Tuesday, October 16, 2007

How Now Fat Cow?






Half a world away innocent people struggling for normalcy die by the score while a war wages all around them. Like you and I, they stand in line at the grocery store, struggle to raise their kids, and occasionally watch an episode of Lost, yet they’re surrounded by violence perpetrated by war mongers and fanatics.

Why anyone wages war is open to debate. What is just to some is murder to others but regardless of the why, millions of innocents who are not the extreme in one way or another die. “Civilian Casualties”: 10 million in WWI, 47 Million in WWII, 3-4 million in the Korean War, 2-5.1 million in Vietnam, 2,300-200,000 in the Gulf War, and between 75 and 82 thousand deaths in the Iraq war. No matter the conflict civilian casualties almost always far outweigh the casualties sustained by the people actually fighting the battles.

I’ve been fortunate enough to grow up and live in Los Angeles where I have seen exactly zero effects of any war ever waged. So while innocents die in other countries I take pictures of cows. I am grateful, but it still doesn’t seem right. I won’t state my opinion on whether the war we’re fighting now is right or wrong (it’s wrong by the way) but what I will say is that everyday shmoes like us and them always foot the bill over it. They have faces, they have families, and they should never be forgotten or dismissed.

A small cross section of current civilians trying not to become a casualty:

Ismail Fatah Al-Turk

Mohamed Al Daradji

Mohamed's latest film, Alhaam was filmed under the most extraordinary circumstances in which cast and crew were kidnapped several times by insurgents and Iraqi groups working for the American Military.

Daisy Al-Amir

If you know of any other civilians that have died or been injured in any war please let us know about it.

1 comment:

Mad Guru said...

Good to see you're posting again. Great post. Well written, and the photos asks to it. Nice to be free of work and able to think, eh?