Quagmire

I was looking at the images connected with yesterday's NYT article about the search for missing U.S. soldiers in Iraq. On thing photographer Michael Kamber's photos indicate is the greater willingness of The Times to reveal the hurt being inflicted on our side -- as long as it's confined to a slide show.

If the shots of the wounded are not that distinctive, the slide that seems more emblematic is the shot of the Staff Sergeant, sitting on the ground, in shock.  The image of trauma in such proximity to impact (also captured in the shot of a soldier crying a short while after) does conveys the emotional laceration these soldiers absorb, then go on to contain in their psyches and bodies.

More quintessential, however, was the image above.  Ruling out paths and roads to pursue their search after suffering the IED, the soldiers end up cutting cross-country.  If there was ever a metaphor to describe our situation right now, Mr. Kamber hands it to us right there.

(image: Michael Kamber/N.Y. Times. May 19, 2007. Iraq. nytimes.com)