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 enlarge | Authors: Thorne Anderson, Ghaith Abdul-ahad, Kael Alford, Rita Leistner
Creators: Philip Jones Griffiths, Phillip Robertson
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $7.45
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 411173
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.8 x 9.7 x 0.5
ISBN: 1931498989
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.704430222
EAN: 9781931498982
ASIN: 1931498989
Publication Date: December 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Show the World American Democracy April 26, 2006
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
It is an almost unbearable image. The nude body of an eight-year-old girl killed by American bombs during the "Shock and Awe" campaign in 2003 is being washed for burial by a middle-aged woman dressed entirely in black. There is no obvious blood or gore. On the contrary, it is difficult to figure out just by looking at the photograph what killed her. Her mouth, which is open, almost looks as though it could be drawing in breath and you search her eyes, also open, for any sign of life, any sign that the photograph had been mislabeled. But then you notice the wad of cloth placed between her legs for modesty and remember that Muslims bury their dead as quickly as possible. You take the book, hold it vertically and close to the light and you can see that her lips are colorless and entirely drained of blood. You notice the utterly lifeless quality of her eyes and you realize what you, as an American are guilty of. Osama Bin Laden is alive and well somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan, and this little girl has paid the price for what he did on 9/11.
Kael Alford, the photographer, who has expressed some ambivalence about seeing this photograph published at all, is part of a stunning but often horrifying new book and traveling exhibit called "Unembedded". The exhibit, which is currently being displayed at the "Photographic Gallery" at 252 Front Street in lower Manhattan, features Alford's work as well as photographs by Thorne Anderson, Rita Leistner, and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. All four are freelance photojournalists who work without the protection (or censorship) of the US military, and all four were in Najef for the entire course of the American siege, long after the official media had been whisked out of the city "for their own safety". Alford and Abdul-Ahad, an American from Middletown, New York and an Iraqi who had deserted from Saddam's army six years earlier, were both in Baghdad for the American invasion, and Leistner traveled through the Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq and Turkey in the spring of 2003. Indeed, Leistner's portrait of the strikingly beautiful young wife of the Kurdish separatist leader Osman Ocalan almost appears to belong in another exhibit altogether, her confident gaze starring directly into the camera commanding the scene to rise up around her almost as an act of will with little or no effort from the photographer.
The rest of the exhibit is a parade of almost unrelieved horror and chaos, of the dead, the dying, and the damned, an inferno the official media has long since given up trying to cover at all and which the US government would rather the American people didn't see. That the American government would just as soon censor these images and that the extreme right in the United States would label them as "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" has not deterred Alford, Anderson, Abdul-Ahad, and Leistner. On the contrary, they have stepped up and performed the job that the official media and Congress are too cowardly or outright compromised to do. They have run, with little or no thought for their own safety, right into the mouth of hell and through sheer courage and artistic integrity given order to the chaos of American occupied Iraq and brought back images few Americans, even soldiers serving in Iraq, have seen, and which Iraqi civilians live with as part of their mundane daily existence. They force us to confront the moral issues of invading Iraq.
For Alford, Anderson, Leistner, and Abdul-Ahad, the decision to go to Iraq in the first place was not a difficult one to make. Like all real journalists, and unlike the kind of person who would submit to writing government propaganda as part of the "embedded" media, they have a natural instinct to go to "where the action is". Like a fireman rushing into a burning building, this is simply an instinct, and, indeed, one of the most powerful photographs of the exhibit, title "Baghdad, September 12th, 2004, Civilians Flee as US Helicopters attack Haifa Street," distills this into a single image better than I could express it in words.
Earlier in the day, Abdul-Ahad had received a phone call that the insurgents had blown up a Bradley fighting vehicle and that a crowd of Iraqis were celebrating around the burning wreckage. The scene has taken on the appearance of a macabre carnival and that he should get to Haifa Street immediately. But the US military would turn the tables against the Iraqis in a horrifying way and strafe Haifa Street with Apache attack helicopters, killing 22 civilians and wounding over 40 more. In the photo, we see an American helicopter in the upper right hand corner flying out of the frame after pulverizing a building off in the distance, and a crowd of terrified civilians running in our direction. But the photographer is not running away from the horror. He's running towards it, and horror it is. When he arrives on the scene, the Bradley is on fire and people are sprawled out all over Haifa Street dead or dying. Two bodies lie in a clump in like chop meat and blood is pouring out of their heads. Then the helicopters return and Abdul-Ahad is almost killed himself. He survives but he is tortured by what he had seen, and, more importantly, how he had acted. Why had he kept taking photos? Why had he remained an observer when he should have gotten involved? "All the people I had shared my shelter with are dead," he writes. "Every time I look at these pictures I tell myself that I have killed these people. I should have helped instead of taking pictures."
But he doesn't. He can't. He acts on instinct. "Six of us were squeezed into a space less then seven feet wide. Blood started dripping onto my camera and all I could think of was keeping my lens clean."
He does more than keep his lens clean. All four of the photographers in this exhibit not only keep their cool under fire and they not only document the horror of Iraq under the American occupation, they impose order on the blood, gore and the chaos. It becomes almost beautiful to look at. Most of the photos are exposed perfectly. Most are framed perfectly. They follow "the rule of thirds" even in the most extreme circumstances. Somehow Abdul-Ahad manages to take photos that are sharp enough to blow up to 24 x 36 even in the middle of an attack by American helicopters. Somehow Kael Alford, slight, blond, pretty and American manages to keep her hands from shaking in the middle of the siege of Najef in a room full of fundamentalist Shiite militiamen. Somehow she manages to take a good photo of a gigantic portrait of Al Sadr guarded by menacing black clad figures armed with AK-47s who look, if anything, a bit like the demons from the movie "Ghost" who drag evil souls down into hell. One photo by Abdul Ahad, of a teenage boy, lying dead in the middle of Haifa Street framed against the palm trees and the burning Bradley fighting vehicle is composed so perfectly you wonder if its even morally acceptable to look at it. Bullet holes riddle his white shirt, giving it the appearance of a funeral shroud. The photographers lens is less than a few feet away from the boy's head. A bit of flare pokes through the palms trees in the background shining down on the rubble strewn cement, almost giving you the impression that God is reaching down to elevate the his soul into heaven. This is photojournalism that rises to the level of art, Francesco Goya with a digital SLR.
In other words, you have to stop yourself from admiring the technical perfection of these photographs and remind yourself what's going on in front of your eyes. It's one thing to make a painting about the horrors of war. It's another one altogether to use live models. You can understand why Kael Alford and Abdul Ahad feel guilty, like voyeurs and almost see their own skill at taking photos as being somehow immoral.
They shouldn't. The artistry of the photographs and the meticulous observation of all four photographers have given the people of Baghdad and Najef a voice, even in the midst of their destruction. There are almost no shots taken with a telephoto lens. The photographers get up close with a 35mm or a 50mm lens and become, in effect, part of the scene that they're documenting. We see the pain in their eyes and feel the rage in their gestures. What's more, we not only see a culture as its being destroyed, we see what that culture was like before the American occupation and wonder if the Iraqi people have any chance of getting it back. The people in the photographs aren't monsters or victims. They're exactly like us. Slogans blare out from graffiti covered walls. "American soldiers will pay blood for oil." "We love America and Iraq." Women play in the Tigris River out of the gaze of their men and out of the gaze of the American army. Young Madhi Army members wear baseball hats turned around and look more like New York City high school kids than they do the evil terrorists of American propaganda. The mentally ill Rashad Psychiatric Hospital plead that they don't belong in the middle of all of the madness and almost stand in for the Iraqi people as a whole pleading to be freed from the madness of the war. One shot shows the fa?ade of a computer store half blow away revealing a line of new PCs and a poster advertising Microsoft in the Middle East. The brilliant lights of the Ali Shrine illuminate the temporary campground of the Mahdi Army set up in the middle of the third holiest place in Shia Islam. Who are these people who we Americans have decided to torment as revenge for September 11th and yet who still invite western journalists to come into their country and tell their story?
"We left the kids behind to die there alone, Abdul-Ahad writes. "I didn't even try to move any with me. I ran into the entrance of a building and someone grabbed my arm and took me inside. `There's an injured man. Take pictures. Show the world the American democracy, he said.'"
 Touching and Real February 12, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an important book. So little has been disclosed about the terrible damage that Iraq has suffered with the sanctions and two wars. The heroic and talented photography in this well published book is valuable information for anyone who is interested in the harsh reality of the situation that ordinary people in Iraq face today
An honest look at war November 23, 2005
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
"Unembedded" returns all the emotions to a conflict which has largely been reported from a safe distance. These four photographers bring you into Iraqi neighbourhoods, hospitals and homes to show the devastating short and longer-term effects of "surgical strikes". If you want to get a sense of what war really means for men, women and children, turn off the T.V. and spend some time with the people in these photographs.
Powerful November 21, 2005
21 out of 23 found this review helpful
This is a stunning collection of photos by journalists who were somehow able to get shots that many mainstream journalists were unable to capture. The topics range from poignant to mundane to shocking and gory. The overall effect is to give important insights on Iraq and US engagement there.
A Wider View November 21, 2005
19 out of 21 found this review helpful
I'll fess up from the get-go and tell you I'm the brother of one of the photojournalists, Thorne Andeson. Perhaps this disqualifies me as an objective reviewer of the book, even though I think Unembedded is honest and its viewpoint is candid and fresh. Indulge me for a review Thorne's character instead. He is a truth-teller with a passion for justice. He is not willing to close his eyes or shutter his camera when it comes to seeing what needs to be seen, even when the view is not what others are hoping to see. I do not like to get upset, but this book is appropriately upsetting. I hope many eyes will see these photos and read the essays because they will be seeing Iraq through eyes that have gone to places and among people neglected by much of the American media. I'm not critizing the media, because safety and access have been difficult issues, but simply commending the honesty and bravery of those who now can widen our view.
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