Two twisted legacies of the U.S. in Iraq: human rights violations at Abu Ghraib prison and theft of the Sumerian poem, the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ tablet
By John Mason / Arab America Contributing Writer
Photos depicting atrocities only describable as appalling and inhumane from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004 shocked the sensibilities of Americans. Military personnel took the blame, while the perpetrators of the Iraq war got off the hook. A second spinoff of the Gulf war was the theft of a 3,600-year-old-religious clay artifact named the Gilgamesh Dream tablet. Arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby got hold of the tablet in some circuitous manner and placed it in its Museum of the Bible. It was only recently returned to its rightful owners—the people of Iraq.
Why should we be reminded of the atrocities of the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib prison?
It was in 2004, three years following the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq when several frightful photos emerged. They were of U.S. military personnel beating on Iraqis imprisoned in Abu Ghraib—physically, mentally, and sexually. These were Americans in the military, security, and intelligence forces torturing Iraqis, then photographing the evidence.
U.S. military members implicated in this despicable act then sent copies of these photos of their victims and themselves to their colleagues, families, and friends. An article in Al-Jazeera by an eminent American professor, Hamid Dabashi, described this wanton distribution of photos “in order to boast of the terror they had been unleashing on Arabs and Muslims [which] soon became iconic – emblematic of an immoral decadence that did not quite sit with the centuries-old propaganda that the US is the ‘shining city upon the hill’”.
Such torture, maiming, and murder of Iraqis, including “forcing them into deranged sexual acts” was ugly, degrading, and inhumane, and one wonders how normally well-disciplined military personnel could do this. Names were named and the list includes PFCs, specialists, and general officers. But the responsible civilian leaders including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld were assiduously avoided in the blame game, even though they were the ones who got the U.S. into that untenable war in the first place.
The reason not to forget Abu Ghraib, according to Dabashi, is because “Abu Ghraib represents an era of imperial conquest that began in 2003 in Iraq…” Ironically, that same prison had been used unlawfully by Saddam Hussein to capture and torture his enemies, then taken over by the U.S. basically to perpetuate the same crimes, perhaps even worse than Hussein’s. Saddam’s American successors in that debacle, when confronted with the crimes perpetrated by the U.S., always seemed to respond by raising points about “American values” and “U.S. exceptionalism.”
(A side note: Abu Ghraib is featured in a new American film, “The Card Counter,” in which the protagonist is plagued, much later in his life, by his military experience in that prison. Brutal footage informs the film, but more importantly, it influences the rest of his life as if he were spending it in hell.)
We leave this awful moment of American military exploits with one more agonizing quote from Dabashi: “There was something obscene about this whole spectacle. What about the screams of a solitary human being at the mercy of an American torturer? What happened to that cry from the depth of human suffering? In the dark dungeons of what subterranean history did that cry get lost?”
Theft of the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet during another U.S. intervention in Iraq
While Abu Ghraib robbed Iraqis of their dignity and humanity, the theft of an ancient clay tablet telling the story of a 3,600-year-old-religious moment, during another American foray into Iraq is the ripping-off of Iraq’s history and posterity. One of the world’s most ancient literary works was stolen from an Iraqi museum during the 1991 Gulf War.
During that war, part one of the misdirected war involving Iraq, conditions were set for the theft and smuggling from an Iraqi museum of an ancient clay tablet of a Sumerian poem about a superhuman king. In the ensuing 30 years, this hugely valued tablet was smuggled through many countries via false documents.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest known epic poem, was written in the Akkadian language in the cuneiform script – a form of writing on clay used by ancient Mesopotamians three-and-a-half thousand years ago. Discovered in northern Iraq in 1853 in the library of an Assyrian king, Assur Banipal, the myth is based on a real king who ruled sometime between 2,800 and 2,500 BC. It tells the story of a king with human and supernatural traits and his exploits in a plant, animal and human world where he manipulates conditions to his needs.
The Gilgamesh tablet traveled the world of dealers in search of ever-increasing profits. Eventually, it was recognized as a part of the epic. According to a BBC story, it was sold and resold at auction before finally being bought in 2014 by the mega-store Hobby Lobby, an arts and crafts chain whose owners espouse a conservative Christian perspective. Hobby Lobby paid $1.67 million for the famous tablet, then displayed it in its private Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.
There was much more to this story than met the eye. The Gilgamesh tablet was not the only item stolen from Iraq, since it was among 17,000 stolen antiquities, including fragments of other historic artifacts. All these antiquities were seized by U.S. officials in 2019 and it was agreed to return them to their rightful owners, the Iraqis. Hobby Lobby was fined several million dollars for “mislabeling” thousand of the artifacts that were inappropriately displayed in their Bible Museum.
This past Thursday, the Gilgamesh dream tablet, per the BBC story, “began a new journey back to its homeland when it was formally handed over at a ceremony in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. Once in Iraq, the tablet will be sent to the National Museum in Baghdad, where the dreams of the mythical King Gilgamesh will be preserved once again in their rightful home.”
While this last part of the two-part story of sordid behavior of the U.S. in Iraq ended well, the overall story is a dismal blot on the American record as a presumably responsible actor on the world stage. It has abysmally failed the test when it comes to the Arab World.
Sources:
“The art and torture of the empire, who cares to remember Abu Ghraib?” Hamid Dabashi (Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University), Al-Jazeera, 9/23/2021
“The epic adventures of the Gilgamesh Dream tablet,” BBC, 9/24/20
John Mason, PhD., who focuses on Arab culture, society, and history, is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017. He has taught at the University of Libya, Benghazi, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and the American University in Cairo; John served with the United Nations in Tripoli, Libya, and consulted extensively on socioeconomic and political development for USAID and the World Bank in 65 countries.
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