Breakfast in the Ruins | Hacker News Reader

Breakfast in the Ruins

nybooks.com

106 pointsdiodorus11 comments

>he worst destruction, certainly, was inflicted between June and September of 2015 by the militants of the Islamic State, who first tortured and killed the eighty-one-year-old site director Khaled el-Assad before beheading him and hanging his body from a column. Then they set to work obliterating the ancient buildings amid accusations of paganism and idolatry.

Absolutely disgusting

well, these are the guys US is quietly supporting, by not doing enough to deal any real damage to them (just compare the force used to invade Iraq and effort to attack IS, it's a joke that is hard to ignore).

In this conflict, Turkey and Saudis are the evil, both very good friends of US, doing whatever they feel is necessary in their puny little power games. Economy flows via Turkish border who doesn't do anything and supposedly profits handsomely from it (Erdogan's son to be more precise with oil, his daughter is building hospitals for IS fighters... just wow). Turkey for me became next evil power (nothing against most of their citizens, although their seemingly blind support for Erdogan's dictatorship is sad but another story).

Wanted to go there to climb Mt Ararat, but hell will freeze sooner than me pouring a single euro into that dictatorship's economy. Idea of this country joining EU is beyond any joke.

At least those are my information, I wish I would be wrong about those guys.

ISIS is run by Western Intelligence.

This is just one chapter of the sad story of the Syrian civil war.... It is similar to the treasures that were plundered in Iraq over the last 15 years. The truth is the West does not care - neither about these antiquities nor the incredible price that civilians have paid. If they have not paid the ultimate price, they may be among the millions displaced and living in misery and suffering.

Don't forget Afghanistan. Some of the oldest and most significant historical writing recently discovered came out of that conflict, via black market dealers in Pakistan. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandh%C4%81ran_Buddhist_texts

Reminds me of the book Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War.

Awesome post. Thank you very much for remembering us that stuff matters outside of the IT world.

Wow, a Moorcock book showing up on HN? These comments are gonna be great. Breakfast in the Ruins is a strange choice, but whatever.

Nope, just a great article on nybooks.com that happens to share the same title of one of his books.

Thank you for posting that link. It was both distressing and beautiful.

This sad story needs more upvotes

These photographs are amazing I feely lucky to have seen them.

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