Looted Art Said Used to Fund Terrorists

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-unesco-iraq-museums,0,4003939.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

Looted Art Said Used to Fund Terrorists

By Associated Press

June 23, 2005, 7:40 AM EDT


PARIS -- Money from the sale of stolen artifacts in Iraq is being used to fund terrorists there, the director of Iraq's National Museum said Thursday.

Donny George told cultural experts at a UNESCO meeting that 15,000 objects had been stolen from the museum and only 4,000 had been returned.

"Rich people are buying stolen material ... Money is going to Iraq and they're buying weapons to use against Iraqi police and U.S. forces," George said during a meeting to assess the state of Iraq's cultural heritage.

Experts at the meeting said it was impossible to assess the scale of theft from archaeological sites outside Baghdad.

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[Oversea Visitor]

1. Rich friends pay chimp

So make more money
so can buy teasure
who armed themself
with money from rich friend

[Village Idiot]

2. ShrubCo do not care about the art itself...

as long as no one was looting the OILFIELDS, they were quite happy to let the rest of the country go to hell...

[MattPSU]

3. "Stuff Happens"

- how the MFing Sinister Overlord Rumsfeld responded to looting in Iraq. "It's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase and you see it twenty times. And you think, my goodness, were there that many vases?"

Yes, you asshat, and now those vases are paying for bombs to kill our troops and innocent Iraqis...

[Moderator]

4. kick

[sleipnir]

5. Looted Art Said Used to Fund Terrorists

PARIS - Wealthy art patrons are buying stolen artifacts from Iraq and inadvertently funding terrorist activity, the director of Iraq's national Museum said Thursday. Some of the objects are entering the U.S., he said.

Iraqi museums were pillaged of treasures dating back 5,000 years during looting that occurred amid the chaos of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

"Rich people are buying stolen material," museum director Donny George told reporters. "Money is going to Iraq and they (terror groups) are buying weapons and ammunition to use against Iraqi police and American forces," he said.

Police in the United States are doing an "excellent" job of curbing the flow of stolen artifacts there, but "a lot of material is just penetrating the country," George said. "A lot of these objects are actually going to the United States."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050623/ap_on_re_mi_ea/unesco_iraq_museums

OH THE IRONY!!

It's just too much for me. Now, because our incompetent leadership in the military decided to protect the oil ministry instead of the art museum, the terrorists now have a huge source of funding.

And the greater and more delicious irony is that American citizens are buying these stolen goods, which is of course contributing to the deaths of dozens of our own soldiers each month.

Thanks Bush Co, you fucked up once again and normal Americans will pay the price with their lives in Iraq and around the world.

:mad:

[jobycom]

6. So now it was looted again? First it was looted, then it wasn't...

I lost track after that.

[TahitiNut]

7. It's nice to know where the tax cuts for the rich are going.

I'm not at all surprised. :puke:

[Karenina]

8. Private art collections...

Dem S&B folks have a hankering fer "trophies." ;-)

[Ripley]

9. Pillage? Let's blame France!

After all no freaking American journalist working for Fox News would do any such thing.

Why do Americans hate Art?

[underpants]

10. A trifecta- Elite (rich, our rich not their rich)/French/Art

They got the whole thing wrapped up in one story.

[Ripley]

12. You so smart.

:)

I recall going to an art auction a couple of years ago. One of the pieces was Mine! They had a wine bar...I asked for anything French. The guy got beligerent. Whyyyyy would you want thaaaaat?

Ack, he was so gay, yet so anti-French.

[sleipnir]

13. The French angle is a bit misleading.

UNESCO just happens to be based in Paris, but logic and reason has never stopped the right-wing hate machine.

[bennywhale]

11. Here in Britain the government tries to convince us that buying downloaded

music "may fund terrorism" Everyone generally ignores them or tells them to fuck off. The other one is smuggled ciggarettes and beer. This is also generally ignored, and considering that its the bloke across the road who goes Dover-Calais to France and back in his own van, i feel pretty confident my nicotine addiction ain't causing violence.

Now, had i bombed the fuck out of a country and occupied it they may have something on me

[Ripley]

14. Hah, you've got a point bloke...

But your poodle is as criminal as baby bush, I think.