The Iraqi Museum Was Looted — Big Deal

22 Apr, 2003 by John Hawkins

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The Iraqi Museum Was Looted — Big Deal: In my opinion, the whole hubbub about the Iraqi museum being looted is much ado about…well I won’t say nothing, but quite frankly it’s not all that important in the scheme of things. I know, I know, I’m a philistine because obviously these ancient antiquities were lost and it’s such a terrible loss for civilization, etc, etc, etc.

First off, the overwhelming majority of the people who are trying to make this into a big issue probably didn’t even know there was a Baghdad museum before the war and if they did, they had no idea what was in it. It’s just like ANWR which was just another wasteland in “nowhereville” Alaska that 99% of the population didn’t even know existed until we wanted to drill it for oil and then it became a “pristine wilderness” that had to be protected.

Furthermore, if the artifacts in that museum had been sitting in a Saudi Sheik’s mansion, Uday’s love pad, or even a delicatessen in Brooklyn, it wouldn’t have made one bit of difference to the Iraqi public for the last few years because they were barred from entering the museum. That may be why most of the horrible angst we’re seeing over the looting / inside job robbery at the museum seems to be amongst anti-war liberals in the United States & Britain who are desperate to find something they can complain about in one of the most successfully orchestrated military campaigns in human history.

My guess is that the Iraqi people are more concerned about things like, “when is the power coming back on?”, “can I go back to my job?”, and “what is our new government going to look like?”, than whether or not the FBI is going to be able to find any Sumerian vases before they end up on EBAY.

Personally, I find stories about families being killed by stray bombs, friendly fire deaths, or children being murdered by Saddam’s Fedayeen to be far more tragic and deserving of coverage than the loss of some valuable relics. While I am sorry that the museum got robbed/looted, it’s the sort of thing that should have appeared on page 4 of the New York Times and then largely disappeared from view. If the media wasn’t trying to find some new fly to throw in the ointment of an overwhelming US victory, this story would have already gone to the graveyard of forgotten news.

***Update***: Armchair Analyst & The Scatterbrained Syncretist weigh in.