven't been paying attention to what's been going on in Iraq. At The People's Voice, Stephen Lendman provides an overview which opens:
America came to Iraq to stay. Contingents of US forces remain. America's embassy cost over a billion dollars to build. It's the world's largest.
It's inside Baghdad's Green Zone. It includes 21 buildings. Extraordinary security measures protect them. They're on 104 acres of land. It's the equivalent of 80 football fields.
Democracy is verboten. So-called liberation is a convenient illusion. Iraq was ravaged and destroyed. Daily violence rages out-of-control. Unemployment, poverty and human misery are extreme.
What's taking place in Iraq currently is not surprising. Thomas Geist (WSWS) observes:
US imperialism and the Obama administration now face the consequences of their reactionary policies, including support and arming of Al Qaeda in Syria, which has flooded groups in Iraq affiliated with Syrian Al Qaeda forces with resources.
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its affiliates have been heavily armed by the US and have waged war against the Syria regime, which the Obama administration intended to attack in September. Obama postponed a war, however, in the face of popular disapproval and escalating divisions in the US foreign policy establishment. This has not stopped Sunni forces linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq from waging war against Maliki’s regime, which was set up by Washington.
Good for Geist for mentioning Barack. People don't always do that, do they?
We almost didn't repost Chris Fry's earlier piece on The Drone War.
According to Fry, the Pentagon is behind The Drone War.
No.
The Drone War is overseen by the President of the United States who has a name: Barack Obama. A name absent in the Workers World piece. It must be really hard to be an 'analyst' (or billed as one) on the left these days if you're too much of a chicken to call out the sitting president.
How you must bend facts and lie to avoid calling out the sitting president.
The reality of Iraq today is that violence was going down. 2009 levels are missed, for example.
But in 2010, Iraqi people voted. No surprise Nouri's State of Law didn't win. Yes, the US press insisted he would win. Of course they'd lie about that. The 2006 White House installed him as prime minister to begin with. He didn't win re-election and refused to step down (bringing the country to a standstill for over eight months). Barack had US official broker The Erbil Agreement. It was a legal contract giving Nouri a second term as prime minister in exchange for Nouri promising various things to the other political blocs. He used the contract to get crowned prime minister for a second term and then proceeded to act like he'd not only never signed The Erbil Agreement, he'd never heard of it.
You may remember the three weeks when State of Law (his political slate) was insisting The Erbil Agreement was illegal. They shut up when people (including us here) pointed out that if The Erbil Agreement were illegal, Nouri wouldn't be prime minister for a second term. That's when State of Law dropped their argument that the contract was illegal.
It was a power-sharing contract. Loser Nouri was crowned Prime Minister when it should have been Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi. Then The Erbil Agreement is ignored.
You've angered a lot of people and as you refuse to keep your word, you breed violence just from that.
But Nouri did more. He's targeted Sunni politicians, he's trashed the Kurds, he's killed peaceful protesters and so much more.
Nouri was Bully Boy Bush's mad dog. Bully Boy Bush kept him in the front yard on a chain. Then Barack became president and let the mutt off his chain. Nouri's been terrorizing Iraq ever since.
The tone is set from the top and Nouri's sets a tone for violence.
Think about it, what kind of an idiot stands up in public and calls for the world to start World War Three? Nouri al-Maliki.
And that's why Iraq is mired in violence. Today, that included multiple deaths and even more people left injured. NINA reports a Baquba suicide bomber took his own life and that of 1 other person while leaving nine more people injured, a Tarmiya bombing claimed 1 life and left another person injured, 2 Talafar suicide bombers took their own lives and left two security forces injured, 2 Talafar car bombings claimed 1 life and left twenty-five more people injured, a Karableh roadside bombing left three border guards injured, a Baghdad roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 military officer and left three Iraqi soldiers injured, 1 engineer for the Ministry of Agriculture was shot dead while driving in Baghdad, in Mosul 1 employee of the Independent High Electoral Commission was shot dead, and 2 brothers, both in the military, were shot dead in Mosul. That's 11 dead and forty-three injured.
There's more violence being reported (an Abu Ghraib's just been placed under curfew) but that's Monday's violence.
I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4488.
New content at Third:
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- A note to our readers
- Editorial: Barack appeased the Butcher of Baghdad
- TV: Be wary of the helpers
- Where The Whores Are (an examination of the blogos...
- Why we hate Yahoo Mail
- Tweet of the week
- German sympathizers or agents shot down a plane? ...
- If you never got how crazy Nouri al-Malik is . . ....
- Sexist nonsense of the week
- Mike Rogers' misguided support for spying
- Murray Applaud COL Increase for Veterans
- Open letter to Barack on Iraq
- Barack's Drone War (Chris Fry, WW)
- Highlights
