One of the saddest things about the Iraq war is that the destruction of an ancient culture isn't even tabulated in the cost. An article in today's New York Times, A Fabled Iraqi Instrument Thrives in Exile, discusses the suppression of secular oud music in Baghdad. There are other places where Arabic music continues to survive, but Baghdad was once the center of a particular sound that may now fade into obscurity. This is the long term cost of political instability. There are millenia-old pieces from the National Museum of Iraq that may never resurface, and an intellectual tradition as old as the Abbasid Caliphate is slowly being rubbed away.
The same thing has happened in Afghanistan in the instability following the Soviet invasion in 1979. In 2001, the Taliban destroyed the giant Buddhas at Bamyan, and things didn't get much better after allied forces took over. In The Places in Between, Rory Stewart documented the 2002 looting of the lost city of Turquoise Mountain, former capital of the Ghorid empire. The empire was utterly destroyed by the Mongols, so an organized excavation of the site may have been our last opportunity to learn about this vanished culture.
This is worse than killing a group of people; it's erasing any sign that they ever existed.
On a more positive note, if you're not familiar with the oud, check out this video on YouTube or visit the website of Issa Boulos, a Palestinian player in Chicago, for some free recordings. If you want to listen to the Baghdad style, search YouTube with the phrase "Iraqi maqam."
As an interesting tangent, check out the middle of this video from the Turkish film Crossing the Bridge to hear the oud's influence on flamenco. The entire film is well worth watching and is narrated by Alexander Hacke of Einstuerzende Neubauten.
Confidential to Jonathan Coulton fans: mark the date.