Anti-Collectors Get an Audience

Once again the views of the anti-collecting cabal are getting an airing on the news. Now CBS News's Margaret Brennan is claiming "ISIS' records show millions raised by antiquities smuggling" on the basis of documents said to have been seized from a terrorist financier in Syria. Her report however contains some serious errors, pointed out by Peter Tompa. Her report claims that the seized documents "prove that ISIS has made $100's of millions of dollars from stolen antiquities.". This is enough to cast doubt on the whole fabric of the construction our enemies are trying to build as the documents themselves only support a far lower number, $1.25 million. Second, the reporter again suggests that Apamea has been looted by ISIS. In fact, the city has been in the hands of the Assad government since the beginning of the conflict. As Mr Tompa perspicaciously notes:

All this begs the question whether facts are being distorted in order to help justify proposed legislation in Germany and the US that would create intrusive new bureaucracies to regulate the longstanding trade in cultural goods.

This is the kind of news garbage that has been carefully nurtured by the usual 'academics' with vested interests (freebie excavation permits for example) who prefer to side-step the truth when it to comes to advising news-hungry journalists. If only they would ask collectors and dealers for their opinions before rushing to print.