I disagree with your opinion that this iconoclastic destruction ISIS is unleashing on ancient sites has a deep underlying rationale such as war against a foreign civilization. Not only they lack such elaborate conceptualization, they actually don't need it. Simple matter is that all type of icons are banned in Islam, that is the end of rationalization.
The fact that an idea has a rationale in a cultural premise does not make it true or tolerable, certainly does not compel any straight thinking individual to value it without qualification. Your complete failure to appreciate this nuance between toleration and senseless cultural relativism is even more apparent in your completely baffling comparison of destruction of Nimrud to toppling of Saddam's statue, and dogma of a religion to appreciation of historical artifacts. In my opinion, there lies the crux of your failure, in what makes Nimrud valuable to humanity as a whole and not Saddam's statue.
I disagree with your opinion that this iconoclastic destruction ISIS is unleashing on ancient sites has a deep underlying rationale such as war against a foreign civilization. Not only they lack such elaborate conceptualization, they actually don't need it. Simple matter is that all type of icons are banned in Islam, that is the end of rationalization.
The fact that an idea has a rationale in a cultural premise does not make it true or tolerable, certainly does not compel any straight thinking individual to value it without qualification. Your complete failure to appreciate this nuance between toleration and senseless cultural relativism is even more apparent in your completely baffling comparison of destruction of Nimrud to toppling of Saddam's statue, and dogma of a religion to appreciation of historical artifacts. In my opinion, there lies the crux of your failure, in what makes Nimrud valuable to humanity as a whole and not Saddam's statue.