The deviantART site has 225 visual interpretations on the theme “Iraq War 2003.” There is some thought-provoking imagery, deft workmanship, creativity, humor and passion. Of the works that take a discernable stand – many are appealingly vague – 95% are anti-war, and most are frankly rather glib and trite in this expression.
After clicking through about half of these, a phrase coined by the industrial band Chemlab fought its way into my brain, no matter how hard I tried to bar the door: “fuck art let’s kill.”
I do not endorse this statement literally, but after enduring the simplistic, paranoid, parochial, knee jerk, platitudeness, pessimistic, misdirected, self-deceptive extrusions of poets, actors, musicians, novelists, and artists regarding America, Bush, and the war, I do understand the impulse to clear out the obstructionist clutter and take decisive action, with extreme prejudice.
The carefully modulated activities of the allied military over the last couple of days, leaving the infrastructure of Iraq intact, civilians remarkably unkilled, and surrendering enemy combatants welcomed to milk and cookies, rams this point home ever harder. A good number of Americans seem disappointed the war is going as well as it is.
Chemlab rocks the sphincter, by the way.