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April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
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the Victory, the Harder the Peace
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April 12,
2003
"They
Got It Down"
The
Toppling of the Saddam Statue
by
JOHN BROWN
"They got it down!"
George W. Bush, as he caught television
coverage of a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein. [Washington
Post, April 9]
For supporters of our adventure in Iraq, the culmination
of military victory over Saddam Hussein is the toppling of his
40-foot bronze statue in central Baghdad's al-Firdos (Paradise)
Square, outside of the Palestine Hotel frequented by western
journalists. This ideal-for-reality-TV episode was further evidence
to war cheerleaders on both sides of the Atlantic that the Iraqi
people have at last fulfilled their hopes for liberation. "This
joyous moment recalls the deposition of scores of statues of
Lenin all over eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War,"
says Britain's Daily Telegraph (April 10). '[L]ike newly freed
Russians pulling down the statue of the hated secret police
chief in Dzerzinsky Square, the newly freed Iraqis toppled the
figure of their tyrant and ground their shoes into the face
of Saddam Hussein," writes William Safire in the New York
Times (April 10).
Not so fast, please.
Yes, Hussein was a brutal dictator. Yes,
many in Iraq and in the Arab world feared him and are welcoming
his demise. But to compare the toppling of Saddam's statue to
the removal of Lenin stone/metal look-alikes throughout Eastern
Europe is to draw false analogies.
As I watched the event on Fox news, with
its rah-rah go-go-America commentary that poses as "fair"
reporting, I quickly realized that I wasn't watching a replay
of the end of communism in Soviet-occupied countries, no matter
what was being said on the most jingoistic channel on the tube.
There are several reasons:
* The gathering of hundreds of people
around Saddam's statue was not the culmination of previous domestic
demonstrations against the regime (which, of course, made sure
they didn't happen).
* Local inhabitants failed to take down
Saddam's 65th-birthday gift to himself, despite looping and
pulling a rope around its neck and hacking its marble plinth
with sledgehammers. At one decisive point, U.S. Marines took
over the pull-down-Saddam operation, at the request of Iraqis,
according to media. In contrast, no foreign troops helped Eastern
Europeans destroy their morbid Lenin memorials.
* An eager Marine, 23-year-old Corporal
Edward Chin, of Brooklyn, N.Y., draped a U.S. flag over Saddam's
head, "a gesture that drew a muted reaction from the crowd,
gasps in the Pentagon briefing room and anger from a commentator
on the Arab news network Al Arabiya" (<CNN.com>).
No stars and stripes ever covered the visage the Great Leader
of the Proletarian Revolution when the Soviet gulag-paradise
collapsed.
* A pre-1991 Gulf War Iraqi flag was
placed around Saddam's neck (it looked like a door-to-door salesman's
cut-price tie!) by a Marine after the diplomatically awkward
U.S. flag draped on the dictator's metal face was whisked away.
No way a patriotic Czech, Hungarian, Pole or Russian would have
approved of his or her national flag being handled by a foreign
army (no matter how welcomed) in this condescending and dismissive
way.
* The statue was finally (and literally)
yanked down (sans Iraqi flag) by a U.S. armored vehicle with
a crane pulling a heavy cable. In the pre-preemptive days of
containment, the people of Eastern Europe got rid of their occupiers
(domestic and foreign) without depending on American soldiers
on their soil.
In Eastern Europe Lenin's lapidary sneer
of cold command was a symbol of foreign domination. Saddam's
domineering figure, for all the fear it invoked, did not represent
to the local population occupation by outside troops. In Russia,
the eradication of Lenin statues (and not all of them are gone)
symbolized the collapse from within of a vast Eurasian empire.
In Iraq, in contrast, Saddam's sinister bronze presence would
still be seen reigning over Paradise Square today had it not
been for the direct military intervention of the United States.
The one lesson of history is that it
doesn't repeat itself, no matter how much those who try to remake
it according to grand schemes believe.
John Brown
served in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1981 until March 10,
2003, when he resigned to protest the Bush administration's
war plans. He has served in Prague, Krakow, Kiev, Belgrade and
Moscow. He can be reached at jbrown@counterpunch.org
Today's Features
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
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