Lucaites – Page 38 – NO CAPTION NEEDED

The Mourning After

The war began officially on March 19,2003, and 43 days later President Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” after landing a S3B Viking “Navy One” aircraft on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. That was on May 1, 2003. This past week—7 years, 3 months and 10 days later, to be exact—and with considerably less fanfare—the “combat phase” of the war came to an end as the last of 30,000 America’s combat troops crossed the border from Iraq to Kuwait en route to the USA. I might feel slightly better about this if we were not leaving 50,000 “non-combat troops” behind to lend “technical assistance” to the Iraqis, a fact compounded by the lingering memory that the war in Vietnam was fought with “military advisers.” All of that notwithstanding, my first thought was that it would be somewhat churlish to feature the above photograph on this occasion. After all, surely President Bush cannot be responsible for the decisions made by President Obama … can he? But then I recalled that the initial motivation for the invasion of Iraq was to seek out and destroy weapons of mass destruction; weapons, lest we forget, which were never found and were in all likelihood a neoconservative fantasy from the outset. “Mission Accomplished,” indeed.

Bringing any troops home is nevertheless a moment for some celebration, and no doubt in the weeks ahead we will see more than a few photographs of loved ones as they jubilantly reconnect at the end of a gangplank or on the tarmac of an airfield. It is, after all, a convention of war time photography. But as we view these images we have to be sure to see past the immediate burst of joy to the long and extended pain and trauma—both physical and psychic—such soldiers and their families will endure. It is unlikely that such images will be taken or if they are that they will be featured; and even if some are, it is a sure bet that they will not circulate widely or that they will quickly fade from memory as too painful to recall and attend to for very long.

As much as coming home can be a moment of celebration, so too is it in some measure a moment of mourning for those who return. I was struck in this regard by expressions on the faces of soldiers leaving or preparing to leave Iraq. Where one might expect to see joy or relief most images showed men—and it is notable that such images were specifically of men, not women—bearing a serious if not actually somber countenance. The photograph below, appearing in a Washington Post slide is particularly poignant in this regard.

Shot at night and from within the hold of a cargo plane preparing to leave Iraq, the image has a degree of sober familiarity to it. We have seen scenes like this before, though typically the “cargo” being loaded is not a pallet of duffle bags, but rather flag draped coffins. What makes this image particularly eerie is the way in which the workers appear to be mourning the cargo as if this were a burial pall. That is hard to imagine, of course, because it defies our experience. How could one possible mourn the return of cargo which metonymically stands in for the return of the troops? But then why would troops about to return home not exude joy? The problem is that our experience of the war is mediated, and from a distance; not being there it is impossible to know what the troops who were there actually experienced—or what their return to their former “civilized” lives might entail … what and how and why they might mourn.

The photograph above is thus in some ways a reminder of the difficulties that we might all have in adjusting to the return of fellow citizens form the war zone—friends and family and strangers alike. For just as in the image, shot at some distance and at a slightly oblique angle with a wide angle lens, our plight might be to witness but not actually to participate in the performative space of action in any direct way. Put differently, the photograph is perhaps an allegory for the wide range of ways in which war entails mourning. For those who were there and for those who were not. Lest we forget.

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP; Ernesto Londono/Washington Post

1 Comment

Sight Gag: The Recession is Over (For Some)

Credit: Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press

Sight Gags” is our weekly nod to the ironic and carnivalesque in a vibrant democratic public culture. We typically will not comment beyond offering an identifying label, leaving the images to “speak” for themselves as much as possible. Of course, we invite you to comment … and to send us images that you think capture the carnival of contemporary democratic public culture.

1 Comment

A Tale of Two Cities

It has been a summer of catastrophes, both natural and man made. There are pictures aplenty, and in some measure they all depict a similar and recurring story of tragedy, death and destruction, first responders, clean-up, and mourning, all of which rely upon a common set of visual tropes and conventions to make their point. Those who decry “compassion fatigue” have plenty to support their claims, but if we look closely we might see differences that warrant less knee jerk reactions. As a case in point, consider two slideshows featured in tandem at The Big Picture concerning the current floods in Pakistan and the mudslide in Zhouqu County, China.

The mudslide in Zhouqu County resulted in over 1,100 deaths (and counting). In the above photograph we see a platoon of workers disinfecting a street in front of a building that was demolished by the slide. The image is marked by two complementary features. First, is the contrast between the drab tones of the mud encrusted building and the bright green canisters that contain the disinfectant being sprayed. Second, is how carefully these state workers—soldiers actually—seem to be going about their task: dressed in protective gear, their attention focused on the ground in front of them, their movements are almost entrained as they work in unison to destroy the breeding grounds of infection and disease. Taken en toto we have a representative image of the Chinese government’s response to the disaster: the carefully coordinated use of state resources and modern technology to address the immediate needs precipitated by a crisis situation. The point is reinforced in a second representative photograph:

This is a more panoramic image of the destruction and devastation, shot from above, but once again note how the orange and yellow cranes and earth movers underscore not just the presence of modern technologies, but the capacity of the state to organize and coordinate their usage quickly and somewhat effectively. And note too that both state workers and civilians appear to be working in tandem. China is governed by a totalitarian regime, make no mistake about that, but such images indicate one of the sources of its internal legitimacy: when push comes to shove the state mobilizes its considerable resources to respond to crisis situations with some dispatch. We have seen it before (here and here). And whatever we might find objectionable in China’s commitment to human rights—and there is plenty—this is not a feature of its government that should be ignored or scanted. Indeed, it deserves emulation.

In contrast, consider some of the photographs that depict the recent floods in Pakistan. The Big Picture begins with this image:

Here we have a Pakistani man literally marooned on an island in the midst of flood waters. What distinguishes him from the animals with which he shares this tiny piece of land is the demand he is placing on his viewers for assistance. And as the caption to the image tells us, he is appealing to an “Army” helicopter for relief. There is nothing here to indicate that this particular helicopter belongs to the U.S. government, though other pictures in the slide show make the implication clear enough. But the bigger point to be made is how alone and isolated the man is, literally separated and apart from those with whom he supposedly shares a social contract. Numerous other photographs in the slide show underscore the sense of isolation and social fragmentation that appears to govern Pakistani society in the wake of what is without a doubt a monumental crisis, suggesting the sense in which this image is something of a representative anecdote for the immediate underlying problem that confronts Pakistan.

That sense of isolation and social disconnection is reinforced by other photographs in the slideshow, and not least by those few images that picture a thoroughly inadequate State response. The Pakistani military has something of a vague presence in a few of the photographs we are shown, but even there their efforts are isolated, individuated, and apparently inadequate, as implied by the larger and more active presence of the U.S. military. And the one place where we see a distinctively active Pakistani state, the effect is hardly salutary:

A Pakistani police officer is pummeling a fellow citizen with a baton for “looting” donated food. On the face of it the looter doesn’t seem to be all that much of a threat. To be sure, order needs to be maintained, perhaps all the more so in times of crisis, but beating an already weakened citizenry in need of food hardly seems to be an appropriate response. Perhaps this is an isolated incident. Maybe this lone police officer felt overwhelmed by a mob of looters and reacted to a felt threat. Maybe. But again, the bigger point is how the photograph functions as a cipher for a society in total disarray and a government that doesn’t seem to have a clue as to how to proceed in the modern world—or perhaps imagines its legitimacy as nothing more than a function of brute force and doesn’t worry about the need to achieve any legitimacy by effectively administering its society. This may or may not be an accurate characterization of Pakistani society and governance, but the contrast with how China appears to respond to crisis and catastrophe could not be more pronounced.

It is of course important to keep in mind that the magnitude of the catastrophe in Pakistan dwarfs the recent disaster in China. The mudslides in China effect one county and thousands of people, the floods in Pakistan will effect nearly fourteen million people. And yet, even for all of that, it is hard not to see a tale of two cities envisioned here, one animated by a modern government dedicated to effective response to crisis, large or small, and the other thoroughly inadequate to the demands of life in modern times.

Photo Credits: STR/AFP/Getty, Reuters, AP Photo/Anjum Naveed.

Cross-posted at BAGnewsNotes.

4 Comments

Sight Gag: The Original Anchor Babies

August 15, 2010
Lucaites
sight gags
1 Comment

Credit: John Sherffius

1 Comment

The Dog Days of Summer

With the dog days of summer upon us your NCN guys are taking a short break.

We wil be back on Wednesday, August 11th.

2 Comments

The Fog of War, Rediva

The release of the “Afghan War Diaries” has been meet with expressions of outrage from both those who oppose the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan as well as the administration that must now lay claim to the war as its own, but truth to tell, very little has thus far been revealed that we didn’t already know … or at least could have reasonably surmised from the available evidence.

Although it began in the shadow of our occupation in Iraq, our presence in Afghanistan now marks the single longest military expedition in US history—bar none: World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam … you name it. Is it a surprise, in this context, that hundreds (if not thousands) of civilians have been killed or wounded under the sign of “collateral damage”? Or that “friendly fire” has taken the lives of both US troops and its allies? Or that there are special black-ops units that operate under “dubious circumstances” with “capture/kill” lists? Or that the microchip technology that was supposed to provide us with a “bloodless victory” has turned out to be less effective than we imagined? Or that drone missions being executed by private contractors sitting safely before computer monitors in remote locations like Nevada are actually putting troops in the field at greater rather than lesser danger when they fail and have to be retrieved before the enemy finds them? Or that the Afghani military is underpaid and unreliable? Or—revelation of revelations—the US military has misled the public regarding the sophistication of the weaponry being employed against us by the Taliban, such as the use of heat seeking missiles to bring down helicopters? Or that Pakistan is not a trustworthy ally? And on and on and on.

The fact of the matter is that we have been shown evidence of virtually every one of these concerns over the past, long, ten years and we have chosen not to see them. Or perhaps the problem is that the reports of such incidents have been fragmented and piecemeal, and thus easily mitigated as “accidents” animated by human or technological error (take your choice), or rationalized as the “necessary and tragic” cost of a war fought to preserve our freedom. Like the soldier in the photograph above, caught in the rotor wash of a MEDEVAC helicopter and thus incapable of seeing the landscape that is directly in front of him, perhaps we have been caught in the swirl of government and mass media reports—too often indistinguishable from one another—to the point of not seeing (or trusting) what is directly before our eyes: a failed war that daily costs us ever more in dollars and human lives with no end or reversal of fortune in sight.

Eventually, of course, the dust will settle. Perhaps this process has begun with the collation of this information in the Afghan War Diaries. It now remains for us to actually see beyond the fog of war … and to act appropriately.

Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Cross-posted at BAGnewsNotes.

4 Comments

Sight Gag: In the Name of Proper Deficit Spending

Credit: Clay Jones, Free Lance-Star

1 Comment

How Do You Picture an Economic Problem?; or Why a Penny Saved is Not Always A Penny Earned

When I came across this photograph in the NYT yesterday I was stopped in my tracks. The story that it anchored concerned “the way we live now” in an era of debt, but all I could think was that this is a picture of the late modern ghost town. A shopping mall without shoppers … or for that matter, without shops or shopkeepers. Instead of sage brush and weeds we have rubberized plants, and while the store fronts are not boarded up it is a fair bet that the building has been locked down to keep vandals and scavengers away, but the scene nevertheless evokes the eerie, spectral presence of the now absent, bustling commerce that once filled these halls.

In the days following 9/11 we were told that it was our civic duty to consume in order to keep the economy on its feet; the now prolonged recession makes even this limited civic responsibility impossible for many to honor; and for others, well, as the Times reporter notes, “it just [feels] better to owe less money,” and so rather than to spend many citizen-consumers have resorted to saving, or paying down their debt. It is hard to blame individuals for the same strategy being exercised by banks who severely limit the money they are willing to loan in a “risky” economy or corporations who refuse to invest or hire—or for that matter, the strategy being counseled by Republicans who think that the solution to our economic woes is to limit spending (including on such items as extended unemployment insurance) while extending the Bush tax cuts. But nevertheless, the effect of such thrift on the economic recovery is palpable.

The question is, how do you give presence to an economic problem, particularly when it is animated, at least in part, by a psychology of risk? The photograph above does a pretty good job as it visualizes the problem (or at least the effect) in chicken-and-eggs terms: what comes first the shoppers or the shops? What the picture makes most clear is not the old saw that a “penny saved is a penny earned,” but rather its counter, that one needs to recognize what is entailed by being “penny wise and pound foolish.” The members of Congress in particular should pay heed.

Photo Credit: Brian Urich/New York Times.

Cross-posted at BAGnewsNotes.

3 Comments

Sight Gag: House of Cards

Credit: Jack Ohman

0 Comments

An Economic Model of Greed (Or, the Legacy of Gordon Gekko)

Before Deepwater Horizon there was Thunder Horse, a fifteen story oil platform that cost over $1 billion dollars to construct and was characterized as a marvel of modern technology. According to then Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, “It is amazing that so large a structure … will have such a tiny environmental footprint, leaving almost no trace of itself in either the sea or the sky.” The photograph above shows it pitching in the seas of the Gulf of Mexico following Hurricane Dennis in 2005 before it had become fully operational. The efficient cause of its near sinking was not the storm however, but the improper installation of a check valve that “caused water to flood into, rather than out of, the rig when it heated during the hurricane.” A simple enough mistake, perhaps, until we learn that the platform was hastily rushed into production “to demonstrate to shareholders that the project was on time and on schedule.” And it was later discovered that the shoddy welding of underwater manifold pipes could have led to a catastrophe that would have made the current disaster seem small in comparison.

But there is more, for in the same year a BP refinery in Texas City, TX exploded, killing fifteen and injuring nearly 200 more. And again, the cause was “organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of BP.” The next year BP was responsible for the leaking of 267,000 gallons of oil on Alaska’s North Shore. And yet, once again, the accident was foreseeable and avoidable. In total BP ended up paying over $300 million dollars in fines. No small amount until you compare it against their net profit for 2007 of $20.84 billion dollars (admittedly, a sharp decline from the previous year but more than enough to absorb the fines and still leave enough to pay investors a substantial dividend, aka, “the cost of doing business”).

There are two points to be made. The first and more obvious point concerns what the photograph above (and others like it from the Texas City explosion and the leak in Alaska) actually shows. The evidence of the impending disaster of Deepwater Horizon was literally before our eyes at least as early as 2005, but we chose not to see it. After all, progress entails bold risk, and where would we be without oil. It is just the most recent iteration of modernity’s gamble, the wager that the long-term dangers of a technology intensive society will be ultimately avoided by continual progress. Sure, safety is important, but … And as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, as we dole out fines that amount to little more than a slap on the wrist.

The second point is less obvious precisely because it is harder to visualize, and it is all the more important because of that fact: the economic model that is driving such decision making is not guided by anything even approximating the rationality of free markets or the law of supply and demand, but by the same culture of greed that has driven the world economy to its knees in recent times. As one British economist put it, BP was run like “a financial company, rotating managers into new jobs with tough profit targets and then moving them before they had to deal with the consequences. The troubled Texas City refinery, for example, had five managers in six years.” Without putting too fine of an edge to it, we’ve learned in recent times that that is no way to run the financial sector, let alone an oil conglomerate.

In the end, the photograph of the listing Thunder Horse Platform might be a proper visual rebuttal to Gordon Gekko’s now famous declaration, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”

Photo Credit: NYT.

Cross-posted at BAGnewsNotes.

1 Comment