"Depressing " is one word to use for the destruction of the Iraq National Library and Archive. However, there is now increasing recognition that complicity in the destruction of the institutions of collective memory of a country - and remembering that the destruction of the museums in Baghdad and Mosul must be added to the score - truly merits the description of "genocide", even though it leaves fewer corpses lying around the streets than the more commonly recognised form of the offence. Like Pizarro in Peru nearly 500 years ago, Messrs Blair and Bush have won a decisive military victory and have achieved a regime change. But Pizarro is now largely remembered as a philistine ruffian, even though his invasion led to the establishment of an empire that lasted for over 250 years.
Bernard Naylor
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