Moises Saman: Iraq's Final Resting Places

Photo © Moises Saman/NYTimes-All Rights Reserved
A compelling photo essay titled Iraq's Final Resting Places by Moises Saman appeared in The New York Time's web edition. Probably as a sort of commemoration for the so-called official end of conflict in Iraq, the photo essay documents the graves and tombs of the thousands of unknown Iraqis killed since the invasion of 2003.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry estimates that 72,124 were killed since 2003, while at the morgue, it's estimated that at least 100,000 have yet to be identified. Other estimates differ in their calculations, but some reach over 1 million Iraqi civilian deaths since 2003.

Coincidentally, an op-ed by Paul Wolfowitz also appeared in the same edition, calling for the United States to stay true to its "commitment" to Iraq. You'd think these people would disappear in the holes from whence they came, but no...they still don't accept responsibility for our country going to war on false information.

We all know that Wolfowitz was a member of the cabal who vociferously influenced the Bush administration to invade Iraq on false pretenses. We also recall that Wolfowitz was acrimoniously removed from his post at the IMF because of shenanigans involving his girlfriend's pay.

If there was true justice in this world, I'd love to see Wolfowitz at the Cemetery of Martyrs in Najaf, and explain to Muhammad Jassem's mother, aunts and sisters (in the above photograph) why he was killed....and then do the same with the 4000+ US families who lost a family member in Iraq.

Jon Vidar: The Tiziano Project

The Tiziano Project presents the journalistic efforts and personal accounts of Iraqi citizens living in the Kurdish north, along with stories produced by their professional multimedia journalism mentors.

An extremely well-made multimedia project, it includes stories such as those on the Yazidis, nomadic mountain-dwelling Kurds, a pigeon keeper, a muezzin, a klash maker, and many more.

The mentoring team consist of Jon Vidar (one of the talented instructors at the Istanbul Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, and a freelance photographer who developed self-assigned projects spanning six continents, including work in Iraqi Kurdistan, Southeast Turkey, Rwanda, and Brazil), Victoria Fine, Grant Slater and Chris Mendez.

Ashley Gilbertson: Bedrooms of the Fallen

The New York Times Sunday Magazine has featured The Shrine Down The Hall: Bedrooms of America's Young War Dead, a powerful photo essay in slideshow format by photographer Ashey Gilbertson (VII Network), which looks at some of the empty bedrooms of the over 5000 U.S. military personnel killed in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dexter Filkins starts his accompanying article with the words "Just kids". The ages of these military fallen range from 19 to 25...indeed, just kids.

George McGovern in 1969 speaking about Vietnam said:

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in".

Now of course, it's also women who die in combat, as indeed Karina Lau did. Her bedroom still has a stuffed teddy bear and floppy-eared rabbit on top of her floral bedspread. She was killed seven years ago when insurgents shot down her helicopter in Falluja, Iraq. She was 20 years old.

In my view, this slideshow should be mandatory viewing by every politician who supported our senseless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I just read that George W. Bush is visiting Haiti. How about visiting these bedrooms first?

Foreign Policy Magazine: Photo Essays

Photo © Antonin Kratochvil/VII -All Rights Reserved
I didn't realize that the website of the venerable Foreign Policy Magazine was following in the footsteps of other media by featuring large sized photographs. These photo essays generally follow FP's international focus, such as The Shooting War, an exclusive collection of work by well-known conflict photographers who explain how they captured the photographs.

While I'm getting tired of repetitive and predictable war photographs, whether from Iraq or Afghanistan, I thought this collection did a good job in featuring a handful of photographers who've been published in various publications over the past few years. The captions add some meat to the bones...inasmuch as they give some insight into what was in the photographer's mind at the time.

The Shooting War

Teru Kuwayama: How To Not Get Shot

Photo © Teru Kuwayama-All Rights Reserved
A veteran documentary photographer, Teru Kuwayama has made more than 15 trips to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir, traveling both independently, and as an embedded reporter with US and NATO military forces, as well as Afghan, Pakistani, and Indian armed forces. In 2009 he received the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor award for his work in Pakistan, and a fellowship from the South Asian Journalists Association.

He is a 2009-2010 Knight Fellow at Stanford University, a contributor to Time, Newsweek and Outside magazines, and a contract photographer for Central Asia Institute, a non-profit organization that builds schools for children in remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

GIZMODO has featured Teru's Ask a Pro: How to Shoot (and Not Get Shot) In a War Zone, which is certainly a must-read for every inexperienced photographer with romantic notions on war photography.

Whilst all of his suggestions are extremely valid, I liked these:

Avoid the faux-commando stuff. Learn How To Say "Hello" and "Thank You" and To Count To Ten. Don't Follow the Pack.

WP: Female Circumcision in Kurdistan

Photo © Andrea Bruce/Washington Post
Here's a photo reportage by Andrea Bruce for The Washington Post titled Sheelan's Circumcision, which makes me cringe for two reasons.

The first reason is obvious; female genital cutting (FGC) is an abhorrent and an utterly repellent practice. The graphic photographs show us how Sheelan, a seven-year-old girl is taken by her mother to be circumcised in Kurdish Iraq, where more than 60 percent of women have undergone the traditional and controversial procedure. It is much beyond controversial...it's a horrible tradition and no efforts should be spared in trying to eradicate it. It's perhaps through photo essays like these that such efforts will increase, and young girls will be spared the indignity and pain of this procedure.

On the other hand, I'm shocked that The Washington Post editors decided not to preserve Sheelan's privacy and dignity. Here's a 7 year old whose mutilation, a terribly humiliating and painful experience, is now seen on the internet. Would the editors be so cavalier in invading the privacy of a 7 year old in New York City for instance?...or is it because Sheelan and her mother are impoverished Kurds that they ignored their basic rights??

And let me take this thought a little further...has Sheelan's mother given her consent after being explained exactly where these pictures would eventually appear? Was she given money? What did the photographer tell her to convince her? People in the Middle East have human emotions just like us...they want (and have the right) to be treated with respect and dignity like everybody else. Unfortunately, since there are no accompanying explanatory article in the newspaper's website, we are left to speculate.

I'm all for publicizing the atrocity of female genital mutilation in order to combat it, but certainly not at the expense of anyone's privacy as this photo essay does. There are ways to photograph (or edit) this event and not identify the girls' (yes, there are others!) faces.

So shame on The Washington Post's photo editors. Would they be so outrageously cavalier had Sheelan been their daughter?

For those of you who don't know: There is nothing in the Qur'an that mandates female genital cutting, and it is not practiced by the majority of Muslims. So when Sheelan's mother is reported to say: "This is the practice of the Kurdish people for as long as anyone can remember. We don't know why we do it, but we will never stop because Islam and our elders require it", she's wrong. Her tribal elders may think so, but it still doesn't make it right.

In fact, the Grand Mufti Ali Jumaa of Egypt, signed a resolution denouncing and totally banning the practice, as it goes against the principles and teachings of Islam.

The Washington Post's Female Circumcision in Kurdistan with graphic photos by Andrea Bruce.