Confronting 'looting to order' and 'cultural racketeering' in Syria will help salvage our endangered heritage. Let's do

Franklin Lamb, opednews.com

Image from article, with caption: Palmyra early May 2015. Before the arrival of Da'ish (ISIS). As of early October 2015 it is not known precisely what has been spared.

Excerpt:

One of the many gut-wrenching dimensions of the soon to be five-year Syrian crisis is that whenever one surveys the conflict on the ground and concludes that the maelstrom can't possibly get any worse, it plummets deeper into the abyss. The condition of people in Syria has never been worse in modern times.

This is also the case with the spreading cultural cleansing of our shared global heritage in Syria which this observer views as a precursor to ethnic cleansing. This scourge has been documented in detail by studies from the UN, EU, Archeologists, Syria's Directorate General of Museums and Antiquities (DGAM) and others who closely monitor the desecration, looting and destruction at archaeological sites. ...

To avoid collecting potentially looted antiquities, Richard Stengel, US under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, recently proposed: "Don't sell; don't buy. That's the best solution." ...