I don't think I'll ever understand how people can do things like this. Admittedly if I were to judge a group on the severity of their actions, killing people outright, versus destroying their cultural and historical records, I'd be less angry about the destruction of the physical objects. Regardless, of all the things to do in a war, it's not enough to inflict violence on the people? You have to go and destory valuable historical records as well? Maybe I'm just being naive, but it's just plain stupid... From an academic point of view, from a cultural point of view, even from a tactical point of view (to play devil's advocate here), it's a bad idea to destory valuable knowledge.