--- Jennifer Uhrhane <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> how can you even consider accepting works of art stolen from another
> country!? i don't see that there is any "fine line" on this issue...you
> will cross "the line" if you accept those works. better to figure out
> how to return items (if presented to you) to the museums from which
> they were looted!

Hold on a minute tex, you don't know if the "war booty" that the soldiers are
bringing back was even looted in the first place. The Middle East is full of
ancient artifacts like the Western US is littered with Native American
artifacts. People have been selling ancient trinkets for eons long before the
Iraqi museum was looted.

The military is really strict on what people can and cannot take as loot. Given
the situation with the Iraqi museum, they probably can't take anything out of
Iraq to begin with and if they did, they sure wouldn't be donating it to a
museum where they could be turned in.

Unless every pot sherd and clay tablet fragment was labled and numbered, it
would be practically impossible to know where it came from. And like I said
before, there are millions of clay tablet fragments and broken bits of pottery
out there that never made it into the museum collections. So if a soldier was
walking down the street and said, "Oh look, a piece of pottery," and put it in
his pocket, chances are it probably didn't come from the museum collections.
Given the situation with the looting, they probably have to turn in any
artifacts they find in the first place, historical looking or not.

So please, don't jump to conclusions and demonize US soldiers as treasure
hunting opportunists. Most will probably come back home with modern-made
trinkets bought off the locals that have nothing to do with the Iraqi museum
collections.

Deb



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