Friday, June 12, 2015

State Department Funding Backdoor Lobbying Campaign in Favor of HR 1493?

This week's front page Washington Post article that again features the discredited claim that looted antiquities are the "second most important commercial activity [for ISIS] after oil sales" [along with a misstatement of the impact of the "1970 Rule"] raises important questions:

(1) Is the article meant to prompt action on the improved, but still flawed HR 1493 in the Senate?

and, if so,

(2) Is ASOR's $600,000 State Department funded  "monitoring and global awareness campaign"  really a backdoor means to lobby on that bill, which uses the ongoing tragedy in Iraq and Syria as a justification for a new State Department bureaucracy aimed at fostering further "coordination" with the same insiders associated with the archaeological lobby who already dominate things?
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1 comment:

  1. John HJune 12, 2015 at 11:29 AM

    Hi Peter:

    As in the UK, a minority of well connected archaeologists have access to the corridors of power and I often wonder, who blows who, but given the dearth of anti-collecting legislation I'm somehow reminded of Bob Dylan's Blowing in the Wind.

    Regards
    John Howland
    England

    ReplyDelete

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