I was seduced by this :
Subsequent events and the general consensus of my peers has made me feel somewhat duped, as far as the innocence and optimism of Yushchenko's campaign for the Presidency of Ukraine - it seems to have been a relatively skillful manipulation of public relations images and information, a cynical thing - so that when I look at this image:
I'm wary of being manipulated again.
Not, this time obviously, by a beautiful young girl so vulnerably putting flowers on the shields of faceless policemen, but by the potent stance and confident faces of what are, presumably, bodyguards for a man who is almost never photographed without a disconcertingly leering smile on his face.
Allawi's always got that smile - his country's a train wreck, the people he's supposedly leading are dying more and more violently every day, yet he keeps on grinning.
It makes him seem evil. I think he probably is evil, in the sense that evil is a selfishness of Satanic proportion. But he's off to the side in the picture isn't he?
Are those soldiers American? Iraqi? The caption says they're U.S. Special Forces.
They don't look like Americans. They look like Israelis. Were they chosen for that reason? Why is that one soldier in the foreground of the image, with his profile being the focal point, the place where the observer's eye is naturally drawn? The photo's "about" him.
Is this more cynical intent? Accident? Co-incidence? Or is it the intention of the photographer to illustrate something more than the simple narrative of "Armed U.S. special forces escort Iraq's Interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi (L) following the delivery of a C-130 transport plane to the Iraqi Air Force in Baghdad's International Airport, January 19, 2005."
Is there a viciousness revealed here, in the image, and the faces of the men in the image? I think so. And a statement, a boasting of conquest, an arrogance.
A viciousness so profound it's metaphysical, spiritual, cosmic. Psychotic arrogance achieving complete self-gratification.
That's what it looks like.
Subsequent events and the general consensus of my peers has made me feel somewhat duped, as far as the innocence and optimism of Yushchenko's campaign for the Presidency of Ukraine - it seems to have been a relatively skillful manipulation of public relations images and information, a cynical thing - so that when I look at this image:
I'm wary of being manipulated again.
Not, this time obviously, by a beautiful young girl so vulnerably putting flowers on the shields of faceless policemen, but by the potent stance and confident faces of what are, presumably, bodyguards for a man who is almost never photographed without a disconcertingly leering smile on his face.
Allawi's always got that smile - his country's a train wreck, the people he's supposedly leading are dying more and more violently every day, yet he keeps on grinning.
It makes him seem evil. I think he probably is evil, in the sense that evil is a selfishness of Satanic proportion. But he's off to the side in the picture isn't he?
Are those soldiers American? Iraqi? The caption says they're U.S. Special Forces.
They don't look like Americans. They look like Israelis. Were they chosen for that reason? Why is that one soldier in the foreground of the image, with his profile being the focal point, the place where the observer's eye is naturally drawn? The photo's "about" him.
Is this more cynical intent? Accident? Co-incidence? Or is it the intention of the photographer to illustrate something more than the simple narrative of "Armed U.S. special forces escort Iraq's Interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi (L) following the delivery of a C-130 transport plane to the Iraqi Air Force in Baghdad's International Airport, January 19, 2005."
Is there a viciousness revealed here, in the image, and the faces of the men in the image? I think so. And a statement, a boasting of conquest, an arrogance.
A viciousness so profound it's metaphysical, spiritual, cosmic. Psychotic arrogance achieving complete self-gratification.
That's what it looks like.
The image of Allawi and the Special Forces soldiers is lifted from Rigorous Intuition who quotes its caption with a Reuters byline, but a search of the Reuters site, and a Google web and news search, didn't find it.
