Kill the looters

By Steve Gilliard

Kill looters, urges archaeologist

Maev Kennedy
Wednesday July 9, 2003
The Guardian

An American archaeologist yesterday urged her compatriots to kill the looters who are pillaging archaeological sites in Iraq.

"I would like to see some helicopters flying over these sites, and some bullets fired at the looters," Elizabeth Stone, head of archaeology at Stony Brook University in New York, said in London yesterday. "I think you have got to kill some people to stop this."

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Prof Stone said the systematic looting of major archaeological sites and the destruction of artefacts such as broken cuneiform clay tablets, discarded by looters as worthless to collectors than intact tablets, but which could hold priceless information for archaeologists, may prove a greater disaster than the well publicised looting and destruction at the national museum in Baghdad, and the museum in Mosul.

So, when they massacre her collegues after a shooting, what will she say then?
Everyone in Iraq has guns. Everyone can use them. You kill the looters, they will kill back.

Looting is a shame, but killing people to protect digs, well, I'd see it as counter productive. Especially when the enemy has access to RPG's and mortars.

Posted July 08, 2003 08:13 PM