Saturday, July 19, 2008
Another anti-war myth dies
This news must be very disappointing to the people who have been claiming that the looting of Iraq's archeological sites is another example of the Bush administration's incompetence:
Since the 2003 coalition invasion there has been repeated concern expressed about looting of archaeological sites. We reported last month, in a review of a new scholarly book on Iraq’s cultural heritage, that Professor Lawrence Rothfield of the University of Chicago claims that sites are being “destroyed at the rate of roughly 10% a year”. Professor Stone, a member of the recent mission, has also repeatedly expressed her fears of extensive looting.
The international team which visited southern Iraq last month had been expecting to find considerable evidence of looting after 2003, but to their astonishment and relief there was none. Not a single recent dig hole was found at the eight sites, and the only evidence of illegal digging came from holes which were partially covered with silt and vegetation, which means that they must have been at least several years old.
The most recent damage was found at Larsa, Tell el-Ouelli, Tell el-Lahm and Lagash. However, this probably dated back to 2003, during and in the aftermath of the coalition invasion. At Ur, Ubaid, Eridu and Warka, no evidence was found of any looting.
We learned back in 2004, per that nefarious rightwing rag The Atlantic, that the vast majority of the art supposedly looted on account of poor American security was actually taken by Baathists before the invasion or ahead of the Coalition front. Now we learn that the important archeological sites were not looted either, and were remarkably undamaged considering that a major war had been fought all around them. You would think that the Western press and chattering classes would be delighted to know this bit of good news, since it suggests that the war destroyed far less heritage than originally supposed. Funny that there has been virtually no correcting coverage in the mainstream media.
CWCID: Bloodthirsty Liberal.
1 Comments:
By 
Miss Ladybug, at
Sat Jul 19, 10:42:00 PM:
And are we supposed to be surprised by this lack of coverage? Unfortunately, no...
