U.S. Soldiers Blow Up Saddam Statue

[VolcanoJen]

From the recent ABC News interviews with soldiers, it would appear some of them would prefer blowing up a statue of Rumsfeld.

If this helps our soldiers blow off some steam in Iraq, I certainly don't have a problem with it.

WARNING BEFORE CLICKING ON LINK: The article is accompanied by a disturbing photograph of a dead Iraqi civilian.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=OHDAY&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Excerpt:

TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) -- With a thunderous explosion from 12 pounds of plastic explosives, the U.S. military toppled a 30-foot statue of Saddam Hussein on horseback from its perch overlooking the dictator's hometown Friday. Soldiers also defused a huge homemade bomb near Baghdad's airport.

Pvt. Reshaun Richardson of the 555th Combat Engineering brigade, known as the "Triple Nickle," pushed the button that sent the Saddam statue pitching over near the gate to his former palace compound in his northern hometown of Tikrit.

"It felt real good," said Richardson, of Dothan, Ala. "There were lots of smiles around, and I had the biggest of them all."

The statue - depicting the ousted leader mounted on a rearing horse and brandishing a sword as if charging into combat - was made of solid bronze and stood near the main gate of the his huge palace complex overlooking the city of his birth.

[Must_B_Free]

1. To me

it is symbolic of the destruction of a culture by a foreign invader. I think it's horrible.

[rjbcar27]

3. ???

The destruction of a statue of 'The Butcher of Baghdad' is horrible?

Good fucking riddance I say. Bollocks to him.

[VolcanoJen]

6. I'm with rjbcar27

Hey, I was against the immoral and unnecessary war, but Saddam is an unconscionable bastard. "Regime change" was still an illegitimate reason to start a pre-emptive war, but Saddam gone = good.

May I suggest the incredible Salam Pax blog?

http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/

He's critical of the invasion and its aftermath, but he's damn glad Hussein is out of power.

Just my nickle,
Jennifer

[scisyhp]

15. Saddam gone = good ?

Why is that exactly? Bush and Blair wanted him gone. Would those
two want anything "good" for anybody else but themselves and their
cronies? I don't think so. Saddam is a bastard? Says who? Bush and
Blair? And I am supposed to believe those two known pathological
liars? He couldn't be all that bad for the Iraqi people, if those
two pieces of human garbage hated him so much. Such hatred from
the two unquestionably most evil people alive today is enough to
make Saddam an alright guy in my book. The fact that he stood up
to this evil and fought like a man, and continues to do so, is
another testament to his character. You want to see real homicidal
bastards, look at Bush and Blair.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[fujiyama]

27. Absolute Nonsense

Look, Saddam is not a bastard because Blair and Bush said he was. He's a bastard because he's a psychopath and has killed hundreds of thousands of people. US and British propaganda you say? Check out what human rights groups had to say about him. He was a horrible dictator. There's no doubt about it. Does that mean this war was necessary or justified?

No, but the fact that Saddam isn't in power is not necessarily a bad thing...Does that mean that, the outcome has been good? No, it hasn't been good for us, or the Iraqi people. Not yet anyways and that's obvious...And with the callous bastards in office, I doubt we'll see any improvement in the lives of the Iraqi people. Meanwhile, our own soldiers will continue to die for a cause that was based largely on deciet.

[DrWeird]

14. So lets, hypothetically, say I head to Virginia

with a shit load of explosives on the tax players expense and blew up a few statues of that bastard Robert E. Lee, without regard for the artist who crafted it or the bystanders who may get hit by shrapnel. Can I count on your support? Hypothetically?

[damnraddem]

20. It's not your right, nor Dubya's, nor U.S. troops', to decide ...

what statue should stand in Iraq. This is contrary to international law. This is a war crime. I may not like Britney Spears, but I don't have the right to come into your home and destroy a Britney Spears CD.

[stickdog]

2. Yeah!

They got another statue!

[VolcanoJen]

4. Awesome, awesome, awesome sig line, stickdog!!

Whereever did you find that? I want that on my car. NOW.

Thanks for that,
Jennifer :-)

[stickdog]

8. See the bottom right of this page.

http://www.internetbumperstickers.com/politic.html

I don't think it is currently an actual sticker, but only a virtual one.

[starroute]

12. Seems to be a paraphrase of Mark Twain

"Suppose you were an idiot . . . . And suppose you were a member of Congress . . . . But I repeat myself."

--Mark Twain

[stickdog]

21. Yep. I "made it up" a few years ago. But if you check the internet ...

it now appears as an actual Twain quote in several places.

[Randi_Listener]

5. Morale

Simple morale booster. Nothing more.

[Cocoa]

13. and not only the morale of the troops

This is just as much about the people watching at home as it is about the soldiers.

[Paschall]

7. When this happened in Baghdad, some Iraqis weren't happy

They say they should be making these decisions and carrying out the destruction.

But I suppose it's preferable for our troops to be directing their frustrations at bronze rather than bodies.

[R Hickey]

9. That bronze statue would have brought good money on E-Bay

After the fall of the USSR, many statues, large and small, of Stalin and Lenin were sold to collectors throughout the world. In fact I own a couple of small bronzes that I bought off E-Bay. And although I don't admire Russian dictators, I do like my little Lenin and my bronze Stalin action figure.

I would have liked the opportunity to buy that huge bronze Sadamm statue, to add to my collection. I could have put it in my garden out back. It would have been quite a conversation piece. The money that I might have paid for the statue could have gone to good use... an orphanage or something, or at least it would have brightened the day of some looter... but anyway, now the statue is destroyed. Gone forever. Well, not neccessarly... if Sadamm is still alive and makes a comeback... but I digress...

[Maeve]

10. I don't have a problem with it if the Iraqis don't

But I do think it's kinda sad that our victories are symbolic and not real.

[Kamika]

11. id rather sit in the shade then blowing up statues

But i dont have a problem with it

[Heddi]

17. why not let

the Iraqi people blow it up if they wanted it gone?

Iraq is not the soveriegnty of the United States. They're not our colony.

As much as Sadaam was a super bad dude, WE---Americans---have no right to blow up, destroy, or otherwise ruin things that are IRAQI and that belong to IRAQI's.

That would be like my husband being arrested for murder, and the police coming in, tearing up all our wedding photos and burning our videos and saying "well, he was a horrible person!!! We're doing you a favour"---

America (the government/military) has already done enough damage to Iraqi people and Iraqi soil. We don't need to take it into our hands to make a 'political statement' like this.

If the Iraqi's wanted it blown up, let them do it. We should not be doing things like this

[rhino91063]

18. While Iraqis blow up US soldier

Not exactly an even trade. If blowing up the statue was an attempt to intimidate, it failed miserably.

[damnraddem]

19. I have a problem with this!

What right do U.S. soldiers have to desecrate art?

Was it good art? Who cares? It's not the U.S. troops' role to be art critics. Let the Iraqis, if they ever have a stable government, decide what to do about statues of Saddam. The statue is cultural property. This is desecration of cultural property.

[unblock]

22. the status belongs to THE IRAQI PEOPLE

let them blow it up or melt it down or put its metal in the cornerstone of a new electric plany or water purification plant.

to take the statue for our own jollies is to further show us as conquerers, not liberators.

but we knew that, didn't we?

[NYC]

24. The bronze (what's left) belongs to the Iraqi people.

The U.S. is taking it to Texas? That is theft.

The statue is (was) the property of the Iraqi people. It should be their decision whether to maintain the statue, move it, melt it down, etc. Any profits or value from it should be theirs.

Too late to discuss whether or not the Iraqis want the statue, but the value of the bronze belongs to them.

[DeathvadeR]

23. ahhhhh

what gives us the right to steal the bronze from the Iraqie people? O I forgot we are gonna steal the second largest oil reserve on the planet, worth an estimated 7 trillion, Whats a little bronze between friends?

[R Hickey]

25. They could have just sawed the head off and welded Dubya's on.

Then the GOP/PNAC could put the Dubya-headed statue in the Smithonian Museum, next to Our-Heroic-Leader's carrier-jetplane.

[Paragon]

26. Who ordered this?!?

Great, now we're the Taliban -- they destroy Buddhas, we destroy Saddams. Childish and stupid in both cases. Can't wait to see someone squirm for this on the Sunday talk shows.

[fujiyama]

28. I wouldn't equate the two...

but I see where your coming from. This ultimately is the Iraqi's property. This is a part of their history and they should have had the right to do whatever they wanted with it.

[lebkuchen]

29. I feel so much more secure

...or did Bush mistake the statue as a work of art begging to be looted?

[tlb]

30. In 1945 newsreel photographers in Berlin

took one of the best symbolic expressions of the fall of Hitler when they filmed the demoliton of the swastica atop the a strucure ( Brandenberg Gate ? ). Any documentary dealing with the fall of Nazi Germany includes this image.

Would we be seeing the same foolish comparisons to the taliban for that act ? Is this board prepared to defend the " right " of the 1945 Berlin residents to " their " swastica ?

However Saddam was taken down, whoever took Saddam down, and whyever Saddam was taken down, the world is better without him, and the horse he rode in on.