Submitted by John Hanson, May 8, 2007 12:01

Yes, the Elgin Marbles should be back in Greece. The Getty should cough up its thefts. We seem willing to repatriate the bones of Native Americans but unwilling to stop the looting of the cradles of civilization. We reward instead "the market" that empties Iraq of antiquities, powers backhoe excavations of Indian mounds, and drives an international black market in art and culture. The answer to the problem is to destroy the market demand -- that is make the trade in objects of uncertain provenance prohibitively punitive. But considering that the trade in human organs, endangered species, and destructive drugs are countenanced, it is unlikely that even a NATO ally like Greece will ever fully recover its heritage or the victims of expropriation during ther Holocaust their collections.

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