Fincham Questions US Resolve and ICE Strutting

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Derek Fincham notes the most recent ICE hoo-haa about the big numbers of artefacts which it "repatriates", this one to Mexico ('U.S. Repatriates 4,000 Looted Antiquities to Mexico' 26th October 2012). He makes a point echoing some of those expressed here about these media-fests organized mainly for the propaganda benefit of the federal authorities:

These kinds of 'art on the table' news conferences are quite common. But [...] the underlying problems endemic to the antiquities trade itself are not treated or targeted [...] the more of these returns I see (and there are a lot of them) the more frustrating it becomes as well. Because these investigations target the objects. There is no mention of arrests, prosecutions or of much of anything which would produced sustained compliance on the part of the art trade.[...] The trade itself and art buyers need to step up at some point and correct a market which routinely accepts these looted and stolen objects. But that kind of sober reflection on these recoveries is not to be found in the statements of U.S. and Mexican officials.

Of course not, they are not sound-bite feelgood moral boosters. When instead of generating superficial mollifying pap are US authorities going to get properly-tough with smugglers? When are the US public who pay for all this going to demand real results and that the authorities do their bit to clean up the dirtier side of US commerce rather than strutting around displaying artefacts and mouthing-off about how they have "saved" them, like a metal detectorist?