NO BLOOD FOR ARCHEOLOGY
Such a silly question! It's ALWAYS the Americans fault!
That is a darned good question. I've been studying what make our cultures tick for 30 years. Naturally, such study is useless without an avid interest in history, so as to learn about the older cultures which were in some cases subsumed by the newer ones (the culture of ancient Egypt, subsumed by Islamic culture 1,400 years ago for instance)
Because of this avid interest in ancient history, I'm appalled by the looting of ancient artifacts....but dammit, I'm a heckuva lot MORE appalled by the armchair generalship I see here on this thread!
You posters blaming OUR military first are really a sad example of troop support. I mean..what good does it do for adults to support our sons and daughters shedding their own blood to attain freedom for some population far away if we haven't got the least idea how our military goes about freeing people in the FIRST PLACE???
Somebody said "well, we've got troops guarding hospitals, so there's no reason we can't spare a few to go and guard a museum" that opened just before military action began - as if Saddam never expected military action to start!? CUT ME A BREAK!!
We have a finite number of troops on hostile territory with nasties just WAITING to ambush them the moment they let their guard down...AND THERE ARE ALLEGED 'PATRIOTS' HERE ON THIS THREAD WHINING THAT IF WE CAN GUARD HOSPITALS...IF WE CAN GUARD HOSPITALS....THEN WE OUGHT TO HAVE SPARED A DOZEN OR SO MEN TO DIE GUARDING A D@MNED MUSEUM!!! AS IF A MUSEUM IS AS IMPORTANT AS A HOSPITAL!
You posters insisting that our troops be placed into further life threatening situations in the midst of such bloody chaos in order to protect a museum sound like you thought it was a GREAT idea to send our special forces into Mogadishu to die as part of a 'humanitarian' mission, where they were lured into a trap.
As an historian, I HATE what happened to these antiquities. But have a hard time believeing there were as me=any treasures there as claimed in this article.
HOWEVER, I refuse to allow ANYONE to order our troops....my nephews and cousins among them, to die in order to defend a museum. Dying defending the wounded in a hospital is one thing, but if I EVER hear ANY of our troops lifes are wasted in such a BLOODY CLINTONIAN WAY....this rant will be extremely mild and cool headed by comparison to the action which I will take. </rant mode off>