Emailed Political Propaganda

I received a forward yesterday that had a picture of this bronze statue on it:



The accompanying story explained how an Iraqi sculptor who had formerly made all the bronze busts of Saddam was so happy the Americans freed him that he melted down three Saddam heads and made this sculpture for the American soldiers to show his gratitude. The evil liberal press had not wanted to report such a heartwarming story because they want to show only the bad side of Iraq.

Of course, something smelt fishy, so I did some research. Less than 30 seconds later, I hit upon this snopes.com report:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/kalat.asp#photo

The report basically explains the truth: An Iraqi sculptor DID make this statue out of melted down Saddam heads, but the reasoning makes a lot more sense. He's a sculptor paid by the US soldiers to make statues of themselves, just like Saddam paid him to make the busts of himself. They re-used the bronze from Saddam busts not to make a political point, but because recycled bronze is much cheaper.

This shows two important points:

1) If you are looking for a reason someone does something, the answer is probably money.
2) To this sculptor, the Americans are no different than Saddam, they pay him to make statues of themselves, just like Saddam did. I suspect most Iraqis feel the same way-- they are not "free" now, it's just that there is another boss in town.
3) Don't believe every piece of political propaganda that gets forwarded into your email box. Research it to make sure it's true FIRST before you forward it on to 30 of your friends, please. It takes 30 seconds.