Stupid comparison
When a culture conquers another, they destroy the idols of the previous one. To them, it symbolizes something negative. There's a reason we destroyed Saddam's statue. Whether it's oppression, blasphemy, racism, or simply replacing it with a new culture - the why is irrelevant. It's about perspective.
Haha.. no no, THIS is stupid: "they have every right to destroy it, if they feel it represents something evil and obsolete."
Please don't just blast right over this ^^^^ gem which you provided us with, sir.
Comparing the radical Islamists' destruction of Assyrian (and of other ancients not just in Syria but elsewhere) monuments to Saddam is inane on multiple levels. Saddam is not a culture or an empire, he's one man. The coalition didn't go out of their way to flatten the museum in Baghdad...That was these guys and their buddies who destroyed everything in it.
Even with all of that said, you are dead wrong. Not all conquering cultures disintegrate the assets of the vanquished, evident in the fact that we have museums filled with metric tonnes of stuff from Mesoamerica, Middle East, Central Asia, Europe, etc..
Even the Mongols preserved Damascus. Alexander the Great razed Persepolis but preserved Babylon. The Nazis did not destroy as much as they stole. Many of these 'conquering' civilizations as you put it tended to destroy some things so as to teach a lesson but they did not go out there with the sole purpose of extinguishing every other culture except for theirs. These people whom you are sympathizing with will not be content until they kill everything that is not them. The Mongols who sacked Baghdad would be ashamed of those with whom you sympathize.
Not sure if you've noticed but
we with adequately functioning brains, in the 21st century tend to preserve, because we're not brain dead, Saudi savages. British museum is a great place to start to see said preservation.
