BAGnewsNotes

Gitmo: Down To Its Last Happy Meal

This image, taken in March 2002 by contributer Lori Grinker, has stood out in my mind since I first saw it. It was taken at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo.

As the Obama administration puts the wheels in motion to finally shutter the place, this scene is relevant to me for a few reasons. For one, I considered Bush/Cheney's "War On Terror" to be its own brand. As soon as Abu Ghraib broke, the guy standing on the box with the hood on his head became its world-wide logo, as iconic and representative as the golden arches (and even supplanting those arches as an American I.D.).

As Bush went around the world preaching fear, particularly at economic summits (while countries like China were preaching trade and making investments), it seemed like terror became our prime export, with "how many served" represented by how many people were held in custody without access to due process, or were being illegally tortured, with our main clients being those countries that colluded with us in hosting local franchises, or facilitated illegal renditions.

What the photo also does, I believe, is imply how the so-called "War on Terror" and the Iraq War provided a huge marketplace to gorge the security- and military-industrial complex, from the fly-by-night operators to the equally hungry Fortune 100, with all the instant commerce they could handle. And, if the product delivered was as cheap as drive-through, that was indicative of the way BushCo. did business.

(image: Lori Grinker/Contact Press Images. Image may not be used without permission)

More Exiles

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It was gratifying to hear Obama and Clinton mention the plight of Iraqi exiles in their LA debate.  Otherwise, how often does one hear about the four million?

About three weeks ago, I introduced you to a project  -- by BNN contributer Lori Grinker -- to profile the stories of particular Iraqi refugees.  At the time, we told you about Amer, a young Iraqi -- now living in Jordan -- recovering from burns from an explosion.

Today, we introduce you to Mike.  Before fleeing to Jordan, he worked as an interpreter with an American contractor, and also with US Forces.  This photo was taken last April.  Lori writes:

Mike is living in a new apartment with Iraqi friends. He applied to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and says the case is now with the IOM (International Organization for Migration—who are working with the UNHCR helping translators). He applied for a visa on June 18, has had two interviews and, last I spoke to him, was waiting on a third interview to be scheduled.

He is concerned that it is taking so long.  They told him that he has to wait until his name comes up on the list from the USA.  With no legal status, he is unable to work in Amman. He is desperate to find a job but will not work illegally for fear of being deported from Jordan and thus, sent back to Iraq. He is given 80 Jordanian dinars per month from CARE International. His rent is 100JD per month and he needs another 50JD for food. He has borrowed over 200JD from friends and does not know how he will get by next month.

The Forgotten Iraqi Exiles

“The war in Iraq has killed hundreds of thousands, and caused the one of the greatest flights of people in the history of the Middle East. Sixty thousand people flee their homes each month.

But when they are reported on at all, they are seldom individualized. Rather than photographing hundreds of Iraqi refugees to illustrate the epic size of the exodus, I want to follow, for an extended period and in an intimate way, just a few - I want to take the journey with them, to live the aftermath of war with them, and to relate their experiences as if it were happening to me, to understand the experiences that drove them into exile, where they are often viewed with suspicion and even as the enemy.”

--Photojournalist Lori Grinker

In response to an inattentive domestic media and the lack of visual documentation, Lori Grinker has been pursuing the story of Iraqi civilians fleeing the war.

In April, and again in September 2007, she traveled to Amman to photograph Iraqis forced to leave their families, homes and livelihoods for a life of cramped, substandard living conditions, inactivity, and waiting for the time when it will be safe to return to Iraq, or hear that they have found sanctuary in another country. And those are the “lucky” ones. Many of her subjects are in Amman to repair their bodies, only to be to be repatriated to a war zone after they are “healed.”

In the case above, the young man (call him Amer) was burned in an explosion while walking past a fuel truck in Baghdad.  We see the 16-year old coming out of the recovery room after having surgery to fix the contracted fingers on his right hand. He faced the same surgery on his left hand a couple of month later.

For the past two years Amer's father has taken him to Egypt to treat his burns, then to Iran and he is currently in Jordan where he is having surgery on his hands with  MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres) at the Red Crescent Hospital in Amman.

In collaboration with Lori, well known for her documentation of the effects of war, the goal of this site is to bring this situation to a larger, concerned audience.  Moreover, it is an opportunity to throw more light on the moral failure of the United States in failing to humanely and adequate assist the exiles, especially those who have worked directly for the U.S. occupation.

Since fiscal year 2007, only 1,608 of a promised 7,000 refugees were admitted into the U.S. The government has now set a goal of bringing in 12,000 Iraqi refugees in fiscal year 2008, with an additional 5,000 visas to be granted among the more than 100,000 Iraqis employed by the U.S. or U.S. Government contractors. Although the plan passed Congress, however, it has yet to be signed into law.

Over the coming months, The BAG plan's to apply the immediacy and the serialized nature of the blog medium to visually pursue this subject, as well as to personally follow the odyssey of specific refugees in the process of creating a new life.

In the meantime, when asked how he is treated by friends and acquaintances in Iraq, Amer said that everyone is nice to him…there are so many wounded people in the streets, it’s normal now.

It is fitting, given the invisibility of this issue, that Amer trains his camera on us.

Lori Grinker website
Afterwar: Veterans From A World In Conflict.  Photographs and Interviews: Lori Grinker

(images: © Lori Grinker.  Amman, Jordan.  2007.  Used by permission)

The Comfort, The Comfort

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BAGnewsNotes contributer Lori Grinker spent 23 days aboard the hospital ship USNS Comfort in 2003, arriving within days of the start of the Iraq war.  The ship -- the seventh largest hospital in the world -- was based in the Persian Gulf and treated many of the first casualties of the invasion.

In the past couple months, BNN has been surveying collections of Iraq War images from a number of photojournalists.  If there is one commonality that runs through all, it is that irony is now rampant.

Take the photo above, for example.  On the surface, the subject matter seems somewhat ambiguous.  What's so exciting?  Perhaps a football game?  The picture sheds any bit of innocence, however, when one discovers the date is April 9, 2003, and these crew people are witnessing this.  (Meaning, this.)

Obviously, a ship can't run without fuel.  Still, the larger symbolism is hard to escape, with the U.S., in the Persian Gulf, collecting crude.

"Canyon of Heroes"

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There are a number of things I find stunningly memorable about Lori Grinker's photo, taken on lower Broadway in the so-called "Canyon of Heroes" on June 10, 1991.

Perhaps because historical memory comes at a premium in the U.S., I realized I had nearly erased from my mind the twelve year gap between the first Bush Iraq war and the now four-and-a-half-year-old second.

I forgot that the original war really was a coalition, all 17 partners taking part in this parade.

I forgot about the yellow ribbons, a cluster of which seems to appear on a stanchion at the extreme left.  Because the first Bush-Iraq war only lasted seven months, military families were afforded the opportunity to be more hopeful.

Looking at the police woman just off the left shoulder of the soldier (bottom right), I almost forgot how police officers and firefighters used to be just regular civil servants, rather than manufactured symbols of an undefined worldwide cultural and religious war operating under a catchy slogan.

I forgot how, sixteen years ago, these troops would have had the World Trade Center at their backs, before "the events of September 11, 2001" cynically justified a botched Iraq rerun that will bring no parades and no sense of closure either.

Branded like a combat maneuver, "Operation Welcome Home" was billed as the largest parade in N.Y. history, a $5.2 million privately-funded celebration involving 10,000 pounds of confetti, 6,000 tons of ticker tape, over 3,000 dignitaries and 24,000 marchers.  Despite all the lip service paid these days to remembering, supporting and honoring the troops, this image of the soldiers hightailing away (especially in contrast to the iconic, joyous and frontal view of how a V-Day celebration is classically thought of) only emphasizes the association to Iraq as one tinged with anonymity.

*** ** ***

I wish to welcome Lori Grinker to BAGnewsNotes as the site's newest contributer.  Her book, Afterwar, is a landmark investigation into the physical and psychological effects of war on veterans stretching from the latest engagement in Iraq back to the first World War.  As one of the country's most important photojournalists, Lori maintains an instrumental role in locating conscience as a counterpoint to empire.

Regarding the specific photo above, Lori writes:

It's always a bit strange/uncomfortable for me to photograph celebrations like this while also photographing and interviewing so many veterans (and now civilians from Iraq) who show us another side of war. It's extremely bittersweet. How would we rejoice today if the troops were coming home from Iraq?  It would be a great moment, a huge relief but mixed with sorrow and anger...

I am proud to offer this platform in the blogosphere to bring Lori's work to a broader, concerned audience.  I look forward to sharing her important imagery and reportage over the coming months.

(image:  Lori Grinker.  New York City.  June 10, 1991.  Used by permission.)