OT: Great Job, Again!

OTOH, why should the US care? It's ONLY Islamic culture, isn't it?

It's pre-Islamic, of course. A few random thoughts:

1. The curator must be a Saddam appointee; should we believe her story? This is after all a big PR coup against the US. And how did they count the 170,000 pieces so quickly?

2. Were US forces present in this part of the city, or did they arrive after the deed was done? Could they have prevented it even if they had tried to?

3. How did the looters get into the presumably locked vaults? Doesn't this suggest an inside job? (Most big robberies are, after all.)

4. How do we know that this happened recently? The museum has been closed to the public for ten years. Does anyone know what happened to the collection during that decade of cloistered secrecy? We know Saddam smuggled oil for cash; why not art?

5. Why wasn't the collection in storage?

6. The museum collection in Kabul, like the Buddhas, was purposely smashed to bits by Islamist goons, colleagues of whom are known to be all over Iraq. Isn't it likely that this had more to do with their deliberate actions than with random looters?

It is the responsibility of the occupying force to maintain order and prevent looting.

[Sigh]

Apparently, the museum director (George Donny) and an international organization for the preservation of artefacts DID contact the military prior to the war, and pleaded with them to protect the museum in event of taking over Bagdad. Some items were indeed removed before the war started.

And the biggest joke: Now that they can't find any weapons of mass destruction, they claim that they've all been brought to Syria. So that they can break international law again, with another easy prey.

At least, CNN ran a report on the museum raid, and tries to be 'objective' every once in a while. Which is more than you can say about the creepy flagwaving and corny hail-the-conquering-hero approach on Fox and NBC ('America's Bravest', need I say more?).

You can see it now, moron.

Probably by counting the remianing items.

And the museum director is one George Donny. Doesn't sound very Saddam-ish to me. He and his people slept in the museum to do whatb they can to protect the pieces, but were overwhelmed by looters.

Of course they could. And as the occupying force, they're responsible under international law to uphold order. Strangely, they've been able to protect all those oil wells. How come?

READ. They simply broke the doors open.

Several independent sources have covered the event, including Reuters.

So what diference would it make if a GANG of looters raided the museum?

No. I do the Frank Berger twist and blame Germans of 60 years ago.

Do you think that the criminal behaviour of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army should be considered the yardstick, let alone a blue print, by which the US Army should conceive its actions in Iraq or anywhere else? The issue is certainly not how the Germans or Russians behaved as occupying forces, but how the current situation in Iraq is to be handled. From what I've heard, from tomorrow on there will be a joint US-Iraq policing force in Baghdad and other major cities. And that's certainly the best way to handle it.