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Iraq: Death of a Nation?

Custer's cavalry

black smoke billows into a starless sky.

we were the ones who dried the canals and planted death in the river bank -
    powder and steel among the reeds.
    smallpox in a dakota blizzard.
    boot leather on the slave-bricked streets.

custer's 7th cavalry dismounts in fallahat.
a hand pressed to the heart, just above his 9.

black points float in clear blue irises.
her rank is missing from her uniform.

why does nothing taste good?

the key twisted off in the ignition.
a bag full of hair and skin.
7 years old, shaking with sobs.
his rifle drags from a limp arm....

July 27 2007

Click here to read more from Rick Rowley and David Enders' coverage of Iraq

Iraq: Death of a Nation?

TSD

I filmed this kid after a car bombing on Sunday. He died at the hospital later of internal injuries.

There is increasing awareness of the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that soldiers commonly suffer from, but such discussions usually leave out Iraqis, who also suffer from what I'd rather call TSD...

Click here to read the rest of this post and more from David Enders and Rick Rowley in Iraq

There is increasing awareness of the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that soldiers commonly suffer from, but such discussions usually leave out Iraqis, who also suffer from what I'd rather call TSD...

Click here to read the rest of this post and more from David Enders and Rick Rowley in Iraq

The Atlantic: The Great Divide

Jeff Barbee's Slideshow from St. Helena

 

July 25 2007

Click here to see more from Jeff Barbee's trip across the Atlantic

Iraq: Death of a Nation?

In the country of death, we are always embedded

The break in blogging is due to Rick and I being on an embed and not having the time to blog or a regular internet connection. But as we come off the embed, I want to address that subject. Some people still maintain it is impossible to tell an accurate story embedded, I see it as the only way possible to find out what's going on with the military...

July 24 2007

Click here to read more from David Enders and Rick Rowley in Iraq

The Atlantic: The Great Divide

Day 20 at St Helena Airport

This is the latest from Jeff Barbee's voyage across the Atlantic:

We are still at our mooring here in St Helena, the RMS (Royal Mail Ship) St Helena sits off our stern, also at anchor. She is this small community’s link with the outside world. Everything that is here has come from only this ship for the last 17 years. Plates and birthday cards, car parts and every other thing that goes into making a first-world life for the people of St Helena. Once again its late, about 12:30. We had a busy day and it was tough to say goodbye to the very kind people here. I would like to think that I have made longtime friends with some, particularly Mike and Bernice Olssen. They made everything happen here for us, and also helped to make our stay a very special one. We are, in true ship fashion, going to wake up in a few hours, while it is still dark, slip our mooring, and be off into the big blue. That sits well with me now. I think we got a lot of information and I feel much more grounded in my project...

July 6 2007

Click here to read more from Jeff Barbee

Colombia: Risky Business
On the Rio Tapaje

Iraq: Death of a Nation?

To Najaf

land smears into sky without a seam
diesel generators shudder and spit
tar softens in the cracked streets
women, habayas billowing black, carry water over the river of sewage in shola
poison leaches into the ground.

headed south
the tigris rolls slowly to basra
bloated with corpses,

on the highway, an iraqi flag slaps crudely welded steel.
ropes of bullets scrape the floor.
black masks and mahmodia shuttered against us.
wooden boxes strapped to the roofs of cars
at the last checkpoint before najaf, police search the coffins...

23 July 2007

Click here to read more from David Enders and Richard Rowley in Iraq

Colombia: Risky Business

8 July- Pueblo Nuevo   

An hour upstream from El Charco lies Pueblo Nuevo, a small village where residents have fled the fighting that occurs on this part of the river. Colombian military units from the Brigades Fluviales advance up the river using boston whalers with .50 caliber machine guns mounted on their decks. These boats, called Pirañas, are part of Plan Colombia, the multi-billion dollar US program to eradicate coca production and cocaine smuggling into the United States. As the Colombian military moves around on the river, FARC guerillas have attacked from the treeline, essentially invisible because jungle comes right to the water...
July 8 2007

Click here to read more from Phillip Robertson

Ethiopia: Fighting for a free press

Earlier this month we posted the first letters from Africa by Bill Freivogel, director of the school of journalism at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and a former colleague of mine at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Bill and a group of SIUC colleagues met with journalists in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda on a tour sponsored by the State Department.

I was struck by Bill's fresh perspective, as someone making his first visit to Africa. His Letter from Ethiopia is equally vivid, not only on the feel of Addis Ababa's street scene but also on what it's like to struggle for press freedoms in an authoritarian society (and with a government, as it happens, closely allied to the United States).

July 21
Jon Sawyer

Click here to read more from News Points and Jon Sawyer