I wish to respond to some of Dr Farish A Noor's comments ( Pathologising the 'Arab Problem' ).

The looting of 170,000 artifacts of earliest civilisation from Baghdad's museum and burning of its library is truly tragic and a blow to the heritage of humankind.

At first glance it will appear a dereliction of duty o­n the Central Command's part not to prioritise the protection of Baghdad's artifacts documenting the cradle of civilisation especially when the American Archeological Association had forewarned war planners.

It is true as Farish said that the responsibility of any victorious army was to impose law and order as soon as it had vanquished its foe.

But at the material time of looting, did the vanguard of 15,000-strong coalition forces amongst Bagdad's population of five million really perceive that they had vanquished their foe?

They were worried stiff and busy ferreting out Saddam's Fedayeen militia snipers, and especially suicide bombers. The more immediate preoccupation of American soldiers was to think of their lives and their military assignments first more than artifacts, no matter how valuable. There were simply not enough of them then, and even now, to enforce and police law and order against mobs of looters and yet at the same time carry out military objectives.

The failure o­n the part of Coalition forces to protect the museum however does not warrant an insinuation of deliberate omission o­n their part to acquiesce in the treasures of humankind being lost. Or that it was motivated or interpreted by any quarters as an intention to prove the "fundamental schizophrenic nature of the Iraqis" or that the Iraq war could be justified as a civilising mission to civilise Iraqis and all Arabs by extension.

Whilst American forces do bear some responsibility, Farish should be objective enough not to blame the Americans entirely in exculpation of the Iraqis and Arabs.

Throughout history, and more often than not, the conquering forces have looted the places they conquered. In 1990, it was Saddam's Iraqi forces that looted the Central Bank of Kuwait. But that has not happened in Baghdad, Basra or any Iraqi city secured by Coalition troops.

Instead of the Coalition forces being the looters, Iraq's own citizenry is doing the looting. But I haven't heard that being used by any pro-Iraqi or wannabe Arab as a point of praise for American-led forces but instead o­nly blame for not preventing the mob from looting!

Besides, the museum's glass cases were cut into with highly sophisticated tools. Artifacts too large to be carried away were gratuitously destroyed. There seemed to have been a systematic attempt to reduce the museum to a shambles and the library to flames. Would this be the solely the work of ordinary looters?

At this moment it is not known and may be speculated whether other professional thieves or even Saddam's henchmen might have been involved to cause the trepidations just before the American forces rolled in. (Saddam himself had after all looted the Iraqi treasury of billions and hidden them in accounts outside Iraq).

When the Taliban came to power in 1994, the artifacts from the Kabul National Museum were also then looted. When Taliban supremo Mullah Umar issued a fatwa in February 2001 to destroy all idols of worship, the Taliban destroyed two towering Bamiyan stone Buddha statues carved in the hillsides.

These too and not just the artifacts of Mesopotamia also represented a tremendous loss to humankind cultural history. Was there any widespread and strong protest amongst the Arab regimes to pressure the Taliban not to do it or to condemn their cultural vandalism in this regard?

This bears o­n the issue of outrage and blame in respect of the protection of humankind's cultural heritage. Let us, for balance, not indulge in o­nly o­ne-sided outrage and reflex to blame the 'Other' o­nly.

According to Farish, "the Iraqis - and all Arabs by extension - have been pathologised, studied and diagnosed as fundamentally unstable, violent, irrational beings who seem unable to understand the rules of politics or the practice of democracy".

I don't know the part of them being "pathologised, studied and diagnosed" but does Farish challenge the assertion that neither the Iraqis under Saddam nor the majority of Arab regimes, whether they are American allies or foes, have been a model of good practice of democracy?

On the issue of racial stereotypes, has Arab-Muslim world been cast as the negative Other to the West or hasn't it always been the other way round of the West being been cast off as unbelievers, kafirs, dhimmi and infidels?

I agree here with Eric Mudasi that the US is more tolerant of racial and religious minorities compared with Arab countries and that Arab governments failing in democracy and development has constantly riled Arab masses against Israel and by extension its ally America to distract from the failures and corruption of their own governments.

As far as what I know, in many of Farish's own writings in the past, whether o­n politics or cultural issues like homosexuality, he had lamented and criticised the tendency of Islamic discourse to marginalise the 'Other' - until the discernible shift of late to say the opposite.

This constant blaming by Iraqis and Arabs of others for whatever trepidations, evils and shortcomings visited upon themselves without looking inward at their own failures and double standards is a trait, which I hope Farish would objectively see it for what it is rather than condone or apologise for it.

So far I have not read or heard of any Coalition leader or official or any western journalist saying that the outcome of Iraq war as not just an American-led military or political victory over the rotten Saddam Hussein's regime but also a "cultural and ideological" o­ne, justified o­n the civilising effect o­n Iraqis and all Arabs by extension. This is but the first time I hear of it from Farish. It sounds more like a figment of Farish's overstimulated intellectual analysis in projection of Arabs' own inferiority complexes of being labeled "unstable, violent, irrational beings" in psychological defence of their own failures.