"What is your policy idea for protecting Iraq’s antiquities during the war?"

My ideas of how we could better protect our worldly antiquities is by heavier guarding and stricter punishment with a set of laws mandated throughout the world. These laws could be mandated not by the United Nations but more of a worldly court system that would come together to decide what would be an appropriate punishment based upon a case-by-case scenario.

First off everyone should be responsible for the preservation of all antiquities. Especially those antiquities that are subject to being damaged, lost or stolen. The antiquities from the Middle East are especially important to World History. The Middle East is where the birth of our civilization occurred. It is where our first documented writing system (Cuneiform) derived from. It is the home of countless archaeological sites and tombs. This area has been known as the cradle of civilization. Without these artifacts it will change our worlds History, as we know it.

There are several ways that we can try to preserve the antiquities during war. One that I feel would be a start would be heavy guarding of any areas where antiquities may be present. (Museums, archaeological sites, tombs, etc.) Since we have American soldiers occupying Iraq currently and have had for several years. I feel we should be strongly responsible for aiding in guarding these sites. Of course the Iraqi nation should be mainly responsible. The only problem with the Iraqi government being mainly responsible is the fact that they do not have the resources as we do. I feel that if any country is at war with another country everyone should share in the safe guarding of antiquities.

Another way that we can improve with preservation is by increasing antiquity laws. By increasing the punishment and consequence for lawbreakers they would be less likely to break the law. There should be a world wide punishment strictly enforced by every nation. Some sort of Worldly court system that would decide as a whole what to do with lawbreakers. The court system would decide punishment for violators. By doing this possible violators will see the severe punishment and be less likely break the law. Those that are caught with illegal antiquities will suffer with great consequence by worldly law.