Don't avoid the photos of reality on the ground in Iraq

david swanson on alternet via tomdispatch...

To properly address claims that some wars are good wars and that the worst deeds of war are performed by "bad apples," we have to have a clear picture of what war is, including the worst of it. If we leave out an understanding of the worst of war, all of our thinking must be distorted.

i find looking at war images profoundly disturbing and swanson unflinchingly explains why...

As hard as we find it to look at the images, we find it a hundred times harder to try to think our way inside the minds that could do such a thing. We're afraid that, once there, we couldn't freely leave.

but he also explains why those images of war must be available and why we must look...

The United States government launched this war, making us responsible for everything that happens in it.

[...]

I don't think Dick Cheney and George Bush flip through these photos in the evening, but I think they [and we] have a duty to do so until they can't stand it anymore and bring our troops home.

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