Destroying Baghdad
This is a fairly long article that begins with an obscure quote from bin Laden concerning US action in Desert Storm. Basically he compared Cheney and Gen. Powell to Hulagu, Genghis Khan's great grandson.
The article really is about the rise and fall of Baghdad as the cultural capital of Sunni-Arab Islam. Long story short, Baghdad was founded in 762AD and was named Madinat as-Salaam, “the city of peace,” by Jaffar al-Mansour, of the Abbassid line of caliphs. al-Mansour deliberately picked the location for its remoteness from the other Islamic centers of violence.
And Baghdad was cosmopolitan before being cosmopolitan was cool. Scholars gathered there, most of the citizens were literate- could read and write.
But the location of Baghdad was its weakness and eventual downfall. It sat on a wide open river plain that was crossed by land and water trade routes.
Then the Mongols came. The same Mongols that created an empire from the Volga River to the Pacific and reportedly killed 18 million people in their conquests. The article describes how completely the Mongols destroyed Baghdad. Then it discusses the history of the city until the present day.
And oh yes, Cheney and Gen. Powell were no Mongols....