Kulturkampf or Sitzkrieg?

New at Reason: From the September issue, Charles Paul Freund's ode to an Iraqi urn questions whether there was any truth or beauty in the great Baghdad museum looting story.

Comments

[joe]

"Here?s the 5,000-year-old Warka Vase; it was missing from Iraq?s National Museum when Baghdad fell, but was returned in June by three men who had it in the trunk of their car."

I had a car like that once.

[s.m. koppelman]

Okay, so 170,000 artifacts weren't stolen. The post-invasion disappearance of "three dozen... artifacts of great significance" and "quite a few" "lesser" items--and the failure to assign guards to Baghdad's major museums while managing to guard its Petroleum Ministry offices splendidly--was still a pretty big story.

I wonder what sort of reaction there would be if, say, the original Declaration of Independence, Michaelangelo's David and the mummified corpse of King Tut, thirty or so other comparable things, and maybe a quarter of the Brooklyn Museum's collection of Egyptian knickknacks were all stolen in a three-day period. That would fit the bill of "three dozen... artifacts of great significance" and "quite a few" lesser items, (3,000 or so, as the sad, needy Andrew Sullivan once put the number).

[Shady O'Grady]

Way to tell us absolutely nothing about the true story. Is this a teaser for a future article or the result of a closing deadline?

[alkali]

I would note that the picture of the Warka Vase in the linked page is not a picture of what the thing looked like after it was returned; it's a picture taken some years ago. A side-by-side before-and-after would be instructive.

[Gene Berkman]

I think everyone should be happy that the original story of 170,000 pieces being lost to looting was wrong.
But few conservatives are noting that final audits show about 6,000 pieces still missing.
Actually, this is less important than the 7,000 to 8,000 Iraqi civilians who have died since President Bush ordered his pre-emptive attack on that country which never attacked us.
Correcting the exaggerations of the media is important, but it is also important to have a perspective on the real issues involved in making war.

[nm156]

Okay, so 6000 pieces are still missing. Quick! Everyone check you trunks. There. That ought to do it.

[matt]

Yes Brad all of us against the war were obviouly just anit-Amercian Saddam apoligists, right? Gimme a fucking break.

[Jon H]

Here's a comparison of the before and after condition of the Warka Vase: LINK

It's about half there.

Advantage: Looters!

[matt]

damn, sorry for the spelling on my last post...was late to class

[joe]

Last night on Jim Lehrer, the USMC Reserve colonel (and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney) who is in charge of the recovery operation put the number of missing items at 10,000. He also said that media attention was very important in convincing would-be dealers and buyers to stay away from the stuff, and in convincing people who have items to return them.

Once again, the men in uniform impress me a lot more than their stateside cheerleaders.

[Jon H]

The Warka vase was badly broken. A side-by-side is on the web, I don't have a link. If I recall correctly, the bottom was gone.

[Rick Barton]

"...since President Bush ordered his pre-emptive attack on that country which never attacked us."

Nor was there any indication that they were even thinking about it or had the capacity to do so.
I remember the day after our government attacked, a reporter asked Wesley Clark how we could protect ourselves from the Iraqi WMD and his answer that was we shouldn't worry because he didn't think they had WMD and they had no way to get them here even if they did. I thought "great General, now you tell us." Real leadership, there.

On the story of the lost Sumerian antiquities as a result of the National Museum looting; I wonder if the Hungarians got very freaked since there is a school of thought (for years, brutally suppressed by the commie thugs) that the Hungarians have a strong ancestral link to the ancient Sumerians. (The case for it is mostly linguistic but artifact based as well, from what I understand.

[Brad]

"since President Bush ordered his pre-emptive attack on that country which never attacked us"

We won, your hero Saddam lost. Get over it.

[Jack]

Brad,

I'd wait until after Nov. 2, 2004 to start announcing winners in the war on Iraq.

[i]

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[Michael]

Good job!

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[Rojas Pablo]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
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DATE: 02/27/2004 01:31:25
It's never right to say always, and always wrong to say never.