The Christian Science Monitor article mentioned in my previous post also makes a comparison which had not occurred to me of two famous sets of images:
When Iraqis in Baghdad celebrated America's arrival a year ago by beating a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein with their shoes - a sign of intense contempt - the White House was delighted. This was the kind of expression of glee at the departure of a dictator the US had anticipated.
Now one year later, the gruesome sight of Iraqis using their shoes to beat burned corpses - this time of Americans - has transcended the daily deaths in Iraq, and become a challenge to American will. At the very least, it raises questions about the depth of the US-led transformation there.
Both events had elements of theater, horrible though they were in the latter case. But the former had considerably more of Hollywood to it: About that dead statue... (See also here.)
Some observers of the famous Saddam flag scene were cautious about reading too much into it at the time: It's Not the Berlin Wall by Gideon Levy Ha'aretz (Israel), originally accessed 04/13/03.
Those who likened the smashing of the statues of Saddam to the toppling of the Berlin Wall should consider the differences between the two events. The East Germans knocked down the wall that imprisoned them with their own hands and then went westward to freedom. The statues of Saddam were destroyed by foreign tanks and the liberated people went to loot his palaces. The Iraqi people could soon find themselves caught up in a vicious civil war. The fact that both dramatic events, in Berlin and Baghdad, were broadcast live on television does not necessarily make them similar. In contrast to the toppling of the wall, if the smashing of the statues does not herald a deeper change, it will become no more than a footnote in the history books.
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