Saddam's grand statue's fall was the perfect photo op for the Administration's war on Iraq campaign. Of course, we now know it was an American army tank pulling it down and that CNN ran split screens in other nations that showed not only the fall of the idol, but graphic pictures of the victims of war. The same split screen was considered too "tasteless" for American palates..
I'm fascinated by the use of statues as political battlegrounds. Protesters from San Francsico to London toppled statues of Bush last year, the Russians toppled Stalins at the end of the Cold War (there's a graveyard/ park for Soviet heroic statues in eastern Europe), and Maggie Thatcher got beheaded at the London Guildhall in 2002.
It's not new, of course. The day the Declaration of Independence was read in NYC, wild mobs pulled down a bronze equestrian George III and sent it to CT to be melted into bullets (always the frugal Yankees- even in the heat of political frenzy). The British troops retaliated, of course, by smashing William Pitt's (champion of the American cause) form. All that remains of either is some of George III's horses tail.
11:38:33 AM 
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