[CPProt.net] Iraqi looting of cultural heritage -

Mon Apr 14 04:58:32 CEST 2003

I agree totally with Mr. Reed Van Horth's, and many others feelings on this
matter and wish not to receive emails of opinions but only facts.

.

-----Original Message-----
From: Reed Van Horth [mailto:RVHorth1 at msn.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 7:37 PM
To: Denny; Artnose Editor; list at cpprot.net
Subject: Re: [CPProt.net] Iraqi looting of cultural heritage - 

Hello,
    I have watched the debates over the past few weeks in this journalistic
forum in silence. Any views that I disagree with, I simply pass over, and
understand that biases exist in journalism. I was under the impression that
this was a journalistic forum, where we were able to help each other with
information on how to better run our businesses and lives. 
    This has devolved into a column, better suited for the op-ed page than
the arts page. I no longer wish to receive emails of opinions. Only facts.     You may make the argument that you have presented facts in this email;
and I would counter that with the inflammatory tone of the opinion, the
facts have been biased by the writer, and those who support the view. 
    My opinion is of no relevance here. Neither is yours. This is a fact
page that should not involve anything but. 
    If it is your choice to send further emails with opinions as such,
please remove my name from your list. I read enough to have developed my own
picture of what is going on in the world, that I do not need to get it in my
"In-Box" as well. 
    Thank you, Reed Van Horth
Historian- Collection Privee de Peinture et de Sculpture
----- Original Message ----- 

From: Denny <mailto:swcmfhba at compassnet.com>  
To: Artnose Editor <mailto:editor at artnose.com>  ; list at cpprot.net
<mailto:list at cpprot.net>  
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 3:50 PM
Subject: Re: [CPProt.net] Iraqi looting of cultural heritage - Blame Bush
andBlair
Remove me from this list. I not only disagree with what was said, I NEVER
want to hear from the sender or anybody with that view again.
REMOVE ME NOW!
----- Original Message ----- 

From: Artnose Editor <mailto:editor at artnose.com>  
To: list at cpprot.net <mailto:list at cpprot.net>  
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 3:28 AM
Subject: [CPProt.net] Iraqi looting of cultural heritage - Blame Bush and
Blair

Iraq's ancient cultural heritage has been ransacked - blame Bush and Blair

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

This Gulf War was entirely unnecessary. It has caused inestimable human
misery to the people of Iraq and has wrecked an irreplaceable goldmine of
cultural heritage. The looting of hospitals and other public buildings is
serious enough, particularly when hundreds of women and children are
suffering from the effects of bombing and artillery fire, but at least that
medical infrastructure can be rebuilt. Not so the country's priceless
material culture. 

This war has revealed more than any conflict since the Second World War, the
essentially philistine nature of Western capitalist economies, as the US
barges into a country of unparalleled historical significance in order to
further its own strategic aims. Clearly the coalition forces made no proper
contingency plans for the immediate aftermath. 

Of course, scores of extra troops were standing by to quash an intransigent
Republican Guard had it decided to fight to the bitter end, but when
peacekeeping personnel were needed to defend public buildings and the
cultural treasures in Iraq's museums, there was suddenly a paucity of 'men
on the ground'. 

"We haven't targeted anything, nor are we firing at these precious sites,"
US Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command,
told ABC News. What neither he nor his military superiors had taken into
account is that cultural heritage is not only destroyed by bombing and
artillery fire, but by a lawless people after the conflict ends. Any
sophisticated military planner would have made allowance for this,
particularly in a country such as Iraq, and particularly given what happened
after the last Gulf War. 

Owens went on to say that he was unaware of any damage to museums, but he
had only to tune into networked radio broadcasts to hear that Mosul museum
had been ransacked by a mob, two men seen carrying off an ancient portal,
while gangs burst into the museum storeroom and targeted ancient Assyrian
and Babylonian stone tablets. 

Meanwhile, Baghdad's archaeological museum was also looted, according to an
AFP reporter, with dozens of opportunists on the ground floor helping
themselves to ancient pottery artefacts and statues. After seeing hundreds
of computers looted from offices in recent days, it is perhaps only a matter
of time before Iraq's ancient material culture starts appearing on eBay,
that pernicious paradise for traffickers in stolen goods and looted
antiquities. 

While this tragic destruction was taking place in what archaeologists call
"the cradle of civilisation", a sinister-sounding organisation calling
itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP) - a coalition of
antiquities collectors and arts lawyers (now there's a venal concatenation
of interests) - was lobbying for a relaxation of Iraq's export legislation.  
It is antiquities collectors who provide the incentive for looters in the
first place. No modern museum worth its reputation would even consider
purchasing antiquities without documented provenance, but auction houses and
dealers continue to offer objects of uncertain origin, while wealthy
collectors remain the end users, fuelling the supply chain. Websites such as
eBay unwittingly provide cover for the traffic in illicitly-acquired
artefacts, but the entire process, from tomb-robber and museum-looter to
dealer and collector, needs policing. Failing to do so will result in the
dispersal of the world's cultural heritage. 

No matter how we dress this up, Bush and Blair are directly to blame. There
was no proper legal or human justification for this war. Saddam's régime was
toothless in the face of international political and diplomatic containment
in recent years. The region will never be cleaned of weapons of mass
destruction while Israel is allowed to intimidate its neighbours with its
privileged nuclear stockpile.

No 'smoking gun' has been found in Iraq. It would only have been necessary
to relax sanctions and attach specific conditions to that relaxation, to
re-empower the Iraqi people. Political change in the modern world needs to
occur organically. Attempts to impose it through the military industrial
complex is fraught with danger and invariably leads to the uncontainable
humanitarian crisis we now see unfolding across Iraq today. And it will not
end here. The blunt weapon of American neo-colonialism will grind forwards,
creating new cells of informal opposition around the world. America bleats
about why it is so despised and then promptly sends a reckless and unwieldy
military machine into a region where it has no business to be. The British
government should be ashamed of itself for collaborating and exposing
British forces to 'blue-on-blue' - that hideous euphemism which disguises
the fatal flaws in America's computerised command structure - which has
killed so many young soldiers and airmen in this conflict.

The built and moveable heritage of Iraq may seem a small part of all this,
but a country's ancient material culture is crucial to a people seeking to
heal themselves after a terrible war. Now that point of reference, that
umbilicus joining the Iraqi people to their ancient ancestors, has been
severed, or at any rate dispersed beyond retrieval. 

It will be interesting to see how the international art market associations
respond to this crisis. Now is a time for collaboration and visionary
thinking. So don't hold your breath. 

Editor,
Artknows 
editor at artknows.com <mailto:editor at artknows.com> 
http://www.artknows.com/AK2IraqComment1.htm
<http://www.artknows.com/AK2IraqComment1.htm> 

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