Not Crimes: "Remnants"

The Ho Chi Minh City "War Crimes Museum" has been rechristened, since my increasingly-unreliable guide book was published, as the "War Remnants Museum." Clearly the exhibitions remain as they were.

Not many photos to post, since most of the exhibits -- save the odd helicopter, tank or miscellaneous ordance sitting in the gardens -- were themselves photos. But (if you'll pardon the soapbox for a moment) a single thought.

Most of the exhibitions were photographs, and the museum admirably paid due to the photojournalists who took them, honoring those on all sides who died in the process:

And looking around at their handywork -- generation-defining photos by Larry Burrows, Robert Capa, Henri Huet, et al -- it's hard not to think that at least their work stands as a testament to why they risked their lives. These folks sent home the images that revealed the Vietnam War as it was, gruesome, cruel, and futile, and it profoundly changed American perception of the use of military force (right? Right?). None of this is new, and others have phrased it better.

So what I don't get is, journalists are getting scuppered left and right in Iraq right now, but I don't see what's to show for it. We are all aware, vaguely, of the media black hole that is Iraq, but after seeing, again and all at once, images that shook us as a country, it is TOTALLY SCARY that little of the sort is coming out of Iraq. The images that do make us shudder collectively have all eluded censors, to reach us through informal channels: Abu Ghraib, a botched hanging filmed on a cell phone. There are some mitigating circumstances: we have a professional army now, and the force deployed in Iraq is a fraction of the 500,000+ in Vietnam in 1968. But we know from a few reports that we haven't gotten any nicer as an occupying force, and certainly fighting wars hasn't gotten cleaner. This void, of information but especially of images, is a smear against both government officials who want to fight a war without acknowledging the mess it makes and media outlets that refuse to push them for access.

It makes one wish -- I cannot believe I'm writing this -- that Life Magazine were still around.