The Sunday Times (UK) reports on the looting of the Iraqi National Museum:
LOOTERS have ransacked the most important museum in Iraq, stealing and smashing antiquities that date back to the dawn of civilisation.
In the outbreak of lawlessness that has seized Baghdad, thieves have carted off treasures dating back 7,000 years on handcarts and in wheelbarrows.
Visitors to the Iraqi National Museum yesterday found themselves trampling over shards of broken pottery and glass from smashed display cabinets.
Staff blamed American forces for not protecting the museum. Nabhal Amin, the deputy director, wept as she claimed the thieves had looted or destroyed 170,000 items “worth billions of dollars”. Other sources suggested 10,000 items had been on display.
Some of the looting was well organised. At least a dozen thieves went through the ground-floor rooms undisturbed. They broke into rooms that are built like bank vaults with large steel doors.
Something could have been done to prevent this, and now we can only hope that some of these treasures can be recovered before they end up in Woodside and Marin County.
In times of disorder it is necessary for the staff of institutions to protect the institutions.
I know this goes against the left’s disdain for self defence (less so after 9/11).
The lesson none the less is instructive.
I have read that the staff of a hospital in Iraq guarded it until a neighborhood watch was constituted. Too bad the musem curators were not so dedicated to their institution.
We must take the view that it is a good thing to have fellow citizens who are armed and dangerous about in times of disorder. Such citizens reduce the amount and length of disorder.