These are the raw images of Iraq, taken by American soldiers. Besides the underbelly of war they reveal a quintessentially American aesthetic: tourist snapshots, boys toting beers and smoking cigars, notes taped to slumbering soldiers’ backsides, mohawks on fire. They reveal a fascination with brutality and death: charred corpses, severed limbs, and an American soldier whose face has been blown in so far that his brain is exposed.
Some are intimate and at once quotidian. Scores of photographs document the dull hallways of palaces, gaudy jewelry, even crystal chandeliers. Dozens display helicopters hovering in bare blue skies and silhouetted against rich, pumpkin-colored sunsets. A palatial, empty room is festooned with the sign “GOD BLESS TASK FORCE IRON HORSE.” In another, a GI looks stolidly into the distance, his helmet hugged against his chest, vaunts the caption, “yes, yes i am a sexy man-beast.”
These images are collected at UnderMars.com, an online library dedicated to photographs taken and captioned by American soldiers who have served in Iraq. The site was created by an American expatriate and computer programmer, Mark, who spoke to RAW STORY on the condition his full name not be used.
[Article does not contain images but the links do. Be forwarned. I agree with those that believe that -- while there is something pornagraphic in the casual taglines to the mutilation and death -- these images and words represent a TRUE aspect of warfare and its perversity. -- McLir]
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