B is for Boondoggle

OIF alphabet version 2.0.

Sometimes I cried.

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"A reduced op-tempo certainly hath it’s privileges"

So Buck Sargent says, in explaining how he found time to write this blog entry from Iraq - a piece every bit as quotable as anything from Mark Steyn.

Still, the domestic Barnes & Noblesse oblige crowd -- with their claptrappucchinos and their sophisticated taste for yellow (dog) journalism -- are hardly the world-weary isolationists they pretend to be. American interventionism did not appear particularly troubling to these citizen-skeptics during the previous decade when it pertained to solely humanitarian impulses; but add American security to the mix and suddenly their travel mugs spilleth over. Within the span of one electoral cycle any prevailing charitable impulses evaporated, leaving nothing but a naked desire for America and its military might to be knocked off its pedestal; to be sent packing from the Middle East with its tail between its legs, humiliated and discredited before an Islamic world that respects only strength and routinely mistakes kindness for weakness.

To believe as such is assuredly their prerogative as Americans. But with any civil liberties come civic responsibility. True, our hard-won freedoms protect the right to march on Washington, spin elaborate webs of intrigue about the powers that be, and rudely shout down invited speakers at commencement addresses. But they also protect the right to drink Zima, name your children after fruit, and wear socks with sandals. Just because you can do it doesn’t always mean it’s a good idea.

While you're there be sure to watch a few of his "home movies" from Iraq (in the lower right sidebar).

Show Me the Money Shot

"I don't like working in Iraq. The terrain is flat and uninteresting, the food is terrible, the weather is ridiculous, and to be honest, the people are not that charming or interesting."
-- (Sorry, you'll have to read the whole thing for the attribution.)

Every once in a blue moon during the course of the war in Iraq a reporter authors a complaint that there just aren't enough photographs of corpses of American soldiers appearing in the news. Here's an example from the LA Times from March 2005.

It's not a phenomenon restricted to war - in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina members of the media complained quite vocally that restrictions placed upon them were preventing them from getting quality corpse photos of the tens of thousands of dead black people their fellow reporters were assuring them were lining the streets of New Orleans like the crowd at some ghastly Mardi Gras parade gone horribly wrong.

So it's not war per se, but something else that brings out the lust for dead flesh in journalists - but obviously a few weeks of combat present more opportunities to build a collection of such potential Pulitzer-winning "money shots" than most crime beat cub photographers will have in an entire career.

Of course, terrorists make full fledged beheading videos available to anyone who wants them, but apparently those really don't "deliver the goods" these do-it-yourselfers want desperately to provide - so non-Americans need not apply.

For the rest of us, Today's New York Times says:

Show Me The Bodies

FOR war photography, Vietnam remains the bloody yardstick. During the Tet offensive, on Feb. 9, 1968, Time magazine ran a story that was accompanied by photos showing dozens of dead American soldiers stacked like cordwood. The images remind that the dead are both the most patient and affecting of all subjects.

The Iraq war is a very different war, especially as rendered at home. While pictures of Iraqi dead are ubiquitous on television and in print, there are very few images of dead American soldiers. (We are offered pictures of the grievously wounded, but those are depictions of hope and sacrifice in equal measure.)

That's just the beginning. Later you'll find a tribute to Shock Magazine's courageous theft of Mike Yon's photo:

Shock, a new photo tabloid magazine from Hachette Filipacchi, ran a blood-red battlefield image on its cover and eight pages inside drawing parallels between Iraq and Vietnam. The photos were gruesome, but nothing that was not manifest in the pages of Life, Newsweek and Time during the Vietnam War.

And ultimately a discussion with some photographers who seem to be despairing of ever obtaining a similar climactic image:

Sitting in the Getty Images' offices in downtown New York, Chris Hondros, a veteran war photographer, thinks that practical factors are limiting pictures of American battlefield dead.

"Unless it happens right in front of you, you can't make a picture of it," said Mr. Hondros, who has been to Iraq seven times and is currently in the United States working on a story about returning soldiers. Other than waiting 72 hours for families to be notified, he said, there are no restrictions on putting images of American dead on the wire. (Whether they get used or not is another matter.)
<...>
Ashley Gilbertson is a freelance photographer who has spent much of the last four years in Iraq and is working on a book about his time there.

"There are so many troops and so few press. You have a very small chance of witnessing a death," he said by phone from Vienna. He added that pictures he had taken of wounded soldiers had run in The New York Times and elsewhere. "Some people don't have access to the major papers, but I think that if Americans are serious about wanting to know what is going on there, they can find out."

It is worth noting that Mr. Rainey, who wrote about the paucity of images from Iraq, is currently working on stories there. Mr. Hondros remains interested in going back into Iraq — to Ramadi in particular, which at the moment has been closed off by the Marines — but he is not looking forward to it.

"I don't like working in Iraq. The terrain is flat and uninteresting, the food is terrible, the weather is ridiculous, and to be honest, the people are not that charming or interesting. And yes, it's very dangerous, even compared to other wars," he said. "But I don't feel that I have the ability to write off the Iraq war just because it isn't fun anymore."

American journalists, fighting boredom to bring you the bloody truth.