visual argument::war on their soil

Process Analysis

               The claim of this visual argument is that war impacts other countries far more and far worse than it does to the United States. Because we are so remote of a country, wars are never fought on our soil, and so the death toll of our citizens are never as high as the country we are at war with. We as Americans experience grief and sadness, of course, from losing their loved ones who have volunteered to serve for our country, but Americans don’t know what it is to lose their 8 year old son in a bombing of a city. Americans don’t see the effects of war first hand and so they aren’t fully aware of what it is doing and the lives it is taking.

               I chose the images of our troops to put in the beginning to show that I realize that we do have casualties of war and that they are bad. They are also there to provide the contrast to the pictures of the troops and civilians of Iraq and Afghanistan. I included the pictures of the troops and the civilians to show that we are not doing all bad, as Americans we are trying to do some good, and we’re helping the people of these countries. However we could be doing more harm than good, which is show with the countless images of children, men, and women dying or wounded or scared. The repetition of these types of pictures shows that there is much more civilian death going on than death of American troops. The pictures of the children bloodied and scared is to add the emotional effect to the peace; people always feel more sympathy when children are in danger so putting pictures of the children in helps to gain that sympathetic support. There is also the repetition of the chart comparing American deaths to Iraqi and Afghani deaths, which is shown twice, once in the middle and once at the end. This repetition is to show that this argument is not just an idea; it’s a fact; it’s a statistic.  

               The musical selection in this put in to evoke emotional reaction. It is a Sarah McLachlan song, most people know this artist from the starving children and lost puppy infomercials on television. This isn’t the same song, mostly because too cliché and gives most people the feeling of the need to change the channel, but it holds the same feeling. This song is written about death and reassuring the dead that she will remember them long after their death and she hopes that they remember her as well. This applies perfectly to the topic with the countless deaths of innocent people that we should remember long after this war in through with.