Meanwhile on the other side of the world,
While we in North America natter on about intellectual property feuds, gay marriage, and political elections -- as important as those are -- it's well to remember that there are places in the world where much more basic concerns rule the day. Concerns like "will I be shot today?"
For those of us in the U.S., who have just finished grumpily paying our annual tax bills or figuring out how much of our confiscated income the government is willing to return to us, it's worth remembering that the present-day chaos and violence in Iraq are mostly the product of our wallets.
Congratulations on your purchase. Come back again, sir....
Editorial note, 4/21. For reasons discussed in more detail in the comments, I have moved the picture link from the last word of the previous paragraph to the end of this paragraph instead. I believe that the picture does say something significant about the costs of President Bush's decisions, but it deserves more thoughtfulness and gravitas than I gave it in that offhandedly bitter sarcastic comment. It can be found here, and should be considered as one artist's way of illuminating the human cost of the Iraq war.
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1 comment:
Trebor @ 10:40PM | 2004-04-19| permalink
While I am in favor of an individual's right to burn the American flag, I think it's disgusting to use images guaranteed to heighten the pain already experienced by nearly a thousand American families – especially when many of those featured (and their families) – *fully* support what America is doing in Iraq.
I would feel much differently had each of those photos been used with the permission of both the individual featured *and* his or her family.
Let me also say that I am greatly disappointed that you would choose to perpetuate that pain through your blog. I respect your right to do so. I vowed to defend that right with my own life at one time. However, I never thought of you as someone who would willingly and deliberately emotionally brutalize so many other people. While you have that right, I, too, have the right to say "shame, shame, shame on you." ~ Trebor
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Matthew Rossi @ 11:37AM | 2004-04-20| permalink
The shame is on the man who made sure those men and women would die for a lie.
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Felix @ 11:17PM | 2004-04-20| permalink
Trebor, you and I have known each other long enough that I think you know I would not intend insult to fallen soldiers or to their families. When I see the image referred to -- especially when I look at the large version, where each individual's face is clearly distinct -- it emphasizes, for me, the importance of each individual "casualty". It's too easy to just think of them as numbers when you hear only numbers on the nightly news. Seeing their faces is a different matter, and it makes me think hard about why they were ordered into war. The creator of the composite picture, I think, felt the same way, and used the composite-photo technique to illustrate quite graphically that he thought the deaths of these hundreds of unique individual human beings were attributable to our President. That's the message I get from that picture.
As painful as I know their deaths must be to their families, I can't accept the idea that that automatically squelches discussion of their deaths, or the use of publicly-available, unaltered photographs to represent their lives and deaths.
Trebor, if this country were under direct attack by some identifiable enemy and my services were needed to repel that enemy, I'd take up either computer keyboard or rifle as needed. I seriously considered whether I had any useful military/intelligence services to offer after the Sept. 11 attacks. And I argued quite vociferously in favor of rooting the Taliban out of Afghanistan, because there was a clear connection between them and the Sept. 11 attacks. But subsequent events, orchestrated by the Bush administration, seem to have led the nation's attentions away from those who actually launched the attacks and redirected them toward an obnoxious but apparently irrelevant target in Iraq. That's why I regard this war as unnecessary, and I believe that Bush must be held accountable, at least politically, for the tragic losses that have resulted from his decisions. It is those decisions that are the most immediate cause of the bereaved families' pain.
I will grant you one thing, though. It was in bad taste to link to that picture in a short and bitter and cynical throwaway comment. The idea, and the fact that those hundreds have died, deserves more gravitas than I gave it. And so I will apologize for that. But I do, nonetheless, believe that that picture makes a valid statement about Bush's responsibility for the results of his decisions.
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