I AINT GOT NO SELF ESTEEM

this tiktok hal sent me is making me fucking cry 😭😭😭 i feel you girl

king

King

“Pack it up boys we’ve made a social blunder” is the funniest sentence I’ve ever read 😭😭😭😭😭

king

King

“Pack it up boys we’ve made a social blunder” is the funniest sentence I’ve ever read 😭😭😭😭😭

bookseller in baghdad, iraq

Hafidh Al-Droubi. Baghdad café, 1969.

The Ziggurat of Ur

The Juba Sniper

By Carlos Latuff

On a day like this, April 9th, 2003, Baghdad Museum was destroyed by US forces. they opened the gates of the museum to looting

"Although the U.S. has been actively repatriating artifacts—Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned more than 1,200 items between 2008 and 2015 alone—it has also let some things slide. “It is worth noting that there were no follow-up congressional hearings or independent investigations to pinpoint the parties responsible for the negligence connected to the museum debacle,” Archeology Magazine reported in 2013. What’s more, as the Chicago Tribune reported in 2015, “American military members, contractors, and others caught with culturally significant artifacts they brought home from the war there largely aren’t prosecuted.” It’s not known how many Americans brought home artifacts as souvenirs or war trophies, but one expert suggested to the Tribune that the known cases—a defense contractor who brought back gold-plated items from Saddam’s palaces; a U.S. employee who shipped home an Iraq government seal; a Marine who bought eight ancient looted stone seals off the street—are just “the tiniest tip of the iceberg.”"

"The looting, Al-Hamdani said, was clearly precipitated by the invasion. The war forced archeologists to stop work at their sites and leave behind hundreds of impoverished locals whom they’d trained and employed as excavators. Desperate and out of work, these locals began to earn an income the only way they knew how: by excavating—and selling their finds."

"But even aside from looting, some of the Iraqi artifacts that stayed in the country were badly damaged by the U.S. invasion. The Babylonians’ famous Ishtar Gate, built in 575 BC south of Baghdad and excavated in the early 1900s, offers a stark example. In 2003, U.S. forces established a military camp right in the middle of the archeological site. A 2004 study by the British Museum documented the “extremely unfortunate” damage this caused. About 300,000 square meters were covered with gravel, contaminating the site. Several dragon figures on the Ishtar Gate were damaged. Trenches were cut into ancient deposits, dispersing brick fragments bearing cuneiform inscriptions. One area was flattened to make a landing pad for helicopters; another made way for a parking lot; yet another, portable toilets.

“It is regrettable that a military camp of this size should then have been established on one of the most important archaeological sites in the world,” the study noted. “This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain.”

To say it’s “regrettable” is an understatement to someone like Al-Hamdani, who noted that because civilization got its start in Mesopotamia, its archeological heritage represents the origins not only of Iraqis, but of all people. Wrecking that, he said, amounts to “looting the memory of humankind.”"

- Sigal Samuel for The Atlantic

Iraqi insurgents wave their national flag as they celebrate in front of a burning U.S. military tanker after attacking it in Abu Gharib. April 9, 2004.

“It’s necessary for Palestinians to die because otherwise Israelis would never be able to exterminate Hamas!” “Iraqi citizens had to die because the US had to retaliate for the Iran-backed drone attack!” When will you learn that Arab people are not just collateral fucking damage. When will you learn they are not a means to an end. When will you stop dehumanizing Arab people in your endless attempts to justify the mindless slaughter that has been taking place for years, but which has intensified beyond belief the last four months. Why do you need to be told to treat Arab people like they’re human. Why do you need to be told this. Why do you need to be told.

Perfume Genius’s Glory