Professor calls for looters to be shot

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 07/09/03 | Will Bennett

[Yardstick]

About 13,000 objects have disappeared from the storage rooms although only 47 pieces are missing from the main exhibition hall. "Seven are very important masterpieces," he said.

Here we go again with these numbers.

Is it 13,000 objects, of which 12,997 are ancient babylonian buttons which the museum kept in a big jar? Or is it 13,000 objects, each with individual significance?

I wish someone would nail this down once and for all.

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[Shermy]

Is it 13,000 objects, of which 12,997 are ancient babylonian buttons which the museum kept in a big jar? Or is it 13,000 objects, each with individual significance?

This is what I heard: the "thousands" of objects were mostly from a few special boxes in locked storage - speculated to be part of the "inside job". A lot of the objects are small items that can be sold in the black market in Europe. The thiefs who stole these things knew what they were doing. The ones who stole the famous objects were greedy fools - those items were famous and never could be sold without immediate arrests - they were too hot.

Also, the items in the count include pieces - if a post was broken into 50 pieces, it would count as fifty items, not one.

I heard this from the American investigator interviewed on the BBC.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

"You have got to kill some people to stop this."

Hmmm. You know he's a liberal, to boot.

Funny how guns are ok to take lives to protect material goods they cherish, but not ok to protect one's own life.

[Sacajaweau]

I think I remember reading that these sites have been continuously looted over the years. Therefore, it is nothing new. The only thing that is new is that they are holding the US to blame for some type of inaction. Another blah, blah, blah "anti-US" media stunt.

[toddst]

Seems appropriate to hand professor Stone a rifle and let her lead the charge against the looters - if shooting a few of them is what she believes to be effective as a deterrent. Bet she turns down the offered M-16.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

...Elizabeth Stone, an American archaeology professor

SHE is an American. Isn't that special?

[Yardstick]

Thanks for a little more detail.

[Still Thinking]

So this moron, who no doubt thought Saddam's human rights violations insufficient to justify his violent deposal, wants to shoot people for stealing archeological artifacts???

[Publius6961]

Seems appropriate to hand professor Stone a rifle and let her lead the charge against the looters - if shooting a few of them is what she believes to be effective as a deterrent. Bet she turns down the offered M-16.

Of course.
Like all good pacifists and "progressives", she prefers that someone else hang his/her butt out to get shot in return.

All to "save" her non-productive hobby.

Here I thought we were talking about looters in American cities.
Looters should be shot not because of what they do, but for what they are: ruthless scum who will kill to get whatever they need to generate money, or satisfaction, or to satisfy primitive ideology.
I do agree with her; looters should be shot. But not because it threatens her playpen.

[Yardstick]

I think I remember reading that these sites have been continuously looted over the years. Therefore, it is nothing new. The only thing that is new is that they are holding the US to blame for some type of inaction. Another blah, blah, blah "anti-US" media stunt.

For a while there, the looting of the museum was the only thing about the Iraq war that the Left could take any pleasure in.

[Bahbah]

The irony, which you express so well, is just delicious.

[Fifth Business]

bump

[blam]

"I wish someone would nail this down once and for all."

They're using backhoes and bulldozers to rip apart ancient sites that have yet to be examined by archaeologists. The country is loaded with these sites. Most of these sites are known by archaeologists.

[You Dirty Rats]

I have no problem with shooting looters as a general policy.

Looters are scum.

[GregoryFul]

I think if the authorities killed a few of the rich collectors doing the buying, the looting would quickly stop.

[A_perfect_lady]

All to "save" her non-productive hobby.

Reminds me of anthropologists who hate to see the free market bring wealth to all the third world hellholes that had been their quaint, desperate little private backwater up till then.