It is a known fact that in 2001, a man walked into an antique dealers in Europe and attempted to sell thousands of years old artefacts looted from Afghanistan to 'pay for an aeroplane'. Two weeks later the Twin Towers were hit.
In Belgium there is a hidden underground trade of Afghan 'Blood' Antiques living off of the looting of sites of archaeological interest and their sale to wealthy Westerners. This illegal activity is undermined by the governments lack of experienced people to tackle it and carries on everyday with pieces displayed in antique shops and gallerys described as being from legal private collections ... the same pieces which have the inept marks of a spade in their facade and the fresh sand of their desert home covering them.
There are museums in Afghanistan with an abundance of unused space where there should be pieces of the country's heritage which has instead been spread - and lost - across the world.
This leads to detremental damage to the artefacts; their context is lost. As well as this it is unknown what is fake and what is real. And sometimes the pieces are destroyed completely. An unreplacable loss.
But even worse than this is the fact that it is the Taliban who are being funded through all of this. We have our men out there fighting for freedom. And at the same time is Westerners who are funding the people they fight.
Dumb, right?
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