From the artist:
In remembrance of the 4,000 brave men and women who sacrificed everything for us — and the two men who would continue this great tragedy, despite the cost to our soldiers, our military, and our nation.
I won’t argue this isn’t a striking image, nor that an insane amount of time and effort was probably put into creating it. But I do wonder whether the best way to show remembrance for our fallen is to use them as a brush stroke for such an image. Does one really believe these two laugh over this statistic? It’s a disservice and is unfair to the soldiers as well as Bush and McCain.
I hold out there remains some form of a humanity in the two of them, and that the crushing weight of this number will at some point in time come down on them as it has every single family member affected by this war.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:28 am
A disservise to Bush and his red-necked uncle/brother? Yeah, and Hitler was a human being too…..? Bush and Mcain are smiling all the way to the Bank.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
This image bothers me on so many levels.
1. Bush is pure Evil. He does not value human life.
He wants to nuke Iran for Christ’s sake.
2. You are looking at either our next president or our continued dictator. Depending on wether he nukes Iran or not.
Sad but true.
3. The statement “in remembrance of the 4,000 brave men and women who sacrificed everything for us” makes me puke.
Honor those who defend our country, yes.
But invading a country, assassinating their leader & killing hundreds of thousands of innocent men women & children for profit is neither honorable nor a service to this country.
Why do people continue to cry for the troops as a whole?
A mere 4000. Compared to 600,000 people that would be alive today if they did not illegally invade Iraq.
If these troops were drafted then it would be a different story.
But they were not. They knew the risk involved.
No, I will not be spitting on any when they return.
I went out to dinner with a friend who just returned. His family is so happy he is still alive, especially his children. Show respect to them like you should to everyone.
Just don’t make them out to be the heros they are not.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
a film every american should be FORCED see is ‘Taxi to the Dark Side’, which won best documentary at the oscars this year. though it dwells on and painstakingly examines the worst of atrocities committed by our soldiers, all that grisly torture stuff, you actually leave the film with a degree of sympathy for them.
they were put into a chaotic and confusing environment which they weren’t at all prepared for, and those in command knew this fact and exploited it. brilliantly, the film demonstrates how that environment was a manifested construction, made through what i’d call a ‘conscious negligence’, by those at the highest levels of our government.
this does not absolve the individual soldiers behavior in any way, they ultimately control their own morality. and in the devastating coda at the end of the film you see the soldiers copping to that inescapable fact.