It does seem to me that the US and UK troops could have exercised some more forethought in protecting these irreplaceable treasures...as as been pointed out, looting always happens in such circumstances and had been going on in Baghdad for days, albeit with TVs, computers and sofas, not priceless art objects. Putting a small armed detail atthe museum to guard against looting would have been so easy as to seem effortless. Of course some blame lies with the looters; but what the hell did everyone think would happen??? Americans given the same opportunity would steal everything possible. No one looting VCRs during the L.A. riots actually needed one...

If we had an invasion on our home soil in a major city (let's say, Boston) and the foreign military was, for whatever reason, not sufficiently running the game (maybe they are only here to grab military secrets from MIT and retroviruses from Harvard Med), and freestyle martial law took over, I do not doubt for a moment that a whole lotta yahoos with guns would be in the streets looting for all they could get, including antiquities from the MFA, guitars from the Hard Rock Cafe, diamonds from Shreve, Crump & Lowe, and lobsters from the fishing boats.

I think one reason the whole Survivalist movement is so strong in certain parts of this country is that, perversely enough, these paranoid sorts understand that when the apocalypse comes, it truly wil be every man for himself. So in order to prevent anyone breaking into their bomb shelters or stealing their food, they need a big stockpile of weapons. The more, the bigger, the better. An AK-47 fends off some asswipe with a 9mm just fine...get away from my Cheerios, punk!

And I do mean every *man* for himself: one thing likely to occur that no one likes to think about is the relegation of women to the status of chattel. Whoever has the gun, gets the girl.