SHOOTING LOOTERS
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James Joyner | Tuesday, July 8, 2003 |
Markos Zúniga links, shockingly, a Guardian report of a lady who takes her work seriously:
An American archaeologist yesterday urged her compatriots to kill the looters who are pillaging archaeological sites in Iraq.“I would like to see some helicopters flying over these sites, and some bullets fired at the looters,” Elizabeth Stone, head of archaeology at Stony Brook University in New York, said in London yesterday. “I think you have got to kill some people to stop this.”
Markos thinks this might be a bad idea, given that the looters are almost certainly armed (to which I’d add likely better shots than the archeologists).
One also wonders what Stone’s position on the war was. It’s hard to argue that preventing looting is worth the use of force but not prevention of mass executions and other tyrannies, unless one believes antiquities are more valuable than innocent lives.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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Ah yes, a juxtaposition I noticed in criticism about US priorities during the media frenzy over the museum looting. As I pointed out to someone at the time:
What we have learned so far:
1) Lives are more important than oil.
2) Pottery is more important than lives.
--
Kate
And speaking of things I've said in the past:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/3978008.html
It is still more dangerous to take a ferry in Bangledesh than it is to be an American soldier in Iraq.
...
This is so much easier than having my own blog.
--
Kate
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