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Loot Sale

After all that trouble I went to looting Saddam’s stuff and being castigated from the New York Times to al-Jazeera to Pravda and assorted bloggers, this guy’s selling it.  

Not the same stuff though. Not even similar. He’s got actual valuables. Gold jewel-encrusted watches, silver cigarette cases. Death-warrant pens. A Persian rug Saddam invited a Baghdad synagogue to present to him. I just had a crappy painting I cut out of a frame in some goon squad wardroom. And some other crap I picked up off the ground.*

Here’s someone who’s bent out of shape about it, wants the valuables returned to the Iraqi government. Given the state of anti-corruption efforts there, presumeably for resale by other parties. Hey, U.S Government! Whadja do with my Saddam painting? Did you give it back to the grateful Iraqi people like you said you were going to? Photos of joyful reunion of Iraqi people/national art treasure, please.

* Remind me to give you a tour next time you come over of what U.S. Customs did give back. Very nice brass profile of Saddam, like the head on a men’s room door, lying outside a palace that had been leveled. I had Saddam’s head in a box long before his neck got stretched. Iraqi flag I cut down at an IRG armor base prior to the place being burned, along the unit’s road march of destruction south of Baghdad. Bayonet from the trenches in front of the palaces in Baghdad, where bad things happened to bad men. Iraqi helmet with a big hole in it, compliments of the United States Army, from a particularly bad intersection in Baghdad. No, it wasn’t on the guy’s head when it got that hole. But one of my favorites, a shard of marble from one of Saddam’s many obscene palaces, artfully magic-markered by the tank mechanic/barracks artist known as Little Brown Dude, with the unit’s insignia, a map of our route through Iraq, and the words, “Critter was here.”  Thanks, LBD.

Here’s a full accounting of my rape of the Iraqi culture, with appropriate historical context.

h/t larwyn re my competition in the Saddam looting business.

Topics: Iraq, Saddam

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:38 am on Tuesday, October 2, 2007

4 Responses to “Loot Sale”

1. The_Real_JeffS Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 9:52 am

   Millions of dollars in souvenirs, Jules? So, why do you still have that Paypal button? You should be buying us the beer!!!!! ;-P

2. Purple Avenger Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 10:37 am

   Can you hook me up with whoever thought that stuff was worth “millions”? I got a collection of McDonalds wrappers and crumpled beer cans that will send’em into a buying frenzy.

3. Banjo Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 10:43 am

   Those books of Saddam’s are worthless unless they’re his novels, in which case they’re priceless.

4. Argghhh Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 10:54 am

   Heh. And all I got out of the Rape of Iraq was a canvas butt pad for my PIAT. Pikers didn’t even have the rubber shock absorbers. What’s a rampaging myrmidon to do?

   I did watch some guy ask the seller (a returned Guardsman) at the militaria show I bought it at if it wasn’t stealing Iraq’s patrimony…

   Nah. Stuff was rotting in an abandoned warehouse. It was salvage.

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