Leaving Babylon

In the desert of southern Utah, where I live most of the time, we are surrounded by the legacy of ancients; the ruins and rock art are part of the timelessness of a landscape that reveals itself in billion-year-old layers of stone. There is a fourth dimension of time that you can see and touch, and it makes the desert vivid and strong, more real than mere three-dimensional reality. Maybe my reverence for it comes naturally--I like old things, and I was taught to respect my elders--but it seems to demand it too, unforgiving beauty always ready to remind me of my place in the scheme of things.

Which is why I was so saddened to read in The Guardian about how the ancient site of Babylon in Iraq has been damaged by the occupying forces (mostly American) who have used it as a military depot(!). They've dug trenches, built helicopter landing pads, crushed ancient stones with their vehicles.

"The significance of Babylon is not lost on the coalition," [a military spokeman says]. "The site dates back to the time of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, but there are very few visible original remains to the untrained eye."

Which is of course exactly why it should have been left alone in the first place. (Or do they mean that it doesn't matter because what's valuable there can't be seen? Or do they mean that there's little that remains after two years of destruction?)

When I stand in the desert I am humbled. Our grandiose vision of ourselves as the "liberators" of Iraq, the creators of a brave new world of justice, consumerism and 24-hour cable news, will surely crumble, leaving not so much as a stone behind.