Posted 10:54 PM by Floyd

You'll have to excuse me if I don't get extraordinarily upset over some of the stuff going on in Iraq that makes people upset. Some people went nuts when they heard about how the Iraqi museums were looted, but my eyes are dry. Representatives of the International Red Cross and Amnesty International have been scolding the US for not maintaining order in Baghdad. And now we hear that people are being arrested for scavenging souvenirs:

Several members of the media and a U.S. serviceman have been caught attempting to ship Iraqi paintings, weapons and other war souvenirs to America, U.S. authorities said Wednesday.

At least 15 paintings, gold-plated firearms, ornamental knives, bonds and other items have been seized at airports in Atlanta, Boston, London and Washington in the last week, according to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection.

"These seizures should serve as a warning to anyone who would take advantage of the transition currently under way in the newly liberated Iraq," Commissioner Robert Bonner said.

This story comes from the excellent Junkyard Blog. Brian Preston comments:

Unfortunately, there's more. "Read the whole thing," the blogger said in disgust.

I am not insensitive, but let's maintain some perspective. For instance, I'm being disingenuous when I say that the people caught by customs were "scavenging souvenirs"; proper terminology would be "looting". But there's looting in the 21st century -- picking up stuff you found lying around in some dictator's Dr. Evil Shag-a-bunker -- and looting in, say, classical times, when a victorious soldier would pick up some guy's women and children and sell them into slavery.

As for the U.S. not getting power restored in Baghdad quickly, I was in China last November and when I got back I found that there had been a storm and PG&E took three days to get power back on. And I don't think there had been a war in the San Francisco Bay Area. I would have read about it or something.

A museum got looted? That's sad, but then wars cause disruption. Here's a different, and more typical, example of disorder caused by a war: In 1922 Greece attacked Turkey. The Greeks made some headway but were stopped before they could get to Ankara, and soon the defeat turned into a rout. The Turks kicked the Greeks off Anatolia at Smyrna. Smyrna was a town of 90,000, which was demolished in the battle; anyone who didn't evacuate was slaughtered.

I imagine Smyrna had some museums, but you don't hear much about their loss.