Remember all the hand-wringing in the liberal media about the plundering of the Baghdad Museum and the incalculable loss to humanity? Once it became evident how exaggerated the Museum’s losses were, the media quickly lost interest.
It might not be a good media whipping-boy story anymore, but there are items still missing. (Of course, whenever ancient antiquities are stolen, the logical suspects must be the Knights Templar or Opus Dei.) If you frequent sketchier antiquities dealers, it might be worth while to visit Interpol’s page of missing Iraqi artifacts here. You would think the media would be publicizing these pictures, given the outrage they initially expressed.
Unquestionably, the theft of these artifacts is a loss for humanity. Many who bemoaned the loudest never asked what was the cultural cost of Saddam’s brutal reign of terror. How many great artistic works were never created because a potentially great artist was killed, dumped into one of Saddam’s mass graves? As Iraqi artists begin to express themselves again, we will be able to see the cost to humanity had we not removed his regime from power.
