The Unseen War
Lest anyone think the only thing in the news the last several weeks has been Karl Rove and Valerie Plame, there's still a war on. A war that daily now has been adding casualties at a slow, steady, and seemingly inexorable rate. Cindy Sheehan has done a splendid job of late at retraining the spotlight on our military losses, thanks to her son Casey and his brethren in death. But beyond our KIA list lies much, much more. War is never as neat or tidy as opposing masses of young men in uniform marching, fighting, and moving on, or little flags being moved around on maps.
General William T. Sherman had it right when he said, "There is many a young man here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all Hell." (he also said, "War is, at its best, barbarism.")
What little in the way of information that seeps out concerns our armed forces, Halliburton (read: war profiteers), private contractors, and the steady beat of bombings, ambushes, and other assaults between warring factions. Behind all this, though, are citizens, the forgotten people: the businessmen, the students, the workers, the women and the children. The prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the displaced families, the orphaned refugees, the present and future occupants of hospital beds.
Many of you are probably familiar with the images from past wars, especially Vietnam, a drawn-out bloody conflict whose only learned lesson, sad to say, was that the Pentagon must never allow the truth about war to be fully revealed. Instead, the Pentagon and the gummint have colluded to "embed" reporters; to make sure no photos of coffins or corpses are released; and to effectively sanitize any combat photos so that we don't see it on the nightly news, on the front pages, or in magazine articles. Above all, prevent the public from ever seeing the inhumanity of war, the reality that those in the invaded territories have to live with, day in and day out, throughout the fearful nights.
On the internet though, it's a different story. Salon, an online subscription journal, often has some interesting, thought-provoking articles, opinion pieces, photo essays, and cartoons (if you don't have a subscription, fear not: you can get a "day pass" to its content after viewing a very short ad/commercial. It's worth it). Today they have published a photo gallery that shows some of the very images the gummint doesn't want you to see. Far from being "unpatriotic," these are the kind of pictures I think everyone should see. There's a brief introduction, and then a series of pictures. I think it's powerful enough that rather than doing additional commentary, or offering analysis, I'll let the piece speak for itself. So go ahead, and view "Iraq: The unseen war."
General William T. Sherman had it right when he said, "There is many a young man here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all Hell." (he also said, "War is, at its best, barbarism.")
What little in the way of information that seeps out concerns our armed forces, Halliburton (read: war profiteers), private contractors, and the steady beat of bombings, ambushes, and other assaults between warring factions. Behind all this, though, are citizens, the forgotten people: the businessmen, the students, the workers, the women and the children. The prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the displaced families, the orphaned refugees, the present and future occupants of hospital beds.
Many of you are probably familiar with the images from past wars, especially Vietnam, a drawn-out bloody conflict whose only learned lesson, sad to say, was that the Pentagon must never allow the truth about war to be fully revealed. Instead, the Pentagon and the gummint have colluded to "embed" reporters; to make sure no photos of coffins or corpses are released; and to effectively sanitize any combat photos so that we don't see it on the nightly news, on the front pages, or in magazine articles. Above all, prevent the public from ever seeing the inhumanity of war, the reality that those in the invaded territories have to live with, day in and day out, throughout the fearful nights.
On the internet though, it's a different story. Salon, an online subscription journal, often has some interesting, thought-provoking articles, opinion pieces, photo essays, and cartoons (if you don't have a subscription, fear not: you can get a "day pass" to its content after viewing a very short ad/commercial. It's worth it). Today they have published a photo gallery that shows some of the very images the gummint doesn't want you to see. Far from being "unpatriotic," these are the kind of pictures I think everyone should see. There's a brief introduction, and then a series of pictures. I think it's powerful enough that rather than doing additional commentary, or offering analysis, I'll let the piece speak for itself. So go ahead, and view "Iraq: The unseen war."
posted by Mr. Sandman | 8:01 PM
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