They discussed this on the radio here this morning, and some things that I remember hearing (details may vary, but you can listen yourself if you’d like):
The US government was advised by archaeologists and the like of the location of important sites. They requested this information so they would not bomb them, and in order to protect them later.
Some artifacts looted have already been sighted on the black market in Europe. There is suspicion that (some, most of?) the looting was organized theft, and trashing the museums afterwards was partly to destroy records.
Personally, I think that the Coalition is not doing enough to keep the country from falling into chaos, but that’s another discussion with different cites to find later.
But it isn’t “falling into chaos”. And with respect to the museum, I find it curious that some rag-tag looters managed to get into the vault. There might be more to this than meets the eye.
Libertarian, I will respectfully disagree about the chaos.
One of the scholars interviewed also said he suspected that some of this looting was masterminded by black-market antiquities dealers.
I don’t know much about the buildings housing the museums looted, but museums in general are more designed to protect artifacts from the environment than to keep people out. They have doors and windows like everywhere else. It doesn’t surprise me that somebody had enough determination, time, or luck to get in.
Respectfully noted. However, I’ve seen at least as much “chaos” many times in my life, including 1968 in Detroit and 1989 in Charlotte. With respect to museums, hundreds of them have been destroyed in wars throughout the ages. Antiquities have been pillaged for centuries from Egypt and elsewhere. Librairies (include the Great Library in Alexandria) have been looted since the beginning of the written word. Order is returning to Baghdad — lights and water are being restored as we write — and life will go on.
Light 'em up. You need to borrow a match? These are just scraps of paper. It’s the words written on them, the ideas they contain, which are the valuable part. The Constitution is just an archaic scrap of hemp paper. If it were burned to ashes tomorrow, I wouldn’t give a damn, because the ideas it represents, the laws it contains, are not relegated to the physical exsistence of the original document.
As for the Mona Lisa, this would have to be the one piece of art human culture could most afford to lose. It’s been re-produced so many times since it was painted, that the original is entirely superfluous. You couldn’t remove the Mona Lisa from the global culture if you tried.
We can always put a new head on the Lincoln memorial. It’s not like we wouldn’t know what he looks like; we’ve got lots of pennies lying around. As for the crown jewels, aside from the wealth inherent in the gold and gems that make them up, there’s not a piece in them that’s older than the 17th century, except for one badly made golden spoon. Cromwell melted the originals down when he overthrew the Monarchy. And yet somehow, England maintained without them.
It doesn’t matter. These are, after all, only things. Which is not to say they are worthless. It’s a damned shame that these things were destroyed. It would have been nice to keep them. But not a single one of them is worth a human life. And, as Libertarian has pointed out so eloquently, there’s a FUCKING WAR going on in Baghdad right now. Not one single person in this thread knows exactly what the American military brass is trying to cope with right now. And if they decided that protecting this museum was not worth the potential cost in human lives, both American and Iraqi, I’m willing to accept their judgement on that. I’m far more concerned about hospitals being left open to looters than the museums, and it seems we can’t spare enough men to cover all of those, either.
And I’m disgusted (and surprised) by comments like Lissa’s, where she cavalierly asserts that she has no problems with killing someone to protect these “treasures,” an attitude no less craven and debased than George Bush’s supposed lust for the Iraqi oil-wells. The most important job we have in Iraq right now is saving as many lives as possible, both in the current engagement and during the reconstruction of the country. Everything else, everything, is secondary to that. I don’t care how old it is.
And I am equally disgusted by those who place no value on the artifacts of the past. It’s idiotic views such as these which have greatly contributed to the loss of our cultural heritage around the world. Thank God that there are people who understand the value of artifacts and attempt to protect them from people like this.
It just shows a complete lack of understanding and respect for history that someone could compare lust for money and power with the desire to preserve our heritage. If it weren’t so sad, it would be comical.
I suppose I could explain at length the importance of these objects, the difference between primary and secondary sources, and what you can actually learn from the object * itself * versus a facsimille. I could talk about the awe I see on children’s faces when I show them an object in my museum which existed before the birth of Christ. I could discuss how tangibility helps in learning to love history, but to what end? A person who has no respect for the relics of our past will not care or bother to understand. It’s like trying explain opera to a street thug.
Have you showed them a corpse riddled with holes from an AK-47? A picture just doesn’t do it justice. It’s like trying to explain the price of liberty to a modern liberal.
It’s not that I don’t value them, it’s just that I realize that there are more important things than these souveniers. Human lives, for example. Not that I’d expect you to understand, considering comments like, “Forgive me, artifacts do not further civilization, but your family members somehow do?”
What I see is that you value these things the way that other people value oil, or money, or gold. And you don’t care who has to die to protect the things you value. The only difference is, you get to pretend righteousness when people question your values.
“You don’t understand the educational value of these things! No, I’m not going to explain them to you! Why should I try and teach you anything?”
I never said these things were worthless, I said there were other things that were of more value. Namely, the lives of our soldiers, and even the lives of the very street thugs that were moving the relics out by the cartload. It’s wonderful that you have so much respect for human history. A little more respect for actual humans would be nice, though.
Seems to me that by that logic, you think it’s never okay to use force to protect property. If you do, fine, that’s your opinion, but I disagree (and so does the law, for the most part).
What if it were your house being burgled, and the only way you could stop people from stealing all your posessions was to use force. I’d do it. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but there it is.
Yeah, tell that to the child who just lost his/her father “Well kid, too bad, no more daddy for you, but hey, here’s a coupon for free admission to the museum.” :mad:
Oh, I understand all right. You choice of words in the “souvineer” comment is very telling.
**
Greed is not the same as respect for history. I gain no material value from preserving artifacts for the rest of humanity, other than my miniscule salary.
**
And? Are you asking me to explain? Would it change your mind, or just be a waste of bandwidth?
I do respect human life, but I can also step back and examine the matter from the broad perspective of human history. In the grand scheme of things, one human life is but a blip, whereas these artifacts had survived for thousands of years, and would have survived for thousands more had they not been abandoned to the destructors.
**
Funny you should say that. Not too long ago, we had a debate over whether the media was doing Americans a disservice by not showing the carnage of war. I agreed that it was, saying that we should be forced to see the human cost of military action, rather than sterile footage of cool explosions and marines firing into the darkness.
There is no practical way to accomplish what you suggested. I don’t work in a corpse musuem, and don’t have any handy. Nor is my musuem political in nature. I don’t lecture my tour groups on current actions-- I just discuss the results of those of the past.
I understand the price of liberty, no matter what my politics. (And I don’t think Iraq was a threat to it.)
So your kids growing up without a father doesn’t bother you. You are willing to put your children through that over some artifacts?
Ferrous, Lissa, and everyone else crying about this damn museum, go enlist and do something about it. Until then you can all kiss my USMC ASS!!!