#PICTURES OF SADDAM HUSSEIN CAPTURE FREE#

On the face of it, the attacks on statues in 2020 followed a pattern: those who cheered on the protesters pulling them down tended to be younger and more socially liberal, while those who were dismayed by the destruction tended to be older and more conservative. In September 2020, the British culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, wrote to museums, threatening them with funding cuts if they took any actions “motivated by activism or politics”. In the US and UK, rightwing Republican and Conservative administrations took the opportunity to position themselves as the champions of American and British civilisation: the last defence against barbarism and “ political correctness”.

The day after the slave trader Colston’s statue was pulled down, the Museum of London Docklands removed its own statue of another slave trader, Robert Milligan. Museums and civic authorities were quick to react, too, though often in a different way. To tear them down would be to lie about our history, and impoverish the education of generations to come.” The Conservative government announced that it would amend the Criminal Damage Act so anyone damaging a war memorial in Britain could also be looking at 10 years in prison. The backlash was led by President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order declaring: “Many of the rioters, arsonists, and left-wing extremists who have carried out and supported these acts have explicitly identified themselves with ideologies – such as Marxism – that call for the destruction of the United States system of government.” The order reiterated that those who damage federal property could face 10 years in jail.īoris Johnson, the British prime minister, said on Twitter that “those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. It was unclear whether the perpetrators were confused antifascists or fascists, retaliating for the removal of Confederates and slaveholders. A statue of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York, was knocked clean off its base. Protesters in Madison, Wisconsin, tore down the Forward statue, celebrating women’s rights, and one of an abolitionist. In the US, Confederate statues had long been a focus for public protest, but soon statues of national icons and progressive figures were attacked too. Some feared that this was becoming a frenzy. He continued: “The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder … It is a fight for the security of our nation and the peace of the world, and we will accept no outcome but victory.” This justification for war was hotly disputed at the time, and has been ever since.

#PICTURES OF SADDAM HUSSEIN CAPTURE FREE#

President George W Bush claimed that the aims of the operation were clear: “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people”. It was led by the US at the head of a “coalition of the willing”, including troops from Australia, Poland and the UK. Operation Iraqi Freedom, as it was called by those running it, began on 20 March 2003. The story of Saddam’s statue shows both the possibilities, and the limits, of making a myth. During the invasion of Iraq, the pulling down of a statue was also an attempt to create a story about history. But was that the truth? Putting up a statue is an attempt to create a story about history. It was an image relayed across the world as a symbol of victory for the American-led coalition, and liberation for the Iraqi people. T he abiding image of the Iraq war in 2003 was the toppling of a statue of the country’s dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Pictures of saddam hussein capture