March 1, 2005 - Today, I was looking at some photos a friend of mine gave me of Baghdad in the late 1990s. Evidence of destruction by U.S. forces and degradation of the city because of the illegal embargo placed on Iraq were present, yet the city was still magnificent. Today, Baghdad resembles nothing of the city I saw in the photos. It is a destroyed city in which U.S. profiteers and mercenaries have set up a security area called "The Green Zone" where they can safely hide while reaping the benefits of murder and looting. Last April, I ran the following column, but it still is relevant today.

When I saw the first photos of Baghdad being bombed during the "shock and awe" phase of last year’s illegal war against Iraq, I was saddened. For millennia, the city had endured wars, occupations, plundering, natural disasters, and liberations. This time, however, it was different. I knew Baghdad would be changed in a despicable way that would take decades of recovery to become the city it once was.

Baghdad is the city where commerce was developed for humankind thousands of years ago. It offered a monetary system long before other cultures.

Science flourished in the Baghdad of 5,000 years ago. For instance, archaeologists have discovered star charts from that era showing Jupiter with four moons. No human being has eyesight keen enough to see one of Jupiter’s moons without a telescope. The scientists of the day invented the telescope, only to see it re-invented by Galileo more than four thousand years later.

Archaeologists have also uncovered the use of electricity in Baghdad 5,000 years ago. The objects generated electricity to use in plating gold coins. The Chinese at this time also used crude forms of electricity. So much for Benjamin Franklin.

Arts and sports flourished in ancient Baghdad. In fact, the oldest artifact depicting wrestling was discovered at Kayafaje, near Baghdad, by a team of archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania in 1938. Archaeologists have concluded that the cast bronze figurine was created by the Sumerian culture of the time and has been judged to be over 5,000 years old. Many people think that ancient Greece developed wrestling, but this finding shows it was popular in Iraq thousands of years prior to the Greek’s participation in the sport.

During the Dark Ages of Europe, when all scientific thought was eliminated for centuries, Baghdad continued to excel in science and engineering. When the Dark Ages finally broke and Europe once again began to exercise science, it looked to Baghdad.

Kingdoms, authoritarian regimes and republics have come and gone in Baghdad, but it still was the jewel of Arab cities. Iran bombed Baghdad during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, yet Baghdad bounced back. In 1991, the city was under constant bombardment by U.S. forces and the infrastructure was destroyed, all to be repaired within weeks of the cessation of hostilities. A 13-year-embargo caused the degradation of many buildings and facilities in Baghdad from 1990-2003, yet it still was the jewel of Arab cities. Despite the sanctions, tourists went to Baghdad and the city hosted international business exhibitions. It was a little ragged around the edges, yet it was still Baghdad.

Thousands of years of prestige came to a halt in April 2003. When American troops entered Baghdad, they went into a city that had been mercilessly bombed and attacked. However, it was the introduction of the troops that degraded and changed the city forever.

Within weeks, concrete barriers were erected to protect the invaders. Today, they are all over Baghdad and make the Berlin Wall pale in comparison. These walls separate families, neighborhoods, businesses and friends.

U.S. military vehicles abound. Checkpoints that Iraqi citizens have to encounter for hours at a time are common.

Never, under any Iraqi leadership, had Baghdad suffered the ongoing violence that occurs daily in the city. A thriving industry is kidnapping. The kidnappers have set standard prices for their wares: a couple of hundred dollars for a kidnapped person from a poor family to a few thousand dollars for one from a middle or upper class family. Kidnapping was unheard of under the previous regimes in Baghdad.

The city is laden with holes and rubble from military confrontations. The Iraqi resistance can claim responsibility for a small amount of damage, but the overwhelming majority of destruction comes from U.S. forces who use modern, large weapons in a disproportionate manner in fighting the freedom fighters.

American officials, as well as their stooge Iraqi appointees, can not leave their highly-walled compounds for fear of death. Not one would last minutes on the streets of Baghdad. They live in another world.

I can’t imagine a western city, such as London or Paris or New York having to live under such conditions after years of notoriety as leading cultural metropolises. I can’t imagine an enemy with so little regard to culture to allow that to happen. Even in Nazi-occupied Paris of World War II nothing occurred to match the demise of Baghdad. German soldiers and Parisian inhabitants co-existed, albeit not on friendly terms. The Germans did not think of leveling the city or cordoning it off into segregated areas. It may have been occupied by an outside force, but it was still Paris.

Baghdad today is a basket case. I have spoken to or written to various Baghdad residents, past and present, in the last couple of months to get their assessment. Some are unrepentant Ba’athists; some opposed the Saddam Hussein regime; and some were neutral, going on with life and considering whatever government in power to be the ruling entity.

They all agreed on one aspect, however: the loss of the city of Baghdad. They all agreed that this was different. They all agreed that Baghdad’s psyche was ruined this time, not just buildings and utilities. There was a morose feeling with all that was never apparent before.

Kids are being killed today in crossfire. Civilians are being killed by trigger-happy U.S. soldiers. Civilians are being killed by errant targeting of U.S. military personnel by the resistance. Nobody is safe and the public is now showing a degree of numbness to the situation. Many people now walk in dangerous areas without thinking about danger. They assume that if they get killed, so be it. They have no say in the matter.

There is little to be happy about today in Baghdad. Citizens are now used to having little or no electricity. They are used to learning a neighbor’s family member(s) have been killed by U.S. fire while walking the street or sitting on a rooftop. They are used to the squalor that was never a part of Baghdad. They are used to the ever-growing problem of hard drug use in Baghdad. They are used to the massive concrete barriers in their city. They do not accept these things, but they are used to them because they can do nothing to stop the rot.

It is sad to see that there is one occurrence that brings happiness and joy to Baghdad residents: the killing or maiming of American troops. Decent human beings have been turned into bloodthirsty creatures who dance with glee over burning U.S. bodies and vehicles. These are the same people who, before April 2003, would have been aghast at their current actions. These are formerly law-abiding and hard-working citizens. Today, they are people mostly without jobs and totally without hope. An attack on U.S. forces is all they have to look forward to in life. When you see the delighted looks on their faces, one would not be remiss in thinking that Iraq had just won the World Cup. Or an Iraqi had just won a Nobel Peace Prize. Or an Iraqi had just found a cure for cancer. These public showings of happiness are not indications of any positive event to which human beings pay homage. They are for the destruction of other human beings.

Baghdad cries today. It has been defeated. Its soul no longer exists. It was destroyed by the real forces of evil in this world — bigotry, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, and deceit — not those entities whom the U.S. president has designated as evil. Bush throws around the word "evil" with ease and frequency, but he is the number one practitioner of evil in the world. No one else comes close.