[© Brian Palmer/SIPA Press]
Brian Palmer (Sipa Press; see his bio) has published (PixelPress) a text and photo diary with his experiences in Iraq, 07-03 until 08-21-2004. Palmer writes in the Epilogue of "Digital Diary: Witnessing the War":
All told, I spent about seven weeks with various elements of the 24th MEU. I was expecting plenty of rah-rah triumphalism and USA-first hyperpatriotism but found only a little, not a lot. There were a few folks who hooted at John Kerry when he appeared on the chow hall's TV screen, and then cheered when Bush came on. "John Kerry is a fucking communist" for tossing his Vietnam War ribbons, asserted a cocky young Marine from Arkansas, Corporal Michael Euler, a soon-to-be father who knows what he knows and will tell you so in a heartbeat. There was the major who paused mid-sentence when a US fighter jet flew overhead. "You hear that," he asked me. "That's the sound of freedom." More than a few Marines I spoke with, however, accepted without question the Bush administration's casus belli for going into Iraq -- the 9-11 connection with Saddam Hussein’s government and the alleged weapons of mass destruction -- an argument I do not buy.
[...]
It has been difficult to find venues for these stories and photos. They are quieter, more mundane and subtle than, for example, the graphic coverage of the fighting in Najaf. Gauging the progress of nation-building is difficult, time-consuming, expensive, beige. Flying bullets and screaming protesters provide ready-made drama for networks and newspapers that compete moment to moment for consumers' attention. It may seem counterintuitive, but it's less risky from an economic standpoint (though not from a personal one, as is the case with Najaf) to cover the story everyone else is covering. The very presence of the media transforms an event into news. Their absence, well...
Will the media start measuring the progress in Iraq, both in fighting the militants and nation-building, against the administration's promises? Will the Iraq story evaporate as Afghanistan did (as well as Haiti and Somalia and Liberia), or will Americans begin to demand accountability for this open-ended effort, which costs lives and limbs, Iraqi and American, every month, and billions of dollars? Will citizens, myself included, press both presidential candidates for their one-, two-, and five-year plans for Iraq? I'm skeptical, but not without hope.
[...]
Links to his entries of Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, with photos by Brian Palmer and Christopher Smith.
Pixelpress states
This is Brian Palmer's final installment of his 'Digital Diary: Witnessing the War.'" Other photo essays by different authors on various aspects of the War in Iraq and the political situation in the USA will follow as part of the "Democracy in America" series.
