For more than a decade, pundits, historians, generals, and the chattering classes have argued about how the “Vietnam analogy” applied to Iraq and Afghanistan — and yet for all the ink (and blood) spilled, they managed to miss the one unfailing parallel between America’s wars in all three places: civilian suffering. For all the dissimilarities, botched analogies, and tortured comparisons, there has been one connecting thread in Washington’s foreign wars of the last half century that Americans have seldom found of the slightest interest: misery for local nationals. Civilian suffering is, in fact, the defining characteristic of modern war in general, even if only rarely discussed in the halls of power or the mainstream media.
In my latest TomDispatch article, I offer a set of portraits of war victims along with some staggering statistics about the levels of wartime civilian suffering in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Read the full piece here.
Photo credit: Larry Burrows, 1966
Tracks
Adam West on the set of Batman, 1960’s
She possesses the greatest of all charms – mystery. The cloud of her dark hair, the light of her eyes that are sometimes violet and sometimes blue and sometimes gray-green, the flexibility of her long, red mouth, are all mystery.Ivan St. Johns, 1927
(Source: rustons)
Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford and Constance Bennett in Mickey’s Gala Premier (1933)
Peter Pan (1953)
Happy Holidays Everyone
xoxoxoxo
1950’s decal
Carmen Miranda c. 1947
Wonder Woman Christmas card, 1943
Movie poster for Cleopatra starring Theda Bara (1917)
Vampira c. 1950’s
The Addams Family, 1960’s
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The Texas ChainSaw Massacre (1974)
Night by Otto Lingner, 1892
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