Why do I have to go off-shore to read this?
The Iraq war and subsequent looting spared the ancient city of Hatra, where desert temples await what their guardian Salem Haruch Kadori hopes will be a bright future. ...Considered by some as the leading monument of ancient Mesopotamian cultures, Hatra was a major staging post on the famous oriental silk road and prospered from the international caravan traffic. ...Saddam had his initials engraved on the site's stone walls
Or this?
The first art exhibition since the war ended [ended?] opened in the capital's trendy Hiwar gallery Sunday, featuring some 20 paintings looted from one of the capital's museums and bought back by the gallery's owner. ...[The exhibition is] called 'Greetings to Baghdad.' I want to pay tribute to the city which will go down in history as one that was burnt, pillaged but always rose from the ashes," said Qassem al-Sabti, [gallery owner]
..."There are also paintings and sculptures by some 20 famous Iraqi artists that were looted from Saddam's Center for the Arts and which the gallery bought back from the scoundrels for 6,200 dollars. These works of art will then be handed back to the future Museum of Modern Arts," he said. The old museum was burnt to the ground after Saddam regime was ousted by coalition troops last April. [silver linings...]
Or ?
Cordone added that half the manuscripts and documents stolen from Iraq's national library "have been recovered by a Shiite imam who has offered to return them." Looters had emptied the library before setting the building ablaze. [emph. mine]
Apparently not all looters are like those we saw during the LA riots or White Night in SF...
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