Putting away the dishes at the end of the Iraq War

December 18, 2011 12:22 PM

With official end of the Iraq War comes the matter of returning Saddam Hussein's plates.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (21 comments total)

Dishin' Accomplished.
posted by gman at 12:26 PM on December 18, 2011 [16 favorites]

I guess I'm not really sure what claim the Iraqi mission has on the plates. It's not (terribly) uncommon for Third Reich china to show up at auction from time to time, and it doesn't seem like the German government would have much of a claim on it -- not that they'd have the poor taste to ask.

Perhaps the issue in this case was more the commercial exploitation that got their plates effectively confiscated.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:36 PM on December 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

> I guess I'm not really sure what claim the Iraqi mission has on the plates. It's not (terribly) uncommon for Third Reich china to show up at auction from time to time, and it doesn't seem like the German government would have much of a claim on it

An early Godwin to this unpromising thread!

I'm sure it'd be churlish of me to repeat yet again that Saddam Hussain was nothing at all like Hitler, nor pre-war Iraq anything like Germany, or to suggest that perhaps the long-suffering Iraqi people could have used the money that selling those plates would no doubt raise, instead of the plates being stolen by American invaders and used by the affluent for their dinner parties...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:45 PM on December 18, 2011 [8 favorites]

Video: Drone Watches Last U.S. Convoy Leave Iraq

U.S. drones allowed in Iraqi skies
posted by homunculus at 12:47 PM on December 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Well, I'm glad Obama made sure those plates got back to Iraq. That's more important than, say, issuing an apology for the invasion.
posted by Burhanistan at 12:50 PM on December 18, 2011 [4 favorites]

US law is pretty clear. The holders had no legal title to these; there are substantial penalties.
posted by dhartung at 12:51 PM on December 18, 2011

Great, another beanplating thread.
posted by monospace at 12:57 PM on December 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

While the German government may not want it's stolen items returned, the Jewish community has never stopped searching for the items looted during the Holocaust.

Stolen property remains stolen property. Governments simply have more resources and better evidence at their disposal to garner the return of war stolen state property.
posted by lynnshaze at 12:57 PM on December 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

For a second I thought this was going to be about superdollar engraving plates.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:09 PM on December 18, 2011

US law is pretty clear. The holders had no legal title to these; there are substantial penalties.

I'm hoping to read soon about Saddam's gold-plated pistol being pried from GWB's cold, dead hands.
posted by fredludd at 1:36 PM on December 18, 2011 [6 favorites]

Should've given them to the BM.
posted by pompomtom at 1:43 PM on December 18, 2011

I thought Iraq was the Pottery Barn. A trillion dollars should at least have gotten us some place settings.
posted by humanfont at 1:52 PM on December 18, 2011 [4 favorites]

...The Celts saw this as a mortal insult and a host marched south to Rome. The Celts tore through the countryside and several battalions of Roman soilders to lay seige to the Capitol of the Roman Empire. Seven months of seige led to negotiations wherby the Celts promised to leave their seige for a tribute of one thousand pounds of gold, which the historian Pliny tells was very difficult for the entire city to muster. When the gold was being weighed, the Romans claimed the Celts were cheating with faulty weights.

It was then that the Celts' leader, Brennus, threw his sword into the balance and and uttered the words vae victis "woe to the Defeated".
posted by TSOL at 2:00 PM on December 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

Saddam's napkin rings remain still at large.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:19 PM on December 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Those weren't for napkins...
posted by Burhanistan at 2:37 PM on December 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm hoping to read soon about Saddam's gold-plated pistol being pried from GWB's cold, dead hands.

1. Not gold-plated.

2. Not in GWB's hands -- it's held by his library as US government property

3. Arms are liable to seizure by an occupying power under the Hague Convention {Art. 53 primarily, but note Art. 4}.
posted by dhartung at 3:47 PM on December 18, 2011

3. Arms are liable to seizure by an occupying power under the Hague Convention {Art. 53 primarily, but note Art. 4}.

If there's one thing the Bush Administration respected, it was international law.
posted by deanklear at 4:33 PM on December 18, 2011 [8 favorites]

I was hoping that the plates would be from the Franklin Mint. You just know that Saddam had unopened boxes of crap he ordered from QVC via satellite. How awesome would it be to have his Curio Cats Collection, including an American shorthair-- in fine pewter!
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:02 PM on December 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

I like to think that pistol is just some random gun, a prank by the "The Delta Guys."
posted by The Hamms Bear at 5:26 PM on December 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Dishin' Accomplished.
posted by gman at 5:26 AM on December 19

oh come on really

[12 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

okay don't have judgment please
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:59 PM on December 18, 2011

1. Not gold-plated.

2. Not in GWB's hands -- it's held by his library as US government property

3. Arms are liable to seizure by an occupying power under the Hague Convention {Art. 53 primarily, but note Art. 4}.

Very interesting, but then what is the justification for this:

Mr. Bush also showed Mr. Hegseth another item: a brick from the Iraq safe house where the Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by an American air strike in 2006.

Send the brick back!
posted by Chuckles at 1:00 PM on December 19, 2011