--- Pamela Sezgin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Odd that the U.S. Government could not plan ahead to station police around
> important sites, even though the American Archeaological Assocation met with
> officials over and over again in the months leading up to this war and warned
> them about looting, which happened at Nineveh during the 1991 Gulf War.

Good grief! The troops just got there. It's not like they could have walked
into the city and stationed troops willy nilly. Again, there are still pockets
of resistance, traps to uncover and there were POWs to be found. Troops can't
be everywhere.

> Odd also that the Oil Ministry was not "looted" in recent days because there
> were U. S. Marines stationed out front.

In the grand scheme of things, the Oil Ministry has vastly much more money and
resources for the Iraq than antiquities. The Oil for Food program can get again
started without the museum. It can't get started again without the Oil
Ministry.

> Some opportunistic people
> just wait for such moments of social disorder to grab the world's cultural
> heritage and sell it quietly to private buyers.

And those people are everywhere. It's horrible that people use times of crisis
for their own personal benefit.

I think because museum professionals are so passionate about our work, we tend
to forget that people need food, housing and security before they will even
consider visiting a museum. The cloest thing I've come to living through a war
is living about 2 miles from the Pentagon when it was attacked. My first
thoughts weren't "OH my God, I hope the Smithsonian is safe," but rather "My
dad didn't go into work today did he?" If his office hadn't moved a week
earlier from the renovations, it would have been plowed. Fortunately, he was
out of the office that day all together and wasn't at the Pentagon.

I also spent the rest of the day answering phone calls from concerned relatives
and friends to make sure my family and I were safe. I also made may own phone
calls to make sure my friends were safe. The only time the Smithsonian crossed
my mind was to worry if my friends who worked there had gotten out okay. I
could have cared less about any artifact in there or if the buildings
themselves were now only craters in the ground. My friends were more important.


This doesn't mean that I don't care about museums. I still do and love working
there. But I put family and friends above items, any items no matter how
valuable. It was only after I knew that my friends and family were safe that I
inquired about the status of the SI itself. Maybe you have a different
philosophy but I'd wager that most people out there will put people above items
as well when you get down to it.

Instead of the finger pointing and the whinging about the looted antiques, I'd
like to see the media all over the world FLOODED with descriptions and pictures
of the looted antiques to make them as hard to buy as possible. Make sure that
every antique dealer out there knows what is being sold and how to return it to
the museum in Iraq. I think that will do more good in the long run than putting
a tank in front the building.

Deb

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