BAGnewsNotes

Iraq Civil War - #3 (Day 4): Ganging Up

Notice how Saturday's large and dramatic LAT front page photo frames Mahdi Army fighters (and, by way of the caption, "Muqtada Sadr") as gloating, oncoming, renegade antagonists to Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government.

So the story line is set, although the factions aligned under the rubric of the Iraqi government (which are filled with like agents) actually instigated the hostilities.  Emphasizing the fighters as "parading," the weaponry and the hoods/masks play on stereotypical gang associations (including what reads like an intentional hand gesture by the guy on the left) to frame the Mahdi as the "gansta-terrorists" in this fight.

Look for the Administration to vigorously cover-up the Iraqi Government's power play and (rhetorically, as well as literally) attempt to nail the Mahdi, although more for face-saving purposes than anything else.  (It's an unfortunately thing, too, as the Mahdi cease-fire had been holding steady, with the faction apparently training its eye on the next round of elections.)

In a destabilizing assault that the U.S. wasn't informed of and never saw coming, another thing to watch for is the extent to which traditional media gets out in front in the visually enabling.

(image: Khaldoon Zubeir/Getty Images.  Basra, Iraq.  April 2008.  via Los Angeles Times)

Iraq Civil War - #2 (Day 3): Two Georges Up In Flames

Finally, a news photo that illuminates the politics of the current Iraqi firestorm rather than the wrenching, but mostly non-explanatory wailing and corpse images.

As opposed to the propaganda coming out of Washington that "the Iraqi government" is cracking down on "criminals" (feel free to substitute the name "Moqtada al-Sadr" right there), the picture tells another story.  What we see are demonstrators in Sadr City burning a photo of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim chumming it up with Junior in the White House.

In this case, because al-Sadr boycotted the last round of elections and Maliki and al-Hakim stand to lose ground in the October vote, it appears Maliki, using government police and military, teamed with al-Hakim's Badr Brigade, are trying to wipe out the Mahdi in Basra while it has the chance.  In an act of exploitation that John McCain probably couldn't figure out in 100 years, Maliki has actually lured the U.S. into launching air strikes on behalf of his psuedo-governmental faction.

As regards the picture-in-the-picture, here's the original image of GDub (while thick in his George Washington phase) meeting al-Hakim in the Oval Office -- a meeting which took place a month before the U.S. military embarrassed itself by trying to bust al-Hakim's son for visiting Iran.  (And then, who aren't we backing that isn't tied up with Iran?)

The tragedy of this shot is not that Bush is going to burn for getting played in a deadly factional game he doesn't understand.  It's that, in wearing George Washington like a halo, the symbol core of our democracy is going to burn with him.

Teetering (TPM)
And then, George Washington at Bush's back seems to resonate strongly with the recent: Before I Could Explain (BAGnewsNotes)

(image: Kareem Raheem/Reuters. March 27, 2008.  Sadr City.  via YahooNews)

Your Turn: Vogue + LaBron (Kong?) + Gisele = Kaching

Some say the photo of LeBron James -- in a gorilla-like pose -- perpetuates racial stereotypes.

Men's Fitness editor-in-chief Roy Johnson says: "It's a reminder that as African-Americans, we have come very far to have an African-American male featured on the cover of Vogue, but we have very far to go to continue to educate people within our industry regarding the power of images and the potential impact they can have on their readers."

Jason Whitlock: "Would we be having this discussion if LeBron struck the same pose on the cover of Ebony while holding Selita Ebanks?"

... I think the image is worth our deconstruction, but I don't believe for a second Vogue/Leibovitz didn't know exactly what they were doing.  In spite of his approval (before, and up to this moment), did LeBron get the shape of it?

More images in the shoot (Vogue/style.com)
Is Vogue's "LeBron Kong" Cover Offensive? (Jezebel + more links)
Memo Pad: People Are Talking About... Soon To Be a Ph.D Thesis.. (WWD.com)
If They All Do It... (The Beyonce lightening treatment - BAGnewsNotes)
Selita Ebanks (wikipedia)

(h/t and paragraph 1-3 from Wayne Dickson.)

(image: Annie Leibovitz. 2008. Vogue Magazine)

Iraq Civil War - #1 (Day 2): Deathly Simple

There are probably few spots on this planet where the search for mono-causality is more futile than Basra.

--Reidar Visser, historiae.org

I love this.  This shot is one of the more popular, if not artistic newswire images being used right now to illustrate the eruption of fighting across southern Iraq.

What it conveys, beyond the fact that death is in the air, is how eloquently the Iraq War has been reduced to abstraction.  There are no names here, no faces, just the news (via the caption from NYT Pictures of the Day) that a Mahdi fighter from Sadr City has ended up in a box.

And how clean and simple really, just one more Mahdi evil-doer on his way to paradise.  If you read most news accounts (including the VOA piece below, citing the Pentagon spin that the outbreak is actually a good thing), you will learn that the latest trouble is quite simple, boiling down to:

Iraqi Government = good (and finally showing some cohones);
Mahdi = guilty most of the way around

So, no need bothering with the reality that the violence engulfing multiple cities involves a complex intermingling of the interests of at least four separate Shiite factions (including ISCI --formerly SCIRI; PM Maliki's Dawa party; the Mahdi; and Fadila, which is particularly entrenched in Basra) with the U.S. sandwiched in there apparently happy to be blasting away (in Baghdad, at least) at the Mahdi while the Iraqi government pushes the line that it's simply clearing the south of criminal elements.

In fact, what occurs to me now, in spite of my castigation of the image, is that the way it articulates the ambiguity is actually spot-on.  What I mean is, with various hands involved, seemingly aligned but also clustered, tied to death but unidentifiable to our eyes, it's a fair snapshot of how much we really can tell about what's going on.

The Enigmatic Second Battle of Basra (historiae.org)
Pentagon Calls Iraq Fighting Good Sign, Analysts Not Convinced (VOA)
Iraq leader gives Shiite militias in Basra three days to surrender (LAT)

Pictures of the Day, March 26 (NYT)

(Image: Alaa al-Marjani/AP.  April 25, 2008.  caption: At a funeral in Najaf, Iraq, relatives lifted the coffin of Hadi Kadim, a Mahdi Army fighter from Sadr City, Baghdad, who was killed in Tuesday's clashes. via nytimes.com)

So, So?

PRESIDENT KARZAI: (Speaking English.) Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, very nice of you. Any more questions?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: No, I'm fine.

Q: Oh.

PRESIDENT KARZAI: You're disappointed? One more question. Don't disappoint the press ever.

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Don't disappoint the press ever. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT KARZAI: Please, ma'am.

I think I've become anesthetized not just to the mind-bending arrogance of Dick Cheney, but to the tendency of the media to either giggle, or simply look away.

Because of this passive acceptance, I barely registered the rare comeuppance Dick received from Karzai last week when he tried to cut short their joint press conference.  (Keeping with the theme of denial, you might check out the self-serving do-over on the White House photo gallery, in which the event was entirely reframed to highlight Dick's eagerness to answer questions.  ...And this was only days after the 60 Minutes interview in which Dick dismissed the American public's opinion on the war with a "So?")

Why I'm bringing this up at all, however, is because of the shot I saw last evening on Reuters Pic of the Day.

Shaking me out of the "Dick as comedy" stupor was this photo from Turkey of a protester expressing himself over Dick's impending arrival.  What it did was point out how someone somewhere was not only still paying attention, but would be so muted for the rebuttal.

Vice President Dick Cheney smiles as a reporter asks a question during a press availability with President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai" (White House Photo Gallery)
Reuters Pictures of the Day
Cheney/Karzai press conference (White House transcript)
Cheney On Two-Thirds Of The American Public Opposing The Iraq War: ‘So?’ (Think Progress)

(image 1: Rafiq Maqbool/AP.  Kabul.  March 20, 2008. YahooNews.  image 2: Stringer.  Ankara. March 24, 2008. reuters.co.uk. )

The Dynamics Of Tuzla

Obviously, visuals can be highly damaging to a candidate, such as the mild images of Hillary at the Tuzla airport after she spoke of being greeted by gunfire.  However, we don't often break down why.  In this case:

1.  The latter shot evokes the image of the threatened young children asleep in Clinton's 3AM "Who Can You Rely On?" ad.  What the Tuzla imbroglio does is to raise the question whether Hillary -- upon receipt of that 3 AM call -- wouldn't have trouble accurately interpreting the level of danger to these young innocents.

2.  These pictures uncover something of a paranoid streak.  The "dramatically non-threatening" scenes undermine the argument Hillary makes that she is constantly under enemy attack.

3.  Whereas Chelsea has emerged this year in the role of Hillary's soul-sister, as well as someone who reinforces and insulates the campaign on the gender front, these visuals also call Chelsea's integrity into question, and make her seem more like a political prop.

4.  Hillary's over-dramatization of danger in a conflict setting can't help but bring to mind her validation of George Bush's over-dramatization of the threat of Iraqi WMD, and her consequent support of the Iraq war resolution.

5.  The Tuzla images start to unwind a great deal of campaign work designed to frame Hillary as the more experienced candidate.  In a curious line in the original CBS report in '96, reporter Cheryl Atkinson says: "Mrs. Clinton ... is well aware that she risks looking like she is trying to do the President's job."  In the present context, these photos reinforce Clinton as the ambitious former first lady far more than potential Commander-in-Chief.

Embellished Memory (Newsweek)
CBS Exposes Hillary Clinton Bosnia Trip (CBS via YouTube)
1996 Clinton Bosnia Trip (CBS News via YouTube)

(images: CBS. March 25, 1996. via YouTube)

Kerry-McCain '02 (Or:The McCain Slouch)

This shot leads off yesterday's NYT story about two instances in which McCain seriously entertained hooking up with the Dems.  Apparently, Mac -- after having been beaten (up) by Bush for the nomination -- actively explored switching sides in '01.  And in '04, he initiated discussions regarding running as Kerry's V.P.

The file photo selected to illustrate the story shows McCain and Kerry meeting with the press in '02 to discuss car mileage standards.

For all we know, the subject of gas could have also accounted for McCain's body language.  On the other hand, I'm wondering if the shot might capture the quality of resistance.  Besides failing to engage with Kerry in conversation, McCain -- given his pushed back and prone position -- also fails to lend himself normally to the chair.  And then, when your only job in a photo op is to play the game, McCain seems to intentionally defeat the moment by, instead, offering a stare to the cameras.

Again, the photo could simply be an innocent out take, with McCain -- known to be hampered by long-standing war-related injuries -- in the midst of a physical adjustment.  But then, what is captured here might, as well, represent a moment of alienation or resistance in the oft-described "maverick" McCain -- an element in his behavioral tendency to suddenly and dramatically go the other way.

Two McCain Moments, Rarely Mentioned (NYT)

(image: Dennis Cook/AP.  Washington.  2002.  via nytimes.com)

4000

5 years
4,000 U.S. military dead
Between 82,349 - 89,867 Iraqi civilians lost to violence

The reason Michael Kamber's photo -- appearing in the NYT Picture of the Day gallery, March 6 -- is so powerful is because it's the perfect metaphor.

Our people might look like they can breath easier and have it mostly in hand, but the teetering, tinderbox structure of the country; and the unworkable, band-aid, "made-in-our-name" government; and the temporary "pay 'em to stand down for awhile" strategy that's is suddenly not looking so elective anymore represents a guaranteed, if slow-motion train wreck.

While the media and the political establishment refuses to look at the overall picture, the photographer can't miss it.

(And doesn't that middle section of the building, in particular, look almost skull-ish?)

Read the Rolling Stone article which sets the record straight.  (And while you're there, check out Danfung Dennis's photo gallery, including the completely subtle photos of cooperation/collusion between the U.S. military and the Mahdi Army and Shiite militia-infested Iraqi National Police.)

NYT Pictures of the Day (March 6, 2008)
Iraqi civilian losses (iraqbodycount.org)

(image: Michael Kamber for the New York Times.  2008.  caption: At Combat Outpost Carver, near Salman Pak, an Iraqi town, American soldiers ate their evening meals in front a building destroyed in earlier fighting. As the fifth-year mark of the United States invasion of Iraq approached, President Bush spoke in Washington to observe the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. nytimes.com)

Hoping To Bring Peace To Hillary's (Not Just Northern Ireland) Experience

“I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland.”

-- Hillary Clinton

Boiling it down, Hillary Clinton (by personality, capacity and the nature of her relationship with Bill Clinton) seemed to have enjoyed an inordinately high level of access and input as a First Lady.  Still, however, her level of participation in governmental affairs seems to have been officially and most consistently bound by her peripheral role.  Given this equation, I would imagine that both of these images -- each accompanying a NYT story in the past couple days about Clinton's involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process -- has got to be frustrating to somebody.

Take the top shot, for example.  Absent the momentary presence of Bill Clinton, who successfully brokered a peace agreement between England and Northern Ireland that Easter in 1998, this image of Hillary with Congressman Peter King and Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams makes it seem like she was right in the thick of things, and possibly even a partner to the negotiations, although she was not (and, for the record, never claimed that she was).

The Coming Of Age Of The Blast Wall

(click for full size)
In this newswire shot -- just outside a bomb shelter in Sderot, the town in the Israeli north infamously known as a target for crude and occasionally lethal Palestinian rockets -- I think a unique thing happens, the foreground lending new weight and meaning to the background.  The presence of today's most famous war veteran, and the war-obsessed potential next President of the United States, begins to elevate the blast wall to a new level of recognition.

Given that McCain is in Israel, there might be a tendency to associate this background with the Israeli separation wall.
Can anyone argue, however, that these harsh, more portable and yet disarmingly grayish-white half-militaristic, half-political human dams have become the defining post-9/11 symbol for authoritarianism, culture war and the lost art of diplomacy?