The Statue few know about

reply to post by imd12c4funn


Thank you for finding this, and sharing.

Regardless of what each of us thinks about the invasion of Iraq, we should always take a moment to simply remember that, after all, we all share one condition: Humanity.

As far as I know, only fellow Humans would be able to comprehend this statue, this art...a cat or a dog wouldn't be able to appreciate it!!!

Again, thank you, imd12, for finding this and posting it!

Makes me feel a little bit better about being Human......

The coda from the original e-mail (www.snopes.com...):

"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."


I think this is a very wrong estimate. It actually has too much of a shock effect which cannot be easily channeled into the stereotype patterns dominating the mode of the public media information goals.

The strong effect of this art (including the initiative of Sgt. Maj. Fuss) is what makes it very political, and you cannot talk politics in the media just like that, because it is subject to monopoly.


You see, in this news report www.defenselink.mil... the name of the artist is not mentioned...

In this text www4.army.mil... it is stated that Kalat was forced to make statues of Saddam Hussein...

Everybody is reading his own story into this event. But, the beauty of the sculpture is hardly mentioned. It appears that it's only worth is of political, ideological (translated into emotional) value.

reply to post by DangerDeath


DD...I'm puzzled by your reference to the coda, in your latest post.

Perhaps I'm mis-interpreting, but I see an Artist who has found a FREE Voice to express himself.

I see HIS 'coda' as an ability to show the World his contained imagination...finally!!!!

reply to post by weedwhacker


No, on Snopes site, they called "coda" the quoted text allegedly inserted in the original e-mail. I was referring to it.

To make things clear...

Kalat did an excellent job independently from the context. Rodin would be proud of him

ArMap....

I saw this statue for the first time, in the OP.

My initial reaction was emotional....hence my post.

So let me see ...they toppled a dictator who had statues of himself all over the country ....then they replaced them with an American Soldier Statue ?
Replacing one Idol with another ?
Hmm ...why do Soldiers need this type of glory at all ?
If what they have done is good and just and right ..There would be no need for statues and propaganda ...Their deeds would speak for themselves ..and they would get the glory and praise due them .....

Soldiers need a frame of mind which will contain them. Art is superior to ideological frames which are very vulnerable to certain facts of life... They need to be constantly reassured that what they are doing is right.

Kalid gave them a perfect enclosed (circular) frame of existence, adding the Hand of God in form of the little girl's blessing.


It is very simple...

[They need to be constantly reassured that what they are doing is right. ]

What if it isnt right what they are doing ? Should they still be led to believe that it is ?And if it is not right what they have done and are doing isnt it like putting salt in a wound by asking people to give them glory for it ?

Not to mention ...those Iraqi people who are seeing that statue are more than likely wondering why a soldiers life means more to the world than an Iraqis life ..
soldiers are not the only ones that are being killed over there ..
This statue would fly in the face of those mothers,fathers,sisters brothers and children of the Iraqi people who have also lost loved ones in this horrible war.


I wonder how Americans would feel if Saddam and his army had come to America to deliver us from our current Gov>killed many many Americans in the streets while doing it ..then made it where we had no water ..and no electricity for YEARS .caused civil unrest .....took control of all our resources as a country ...Bombed every buildings we have and every house ........ And then set up a statue in Washington DC of an Iraqi Soldier ...How would that make you feel as an American ?


[edit on 16-11-2008 by Simplynoone]

I've read the original post to this thread and the Snopes article. I also know the USA found no meaningful WMDs in Iraq to justify a pre-emptive war and I know that Iraq's own Health Ministry has come out with a figure of 400,000 excess deaths in Iraq since the war started with 151,000 of those deaths being violent. Wounded statistics don't exist.

So I guess its all worth it for a statue, eh? It all worked out in the end didn't it?

I'm so sick of the war supporters.

How about some statutes of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's that want the US out? Or, how about statues of the Marines killing innocent civilians in Haditha? So this statue justifies invading a sovereign nation and is supposed to make me feel warm and fuzzy? Well, it doesn't.

A soldier may find himself in a situation where what he is doing is right, and also in situation where what he is doing is something very wrong. Put it all together, it is a very difficult situation to justify - that's why they need reassurance most of the time.

Soldiers, like most people, are not good thinkers. Most of them are contained within an ideological or emotional frame of existence. They are all expendable, consumable. I don't say they will all die at the battlefield, but when they are decommissioned, many of them fall apart once they are left alone and back into a different social environment, where what they did may look very wrong.

But it is a dynamical situation, young people are not really up to it, they join the army with different dreams... Soon, they are shattered.

That is the source of all manipulation - inexperience, inability or lack of will to understand one's actions - which all comes, often too late, to settle the account. That often results in breakdown...



[edit on 16-11-2008 by DangerDeath]

Originally posted by weedwhacker
DD...I'm puzzled by your reference to the coda, in your latest post.

I see HIS 'coda' as an ability to show the World his contained imagination...finally!!!!

I am puzzled by your statements too. First that odd bit about how it defines humanity because dogs and cats wouldn't be able to appreciate it, and now this..

The artist was PAID to create this work. He probably would have created statues for whomever hired him (in this case U.S. soldiers, before that Saddam Hussein). His creativity was expressed equally in the the statues of Saddam, he has a style and he uses that style to get work. Though I suppose when he was designing statues of Saddam everyone could have said "yes only someone that truly loves President Hussein could create such beauty!"

Originally posted by DangerDeath
A soldier may find himself in a situation where what he is doing is right, and also in situation where what he is doing is something very wrong. Put it all together, it is a very difficult situation to justify - that's why they need reassurance most of the time.

Soldiers, like most people, are not good thinkers. Most of them are contained within an ideological or emotional frame of existence. They are all expendable, consumable. I don't say they will all die at the battlefield, but when they are decommissioned, many of them fall apart once they are left alone and back into a different social environment, where what they did may look very wrong.

But it is a dynamical situation, young people are not really up to it, they join the army with different dreams... Soon, they are shattered.

That is the source of all manipulation - inexperience, inability or lack of will to understand one's actions - which all comes, often too late, to settle the account. That often results in breakdown...

[edit on 16-11-2008 by DangerDeath]

What it boils down to is that killing for any reason at all is not something near as glorious as people make it out to be .
The Soldiers have problems mentally and spiritually because of this ..
It does not feel so good to kill ......
Cops have the same problem ...
So my question is ..if man feels like this after killing (Most of them are now ruined for life mentally just because they had to kill ) ...then how can it be justified for any reason ?Why is man killing man instead of trying to resolve the problems without all that death and destruction .........
No Statue or praise or honor or glory is going to make these men feel any better ......

Out of ignorance, of course...

Where there are ideas and emotions, there is no understanding. You start with an idea or emotion, you end up all shattered. And, you cannot rest (while) in pieces, that is a fact.


***

And about artists being PAID - it doesn't really come to that, that what they do they do for money. It is more like they are ALLOWED to get some money for what they do in order not to entirely die out, otherwise they are not even mentioned in official records...

Originally posted by DangerDeath
And about artists being PAID - it doesn't really come to that, that what they do they do for money. It is more like they are ALLOWED to get some money for what they do in order not to entirely die out, otherwise they are not even mentioned in official records...

The point is the original email implied the artist was FORCED to create statues of Saddam, yet he volunteered to create a statue of US troops simply out of his sincere devotion to them.

That is an outright lie. He was paid by Saddam to create statues, and he was paid by the U.S. troops to create this statue. One would assume his reasons for creating BOTH types of statues were the same whether it was about money, feeding his family, or just love of his art.

Now if the story said he was a famous artist that REFUSED to work at all for Saddam, and suffered as a result, but then jumped at the chance to work for U.S. forces that might imply a preference. Otherwise there is no reason to believe he has any preference, in fact one would think he might have not been all that happy to have all his old works destroyed during the "liberation".



[edit on 16-11-2008 by Sonya610]

That's why I say artist is ALLOWED to get some money.
Art is very expensive. Society is NOT source of art. But society will not hesitate to appropriate work of art. Sometimes it pays the artist.

Artists are not source of money... Don't forget this fact.

What artist wanted to say through his statue is not necessarily what the art commissioners read into it.

Take a good look at this statue. It is plain clear to me that artist pictured the "closed system" of living and dead soldiers and an external source which constantly perpetuates such existence. War needs to be fed... The form of war is falling apart, it is consuming energy, it is not creating energy. it must be fed more sacrifices.

The whole of Iraqi war produced how much art? This is the first instance that I am aware some art was produced in this war's context. I'm sure there was more of it, but who would pay for it? It is still in artists' possession, it may never see the light of the day.

The truth about society is that artist should be considered very happy if someone pays for what he or she does. But along with the money comes the disgusting accusation that he was "working" for the establishment, be it Saddam's or Bush's... It's worse than a habit to look at things this way. It is an indoctrination, an ultimate hatred towards artists, who are among the rarest human beings still withholding and practicing the ability to create.

delete me.

[edit on 16-11-2008 by Distractions4Nothing]

Originally posted by DangerDeath
Rodin would be proud of him

I doubt it, this statue is nothing special.

And to make things clear, this is what they say in Snopes:

"I made the statues of Saddam — even though I didn't want to — because I needed money for my family and to finish my education," he says, reclining in a room decorated with several of his paintings. "And I decided to make statues for the Americans for the exact same reasons."

As the work neared completion, Sgt. Fuss and the division's commander, Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, decided it needed a clearer connection to Iraq. The general suggested adding a small child to symbolize Iraq's new future, Sgt. Fuss says. When they told the artist they wanted another statue, Mr. Alussy demanded $10,000 more. "He learned capitalism real fast," Sgt. Fuss says.

Originally posted by DangerDeath
Kalat did an excellent job independently from the context. Rodin would be proud of him

Well, I'd split the difference with you here: i think he did an excellent job, but probably not Rodin quality. (The Snopes link has better quality pics.) The soldier and the marker are done pretty well, in my opinion. Powerful, even. He's shown some real emotion in that lifeless metal soldier. And working in bronze isn't like whittling pine, after all.

I still stand by personal opinion that the girl isn't a good addition to the work. She's like a 1950s American girl, which doesn't exactly symbolize the "future of Iraq." Why not a young Iraqi? Or, better yet, focus on the sacrifice of the soldiers by leaving the girl out entirely.

Leaving aside my amateur artistic critiques, I actually like the story, without the emailed embellishment. People can pull out specific details to make a political point one way or the other but the truth, as always, is a bit more complicated. And when you get into complications, you get away from simple propaganda. The soldier/marker portions of the statue reveal a complexity and truth, which is a nice achievement for an artist.