Pillaging Babylon

/ liberation / continued /
The coalition currently occupying Iraq, after successfully indulging in murder and plunder, have apparently excelled also in pillage and destruction, at the site of Babylon's archeological area. The full report by John Curtis, head of the dept. of Ancient and near East Studies at the British Museum, is titled: "Report on Meeting at Babylon 11th – 13th December 2004" [MS Word file], and gives a pretty grim picture of the damage done by the US and Polish troops (though the latter deny causing any damage)....

Now, given the scale of the destruction wrought on Iraq (as demonstrated amply in Fallujah), and the rather problematic relationship with history and culture that most members of the Bush administration regularly demonstrate, one should not be really surprised at all this. Anyway this sort of behaviour is not unprecedented. What I can't fathom really, is [and excuse my descent to vulgarity, as words fail me] who the fuck thought of the idea of setting up a military base inside a fucking archeological site - no, one of the most important archeological sites on the fucking planet? This military base contained at one point 2000 fucking soldiers. What were they thinking? "Oh, hey this ziggurat sure does provide a decent view of the surrounding area?"
I'm guessing that the selection of the archeological site was done on purpose, and was meant to signify some sort of triumph, either Biblical in a symbolic way (and that is certainly within the known submicroscopic width of the mindset of the people currently running things in Washington), or in a more blunt "we own your history even", old-school colonial sort of way, though I'm open to any other suggestions, because one really can't convince me that the particular choice was borne out of an absolute tactical military necessity.