Posted by Sadie from D006191.N1.Vanderbilt.Edu (129.59.6.191) on Sunday, April 13, 2003 at 9:40PM :
In Reply to: yeah, well posted by Sadie from ? (160.129.204.42) on Sunday, April 13, 2003 at 6:57PM :
: If I thought someone in my family could benefit from the extra money, I'd probably be selling off things I could plunder.
xxx I meant that if I lived in Iraq & was in dire need of food, medicine, or medical treatment for someone in my family, or even myself, THEN I'd probably be one of those people plundering...
: The real criminals are the guys who made these people so desperate for money. We, the ones who live outside Iraq, WE are the ones living in luxury who can AFFORD to worry about artifacts. Our heritage, not the artifacts, lives INSIDE us.
xxx Most importantly, our heritage is in our blood. We - our brains, our bodies, everything about us - WE are the great product of the ancient Assyrians, Chaldeans, etc. Let's use our brains & foster intellectual progress in our people.... We invest in our future this way. Artifacts will be stripped from us & sold to other people, but they can always be hunted down later. & perhaps some of the people with money in our community can start looking into purchasing these artifacts to be donated to a national museum in Iraq someday? Anyway, we need to worry more about our *people* than anything else right now. If our people become slaves to a foreign power, physically or mentally, THEN our struggle to rebuild Iraq will be much harder. Let's think about minimizing our losses, instead of moaning about the ones that have already happened. We have a grave humanitarian & political crisis in our homeland. Let's not let it become a massive economic crisis, too....
xxx It grieves me that all these treasures are leaving our homeland, but I have enough faith in the strength of the committment our community at home & abroad toward our heritage to think that our treasures will return to our homeland someday. Meanwhile, human lives, which CAN'T be recovered, are wasting away....
-- Sadie
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