BAGnewsNotes

Selective Attention

Today's sham parliamentary election in Iran made me think about the extraordinary inconsistency in attention -- both White House-wise, and media-wise -- paid toward the Persian Gulf.

For example, Amadinejad was in Baghdad at the beginning of the month exchanging vows of solidarity with our so-called allies, but with all those photographers there, somehow, few if any of those pics ever made it over here.

Reformists fight off irrelevance in an election they cannot win (check out the photo, as well -  Guardian)
Iran's orchestrated elections (From the French edition of the International Herald Tribune)
If Democrats Remain Silent on Iraq Now, They Will Pay a Stiff Price in November (Arianna Huffington)

(image 1: Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP.  Baghdad. March 2, 2008.  image 2: Thaier al-Sudani /Reuters. Baghdad. March 2, 2008. via YahooNews)

Condi Picks Her Crowd

With the Israel and Hamas going at it through over and through the air, the Gaza situation deteriorating, and Abbas caught in between, you would think Bush/Rice would have had better sense than to publicly appeal to Abbas to sit down with Israel. 

You can read the story, but the image frames the result that much better. 

Just like the way Putin publicly humiliated Rice last year, we see a politically deaf and smilingly naive Condi getting it every which way by her Palestinian pal.  To her side (yeah, way over there), Abbas flashes a classic "I swear by my flag, I'm not budging" expression to the world.  And behind her back, Arafat not only cuts Condi off from her man, but appears to be laughing at her from the great beyond.  Moreover, even Abbas -- the way his portrait on the wall functions cleverly here like a thought bubble or his inner mind -- is experiencing mirth at her expense.

And then, I don't know what that pin is about.  Is it a question mark?  Or, maybe it's that famous mushroom cloud of hers.

Abbas Rebuffs Call by Rice to Return to Talks (NYT)
Outsmarting Versus Plain Smarting: or, Chin scratching after a hammering by Putin (BNN)

(image: Pool photo by Abbas Momani. March 4, 2008.  Ramallah.  via nytimes.com)

Spinning (An Election) Yarn

Are they kidding, framing Putin's puppet-elect Medvedev in a photo-op with an old woman spinning yarn?  The only yarn being spun here is the idea that this wet-behind-the-ears politburo suit is a legitimate successor to the presidency. 

Looking at Medvedev, I can't help but think of 2000, imagining this guy as Putin's version of our own George W.

(5:15 PST -- edited for coherence)

(image: Dmitry Astakhov - AFP/Getty Images.  February 26, 2006.  Ufa.  Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev speaks with a woman spinning yarn during a visit to a home for the elderly and disabled.  Via WAPO Day in Photos)

No Corner On Surges

It's not just the size of this funeral ceremony in Trabzon, in northeastern Turkey, for a private who was killed fighting Kurdish rebels.  (Similar protest are taking place across the country.)  It's how the scale of the demonstration mirrors the extent of the fighting going on in Northern Iraq right now.

The Turkish incursion, five days old and three miles deep, involves 10,000 troops, with active bombing support from Turkish fighter jets.

But then, what of it?  When it comes to Iraq, the American frame of reference these days fails to extend beyond: "the surge is working."

Turkey Resists Pressure to Wind Up Iraq Operation (Bloomberg)

(image: Tekin Atay/AP.  Feb. 24, 2008. Trabzon, Northeastern Turkey. via YahooNews)

SOT (incredibly shrinking) U

It's the cover visual of a 7,500 word article about a worldwide political and economic movement toward interdependence -- a bus the U.S. forgot to get on.

It's striking for the fact the U.S. is pictured in complete isolation, in a sea of darkness.

Also following the article, those massive and powerful fingers would likely represent Europe and China, reaching around from "two ends of the great Eurasian land mass" to apply the squeeze.

Above all, however, its a fitting illustration to offer up the day before Bush's last SOTU.

image from: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony (NYT Mag cover story)
Bush Would Never ‘Cease To Be Bold,’ But Now ‘Will Skip Bold Proposals’ In State Of The Union Speech (Think Progress)

(photo illustration:  Kevin Van Aelst.  January 27, 2008.  NYT Mag cover.  nytimes.com)

Palestinians And Palestinians

A consistent problem in the visual coverage of the Gaza story, and the Palestinian crisis overall, involves the inability to differentiate a Palestinian public from, say,  Hamas. (The same problem exists, by the way, in the visual coverage and characterization of Israelis.  As fundamentalist settlers and right-wing extremists exploit the attention, they, too, tend to become more representative of the public at large.)

To illustrate, take these two shots I was looking at the day before the Gaza wall was breached.

I would say this first shot is more representative of the Palestinians of Gaza.  It shows men and boys lining up at a food truck food at the height of the Israeli blockade.  Anonymous and candid, I doubt most of these people -- except, maybe, the kid in the middle seeming to look at the camera -- knew they were even being photographed.

Contrast that with the second shot.  The caption, which appeared in a WAPO slideshow, read as follows:

Palestinians protest in front of the Rafah crossing, calling on Egypt to open its border with the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians?  That is not the Palestinian flag, it is the Hamas flag.  Thus, the proper designation for the people here might better be described as "Hamas followers" or "Hamas sympathizers."

Making It Through Without Stopping

(click for full sizes)

Yesterday, in my haste to address the breach of the wall in Ramallah, I posted the top photo, above.  I accompanied it with a comment from a well meaning reader likening the scene to the fall of the Berlin wall.

Well, not long into the comment thread, it was pointed out -- with complete justification -- that this analogy, relative to the immediate Israeli/Palestinian situation, was as much uncomplicated as it was random.  On reflection, I could see how my impulsivity (and attraction to the analogy) had been motivated by the sudden release of pressure following Israel's five-day total blockade of Gaza.

From that point, taking the opportunity to look further, what stood out was the documentation of a rare collective moment.  No, the world didn't change, or anything even close.  But for an afternoon, at least, a mass group of Gazians were able to suddenly pass freely -- to escape, to run the checkpoint -- without repercussion.

What the image also caused, in my case, was to remind me of a shot I saw about two weeks ago.  Fixed in my mind was a scene from January 10th involving George Bush's visit to the West Bank.  That morning, because of heavy fog, "43" was forced to forsake his helicopter and travel by ground, via motorcade.  Although the press was highly tamped down throughout Dubya's entire Middle East trip, the NYT managed to publish the photo above -- taken by a photographer for European Press Photo Agency -- of the motorcade passing unhindered through an Israeli checkpoint.

Who Killed Benazir Bhutto? Is Anybody Looking At Condi?

Looking at this photo, which was included in TIME's 2007 Images Of The Year, you immediately think of Iraq, don't you?

The photo was taken just before Condi Rice testified before the House Foreign Relations Committee last October.  As she prepares to sit down, she is confronted -- in a stark act of protest theatre -- by a member of the group Code Pink.  I thought Iraq, too, at least up till December 27th, when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.

If you read through a series of investigatory articles published in late December by Newsweek and its sister publication, The Washington Post, the context surrounding Bhutto's assassination takes on a disturbing political light -- one which the media has failed to draw conclusions from.

At this point, Benazir Bhutto's death has been consigned as a fateful tragedy or a kind of cruel inevitability for "that part of the world."  It's as if Bhutto survived to the age of fifty-four simply out of sheer luck.  The reality, however, is that Bhutto was nothing if not shrewdly tactical in her decisions and highly circumspect when it involved her safety.

Of course, there is no question she was terrifically interested in returning to Pakistan, and resuming power.  What has somehow escaped attention as a central factor in her death, however, is the pressure applied by Condi Rice for Bhutto to return to Pakistan, and, particularly, the representation Rice made to Bhutto -- against Bhutto's own intuition -- that President Musharraf was in support.

Did Someone Say "Grassy Knoll?"

By the day after the Bhutto assassination, the JFK analogy seemed to be proving out in a more definitive way.

The American media demonstrated an almost voyeuristic interest in the shooting, publishing x-rays of Bhutto's brain and photos of the bloody interior of the car.  "Zapruder-like" video footage and still frames of the slow moving motorcade drew attention to questions about the crime, including whether more than one assailant was involved, including a possible second gunman.

Not being "our" loss, the fascination seems perverse, unless one considers the event as partially activating (or, reactivating) one of the most visceral and visual events in modern American political history.  With the dynastic nature of the Bhutto family, and Benazir's charisma and attractiveness also evoking Kennedy parallels, perhaps -- for a more self-centered, "CSI-centric" American audience -- the easiest way to relate to this story is in terms of dejavu.

Bhutto's Last Moments (Video/Hot Air via Wonkette)
Three Causes of Death in 36 Hours (CNN)
Bhutto's Skull X-Ray, Bloody Vehicle (HuffPo)

(image: REUTERS/REUTERS TV.  December 28, 2007.  via YahooNews.  caption: This combination photograph of TV grabs from footage released by the Pakistan Interior Ministry on December 28, 2007 shows (clockwise from top left) a sequence of shots fired near former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto's vehicle after an election rally in Rawalpindi.)

Destiny And Fate

Listening to coverage while spending most of yesterday on the road, one expert likened the Bhutto killing -- in terms of the impact on Pakistan -- to the assassination of JFK.

I don't have a sense of how, or how well the metaphor transfers.  What I do know is that, seeing a photo like this, taken just seconds before the killing, one feels in close proximity to destiny and fate.  Another interviewee on the radio yesterday spoke about the pattern of propping up dictators, and the failure of the U.S. to help build "systems" or institutional structures in Pakistan.

On that level, this image is just another sad testament to how thoroughly the Administration squandered the opportunity to target South Asia, al-Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11, and how much the world is paying for it.

Bhutto Assassination (NYT slide show)

(image: John Moore/Getty Images.  December 26, 2007.  Islamabad.  via nytimes.com)