This Statue is not Covered by the Media

ANOTHER PROPAGANDA EMAIL has come across my desk, and in a strange way I welcome it.

It gives me a chance to explore an underlying structure that many of these propaganda pieces share: a lie (or series of lies), hiding a subtext, hiding another subtext, etc.

So here we go—first the email, then the facts, then the subtexts...

The email:

Subject: This statue is not covered by the media.


________________________________________
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS?
OR WHERE THIS IS?

THE STATUE

This statue currently stands outside the Iraqi palace, Now home to the 4th Infantry division It will eventually be shipped home And put in the memorial museum in Fort Hood, Texas

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.
________________________________________

That's the email.

Here are the lies it contains:

1. This statue was covered by the media.
   
   It was covered first by the Dallas Morning News on March 27, 2004, then picked up by newspapers all over America.
   
   Of course, those papers got the story right—they didn't twist it out of recognition like this email does.
2. The sculptor had not worked on "many hundreds of bronze busts of Saddam."
   
   He had worked on a few busts of Saddam.
3. More to the point, he was not "forced" to work on those busts—he was hired, and paid, to work on them.
   
   He did say he didn't want to make the busts, but that he needed the money for his family and education.
4. He did not work on this project because he was "so grateful" to Americans.
   
   He said that he worked on it "for the same reasons" he worked on the busts of Saddam: he needed the money.
   
   The basic design of the project was conceived by Command Sgt. Maj. Charles Fuss, to commemorate his unit's dead.
   
   The money was raised from contributions by American soldiers.
   
   The sculptor was paid $18,000 to realize the basic design in bronze.
5. He didn't melt down his own busts of Saddam to get the bronze.
   
   It was supplied by the U.S. Military, taken from statues they were blowing up anyway, and given to the sculptor as a way to cut the cost of the project.
   
   He had, coincidently, been one of the sculptors who had worked on those statues, as well.
6. In fact, he was not particularly "grateful" to the United States for its invasion of Iraq.
   
   He is bitter about the death of his uncle because of an American rocket attack, and he believes America invaded because of the oil.
   
   He believes that the violence and unemployment in Iraq since our invasion is America's fault.

Those are the lies.

Next: the subtexts...