This seems to be all over the net, but I just got an email about it from a friend of mine. The picture shows an American soldure kneeing in front of a burial site of his commrad, being consilde by a young girl. The statue was commissioned as a memorial for the fallen of the 4th Infantry Division of the US Army from a Iraq artest. All this is true, btu not the whole story, it’s the spin that is different and is the perfect exmpale of how you tell the story they way you want it told. Remember that I am a cynic, so I love this shit.
The text of the email is a follows:
The statue was created by an Iraqi artist named Kalat, who for years was forced by Saddam Hussein to make the many hundreds of bronze busts of Saddam that dotted Baghdad.
Kalat was so grateful for the Americans liberation of his country; he melted 3 of the heads of the fallen Saddam and made the statue as a memorial to the American soldiers and their fallen warriors. Kalat worked on this memorial night and day for several months.
To the left of the kneeling soldier is a small Iraqi girl giving the soldier comfort as he mourns the loss of his comrade in arms.
Do you know why we don’t hear about this in the news? Because it is heart warming and praise worthy. The media avoids it because it does not have the shock effect that a flashed breast or controversy of politics does. But we can do something about it. We can pass this along to as many people as we can in honor of all our brave military who are making a difference. Thank you!!
Send this to everyone in your address book! Pray for and support our military men and women!
I am always suspicious of chain letters that I receive via email so I took a look around the next and found tons of references basically saying the same thing as the email. The write-up did not mention about the thankfulness of the Iraq sculptor (really Khalid Alussy) to the US soldiers. With a bit more fact checking at breakthechain and Snoops (two reliable debunking websites) shows a bit more. The breakthechain.com article cites the Wall Street Journal interview where Alussy was actually bitter about the American occupation of Iraq. In fact his uncle was killed in an American rocket attack. Why did he do the work? Simple, he needed the money. Same goes for the statues of Sadam Hussein that he was “forced” to design. He need the money to support his family and finish up his education. The Snoopes article has a similar writeup.
For me this is a wonderful example of how things are never simple. The Bush administration would have us think that going to Iraq was very simple. Sadam was an evil man and have a lot of very bad toys, so we should get rid of him. Then they try to make us feel happy and warm by saying that our young men and women are fighting for American and Iraq freedom. Okay maybe they are fighting for Iraq freedom, but put them through hell to get there. Will they be better off without Sadam? In 20 years most likely, yes. Honestly though I don’t think it can be said that our way was the best.
How are our soldiers dying for American freedom and ideals? For us things are actually worse. Security has degraded, more and 1,000 of our troops (how many people died in 9/11? around 3,300 I think), people are losing job, our national debt is again at a high point, and worse of all countries around the world hate our policy more. I understand the need for sacrifice, but should it be senseless? But, we are morally sound again and soon homosexuals will be second class citizens again. You think we might just be there for money and to have an excuse to do things our way?
Most people really just want to be happy and think everything is alright. This chain email is the perfect example (unless it was seeded by somebody in the White House, which I doubt) of this. Of course the Iraqis welcome us, even though we bombed the hell out of their country and lowered the over security. Now they have the beginning of a democratic government. I’m personally hopeful, they seem to be heading in the right direction. Hell, it worked for German and Japan.
Finally I’ll go back to our artist friend, just a regular person trying to get by the best he can. Governments will decide to do what they want to and maybe not even ask The People. Hell, that happens in this country all the time. That’s why we are a republic and not a pure democracy. Iraq will be the same. The Average Joe and Jane will just adapt and do they same as they always have. If they are lucky the State might just do a few things right and they will benefit from their own labors.
