Iraq's Brutally Wounded (Photo Essay)

[babylonsister]

Iraq's Brutally Wounded (Photo Essay)

By Nina Berman, AlterNet. Posted October 18, 2007.

As Americans scramble for funding to try to help the many wounded veterans returning from war, many more thousands in Iraq have suffered equally horrific injuries, yet have virtually no way of receiving care.

Go here, and I imagine this is graphic. I haven't watched yet:

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/65513/

AlterNet and multimedia co-sponsor BAGnewsNotes are pleased to host the above slideshow of images from "Iraq, brutally wounded," followed by an interview with the photographer, Farah Nosh, conducted by Nina Berman.

Nina Berman: When did you go to Iraq to take these pictures? Was it your first trip?

Farah Nosh: I began the project a few days before the Samarra shrine was bombed in February 2006 and continued it just after the 10-day curfew was lifted. I spent six weeks on the project.

Berman: And what locations were you working in?

Nosh: I was committed to shooting the portraits in the homes of Iraqis who have been amputated in this war. I feel that the Iraq coverage has largely been disconnected from Iraqis, and I felt that an intimate setting would be more humanizing. I moved around to several different neighborhoods in Baghdad.

Berman: What inspired you to do these portraits? And how did you find the subjects?

Nosh: I was becoming despondent at only seeing images of American soldiers returning from Iraq with brutal wounds. The Iraqi side -- which is much higher in number and mostly civilian -- was not being shown. A few months before I left for Iraq, the New York Times ran a photograph of a series of wheelchairs (valued at around $20,000 each) from a VA hospital. That was a decisive moment for me. I knew right then that I would go to Baghdad. Months later I met Ali, who is missing both his legs. He had to sell furniture from his home to buy an old beat-up wheelchair for $50 that he fixes himself from time to time.

I have an Iraq friend that helps me when I am working there. Sometimes we went searching to hospitals and clinics together. If the neighborhood were too dangerous, he would often go alone and find subjects he trusted; he would then bring me in.

Berman: You speak Arabic and are of Iraqi descent. Did this allow you to move more freely?

Nosh: My parents are Iraqi, and I speak a slightly broken Iraqi Arabic. I may not have done this work if it wasn't for my disguise! It allowed for people to be less suspicious of me, and without the filter of a translator, I am able to communicate to those that I am photographing why the work was important.

more...

[leftchick]

1. "the Americans hit us"

this is heartbreaking. :cry:

[nightrider767]

2. Well It's a good thing their skin is a bit darker than our own

Because my brother white Americans find it way easier to look through the pain that way. It's a disgrace. We're over their to free them and bring them democracy and all we've brought is murder and death. We've replaced one tyrant with a host of other tyrants. Want proof? Look no further than immigration numbers. We've brought chaos to Iraq, millions have fled the country and we've only brought relief in the form of immigration to this country to less than 1000 people.

Bow your heads brothas....



O8)

Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today - Ya

[w8liftinglady]

3. that photo essay was haunting.what a talented photographer.

[MedleyMisty]

4. The least we can do is look

and witness what we have done.

[babylonsister]

5. True, so I just did. So sad, and that's only a few people. The

stories they could tell would not make us proud, I'm sure.