Looting was work of organised traffickers: UNESCO experts

Agence France-Presse (AFP) ^ | 4-17-03 | Huge Schofield

[My2Cents]

A library of Korans in the religious endowments ministry was set on fire

Why am I not upset about this?

[Orlando]

This site should of been protected on day #1.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks, I have bookmarked this for the nay whiners!

[cmattair]

You should be. Would you be upset if the Gutenburg bible in the LOC were destroyed.

Probably this stems from your view of the world being complete. History doesn't matter, no other opinions are valid and you haven't had an original thought since you were born.

[MizSterious]

"This site should of been protected on day #1."

And how many other sites? If we protected every place that someone considers valuable, there would have been no troops left to do what they went in there to do: liberate Iraq.

Let's be honest: we did not do the looting. It's not our responsibility--that belongs to whoever did it, most likely the Iraqis. They have just looted themselves.

[PoisedWoman]

For more on this fascinating subject take a look at this link posted by aristeides on this morning's thread on the same topic

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2001/msg00691.html.

[MizSterious]

Your link isn't working. Too bad--Aristeides often finds good stuff.

[Grampa Dave]

Here is a reply from Phil Dragoo on another thread that explains our problems with defending/securing this museum.

Hopefully Phil will elaborate on this for us.

To: TroutStalker; Grampa Dave; PhiKapMom

Lt. Col. Schwartz, whose functions also include feeding the lions in the abandoned Baghdad Zoo next door, said he couldn't move into the museum compound and protect it from looters last week because his soldiers were taking fire from the building -- and were determined not to respond. There is an Iraqi army trench in the museum's front lawn, and Lt. Col. Schwartz said his troops found many Iraqi army uniforms inside. "If there is any dirty trick in the book," he said, "they sure used it."

NYT and the alphabetnet continue to try to foist the Big Lie of looting--when it's more the Mogadishu template: U.S. removes tyrant starving citizens, so tyrant hides behind citizens to shoot at U.S.

For NYT and the alphabetnet America, Bush and the troops are ALWAYS wrong, their question at press conferences and in their "news" is ALWAYS "Why hasn't Bush quit beating his wife!"

Kudos to WSJ and Fox for the balanced report.

The Leftist propaganda machine is in effect criticizing the dead firemen and police in the WTC for failing to rescue "millions of irreplaceable files".

It's a war of liberation and we and the Iraqis are victorious.

The Left is losing--and it turns their red faces purple.


28 posted on 04/17/2003 12:16 PM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hitlery: das Butch von Buchenvald)
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[Steve_Seattle]

"This site should of been protected on day #1."

Frankly, if I were part of an army invading the USA and the country was still full of snipers and suicide bombers, I wouldn't be thinking much about protecting the Smithsonian Institute. I'd be covering my ass and looking for the remaining military targets.

[CAPPSMADNESS]

They have just looted themselves.

Which always made me wonder exactly what posesses people to do it - Much like the Cincinnati riots, all they did was hurt themselves..... doesn't make sense to me a'tall

[TomB]

This site should of been protected on day #1.

Why? Do you have some emotional attachment to replicas?

[PoisedWoman]

I don;'t know why that link doesn't work. It comes up on my aol.

Trying again:

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2001/msg00691.html

[Risa]

>>Why am I not upset about this? <<

Upon reading the article, I felt a sense of relief and had to ask myself why I would feel this way - perhaps because Islam's fundamentalist adherents take the violent mythology expressed in these texts so literally and mean to do us harm because if it.

risa

[ValenB4]

Wouldn't it be a nice discovery if it is proven that there are different versions of the Koran out there - thus demonstrating that is is not a divine revelation? Such a discovery would weaken the rigid conservative elements within the Islamic world.

But besides that, all of history is worth preserving whether or not one has distaste for certain elements of a culture.

I certainly hope that it's true that professional smugglers got this stuff out, particularly any untranslated tablets. As long as the stuff is still intact, even if it takes 100 years or more, it can be recovered.

[MizSterious]

Worked like a charm--thanks!

[jetson]

" They have stolen the four stones...we are doomed!

[FirstFlaBn]

Deep understanding of cultural history from someone who doesn't know the difference between a preposition and a verb. Amazing.

Any High Contracting Party in occupation of the whole or part of the territory of another High Contracting Party shall as far as possible support the competent national authorities of the occupied country in safeguarding and preserving its cultural property.

The above is the much ballyhooed Geneva Convention requirement. It leaves plenty of room for military necessity. We clearly met the requirements. If you had read any of the stories on the subject, you would have known that the looting took place over a two day period last week and that during most of this period the enemy were occupying the site and shooting at US soldiers. See stories describing uniforms found in the museum and trenches in the front yard.

How many American lives should have been sacrificed (or risked) to meet your simple-minded admonition?

[algol]

Lt. Col. Schwartz, whose functions also include feeding the lions in the abandoned Baghdad Zoo next door, said he couldn't move into the museum compound and protect it from looters

Don't they teach creative problem solving to officers any more? He could have solved both problems by letting the lions into the museum.

[Grampa Dave]

Great Solution. Then the enviral whackos, Peta Freaks, ELF and Alfs would gone ballastic on us if one lion got hurt or died from food poisoning from eating a Fedayeen Soddomite.

Every Bambi and cat lover in the world would have been wanting this poor soldier shot for hurting a critter.