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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kirispupis, post: 8208097, member: 118780&quot;]My &quot;buck two fifty&quot;:</p><p><br /></p><p>The definition of &quot;looting&quot; itself is vague. When my wife&#039;s family moved here as refugees from Tajikistan, they had to leave behind a lot of things. For example, they owned prayer centuries old books and rugs passed on from family members long forgotten.</p><p><br /></p><p>They were literally forced to flee in the middle of the night. A neighbor stood guard that evening with a shotgun, in exchange for all the furniture and possessions in their house. Otherwise, they would have been killed like others they knew.</p><p><br /></p><p>Had they taken these items to the US, it would have been considered &quot;looting&quot;. This is despite the fact that they&#039;d been in their family for centuries. This is despite the fact that the Bukharian community that manufactured them were persecuted and thrown out.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, a few things they sold to Israeli collectors, who bribed border guards to let them pass. Was this looting? Or should they have stayed in Tajikistan, where they most likely would have been destroyed? Anything of value they attempted to take, even wedding rings, were confiscated at the border, then punished.</p><p><br /></p><p>The rest of the things they buried. They took great care to bury things in a way that they may be preserved for some time, but they have no plans to return for them. Someday someone will dig them up. When/if they do, where will these artifacts belong? Should they stay in Tajikistan, which was barely a country when they left, and who&#039;s people have no connection to them? Should they be restricted to the Soviet Union, which no longer exists? Should they go to Israel, which shares a religion but nothing else? Should my wife&#039;s family, if they can be traced, have a right to reclaim them? Or should they just go to the highest bidder?</p><p><br /></p><p>While I&#039;m all in favor of protecting historic sites (and in most countries this is called &quot;trespassing&quot;), the bitter pill is that most definitions of looting are created by one set of people to protect what they previously took from another.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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