Remember the looting of the Baghdad museum in Iraq immediately after US troops entered?
Remember the troops being too busy at the Iraqi oil ministry?
When Donald Rumsfeld said: “Stuff happens“?
And: “I did not know there were that many vases in Iraq”?
Now, even warmonger Rupert Murdoch‘s Times in London cannot ignore all the facts anymore:
‘Stop the looters destroying history’
By Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent
THE cultural treasures of Iraq — the birthplace of writing, codified law, mathematics, medicine and astronomy — are being obliterated as looters take advantage of the country’s bloody chaos.
Fourteen of the world’s leading archaeologists have written to the President and Prime Minister of the country, demanding immediate action to stem the vandalism after seeing photographs of sites left pockmarked by enormous craters.
Among examples in the letter, seen yesterday by The Times, was a Babylonian sculpture of a lion dating from about 1700BC that lost its head because the terracotta shattered as looters tried to remove it.
Sex trafficking in Bush’s ‘new’ Iraq: here.
From the Google cache of Dear kitty ModBlog:
Associated Press reports:
Iraq Accuses U.S. of Damaging Ancient City
Friday March 31, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – American forces are damaging the ancient city of Kish and must withdraw from the 5,000-year-old archaeological site, an Iraqi ministry said Thursday.
The Ministry of State for Tourism and Antiquities Affairs said U.S. forces had set up a camp in Kish, near Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
In a statement, the ministry said the U.S. military was preventing anyone from entering this important archaeological site to assess the damage, which was not specified.
The U.S. military had no immediate comment.
Last year, the British Museum said that U.S.-led troops using the ancient Iraqi city of Babylon as a base had damaged and contaminated artifacts dating back thousands of years in one of the world’s most important ancient sites.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
*Rescuing Da Vinci: Hitler and the Nazis Stole Europe’s Great Art…
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:55 pm (PST)
In many ways, WWII is the gold standard against which our behavior as a
nation at war is measured. In every way imaginable, Bush and his gang
have come up short, and one of the specific ways was in their complete
lack of respect for the cultural artifacts in Iraqi museums.
When asked why our military didn’t do more to save or rescue priceless
artifacts from ancient civilizations, Rumsfeld said that in war “stuff
happens.”
Well, Rumsfeld’s war was nowhere near the size and horror of WWII and
yet, even in those dark days, the Allies made supreme efforts to save,
protect and rescue cultural artifacts and works of art.
Even Lincoln Kirstein — who served in the army as a private first class
(although he came from a very wealthy family) and was already famous for
having invited George Balanchine to come to America (to open a ballet
school and later start The NYC Ballet) — was active in rescuing
priceless artworks.
During WWII, we had leaders who had extraordinary common sense, enormous
human decency and matchless organizational skills.
Today, we have as our leader an ignorant, arrogant and INADEQUATE man
who is pure slimeball.
Gen. George Marshall repeatedly issued orders to his generals stating
that although we were a conquering army, we were NOT a pillaging army.
On TV today, I saw this author discussing the Allies’ efforts to save
Europe’s treasures and the book he has written about those efforts; he,
too, was angry about Rumsfeld’s indifference to the looting and
pillaging we permitted in Iraq.
In discussing whether it is worth a human life to save a work or works
of art, Mr. Edsel had the filmed testimony of the man whose job it was
to deactivate the mines the Nazis had planted around Notre-Dame
Cathedral in Paris. He said he risked his life to save the cathedral …
it was his job and he never questioned it.
———————————————————-
**Rescuing Da Vinci: Hitler and the Nazis Stole Europe’s Great Art –
America and Her Allies Recovered It* *
by Robert M. Edsel
*
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
Book Description
**- – – – – – – – – – – – – *
During and following WWII, a special multinational group of more than
350 men and women served behind enemy lines and joined frontline
military units to ensure the preservation, protection, liberation and
restitution of the world’s greatest artistic and cultural treasures.
This “band of unsung heroes,” formally referred to as the Monuments,
Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) section, or commonly referred to as the
“Monuments Men,” worked tirelessly to track down, identify and catalogue
millions of priceless works of art and irreplaceable cultural artifacts,
including masterpieces by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Vermeer,
that had been stolen by Hitler and the Nazis.
The story of the Monuments Men, including their heroics and exploits in
rescuing and safeguarding many of the world’s greatest artworks for the
benefit of mankind, has never before been fully revealed until now, with
the publication of /*Rescuing Da Vinci*/, an exhaustively researched
historical account written by Robert M. Edsel. Mr. Edsel can best be
described as a successful athlete and business entrepreneur turned
modern day “Indiana Jones.” Mr. Edsel has dedicated the last five years
of his life to painstaking and far-reaching research to unravel the
secrets of the Monuments Men and, in so doing, to make the world aware
of their unprecedented contributions, both during and after WWII, and to
ensure that these unsung heroes receive appropriate recognition from the
United States government, as well as the broad public.
The detailed documentation, inventories and photographs developed and
catalogued by the Monuments Men during and following World War II, have
made possible, and continue to make possible, the restitution of stolen
artworks of to rightful owners and their descendants. Long after WWII,
many Monuments Men went on to become renowned directors and curators of
preeminent international cultural institutions, including the National
Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern
Art, the Toledo Museum of Art and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, among
many others, as well as professors at esteemed universities such as
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, New York University, Williams College and
Columbia University. Others became founders, presidents, and members of
associations such as the New York City Ballet, the American Museum
Association, the American Association of Museum Directors, the
Archaeological Institute of America, the Society of Architectural
Historians, the American Society of Landscape Architects, the National
Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, as
well as respected architects, archivists, artists and musicians.
“Mr. Edsel’s book is captivating in several respects, from the graphic,
garish reminders of the faces of the great plunderers, to the singular
beauty of the art they sought to steal. And it is a high and overdue
memorial to the “Monuments Men,” who did the herculean job of tracking
down and repatriating the great art.” — William F. Buckley Jr.
Read this at: http://www.amazon.com/
Search for “*Rescuing Da Vinci” *and you will come to this information.*
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