They were the images that defined the conflict in Iraq: the pain of ordinary Iraqi civilians, the exhaustion of American soldiers. But what became of them? From Fort Polk, Louisiana, USA, to Tal Afar, northern Iraq, Guardian reporters track down the people behind the images and hear their moving stories
A 15-month investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic reveals how US colonel James Steele, a veteran of American proxy wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, played a key role in training and overseeing US-funded special police commandos who ran a network of torture centres in Iraq. Another special forces veteran, General James Coffman, worked with Steele and reported directly to Lieutenant General David Petraeus, then commander of multinational forces in Iraq
• This is an edited version of a longer film. Watch our full-length film about James Steele
The Western media has chosen not to run the graphic pictures of the children killed in Gaza this weekend (nota bene: this is not the picture above, which shows members of the Daloo family during the children’s funeral yesterday).
Priest Giles Fraser asks: do pictures of children killed in Gaza force us to face a gruesome reality?
Let’s start slowly, carefully, with what can be said. Photographs show four small children dead on the cold aluminium surface of the morgue.
They are positioned in such a way that they look like they might be sleeping together. Are these pictures real? Are they staged? That already feels too suspicious a question to be asking so early on. And one’s emotional instincts will rail against the premature engagement of critical faculties. But one needs to bracket out the feelings just for a moment.
Earlier photographs have come in from multiple reputable agencies showing these children being pulled out of the rubble. Other images show numerous film crews witnessing the same event. The children’s bodies are accompanied by the press to the morgue. Those who are trained to spot discrepancies in this sort of story believe that it hangs together. The pictures are real, so it is concluded. And once that is accepted, one immediately feels more than a little uncomfortable that their provenance was ever questioned. Like disbelieving a rape victim when she first tells you her story.
So they are real. Dead children, killed by an Israeli missile while still in their pyjamas and the sort of clothes suited to playing in the street. The western media has chosen not to show them.
Read the rest here.
Photograph: Bernat Armangue/AP
Great piece on Cif worth checking out
Photographs: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad for the Guardian
An exclusive set of photographs from the eastern city of Deir el-Zour. Clockwise from L-R:
Photograph: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images
From 24 hours in pictures - 29 May:
California, US: Arlington West memorial on the beach next to Santa Monica pier. Veterans for Peace installed the temporary memorial project as a place to mourn, reflect, contemplate, grieve and to honour and acknowledge those who have lost their lives, reflecting on the costs of war. The name, Arlington West, reflects the national cemetery of the United States, Arlington National Cemetery, a burial place of honour for fallen war heroes
Seamus Milne writes for Comment is Free:
A year after the western powers tried to make up for lost ground in the Arab uprisings by tipping the balance of the Benghazi-led revolt, Libya is in the lawless grip of rival warlords and armed conflict between militias, as the western-installed National Transitional Council (NTC) passes Gaddafi-style laws clamping down on freedom of speech, gives legal immunity to former rebels and disqualifies election candidates critical of the new order. These are the political forces Nato played the decisive role in bringing to power.
In a makeshift parade ground in a corner of Baghdad airport, time was called on the war just after 1pm on Thursday, eight years, eight months and 26 days after its far more dramatic opening in March 2003. Nearby a plane was waiting to take home the US high command. And in southern Iraq, the 4,000 US troops who remain were steadily streaming towards Kuwait. US exit from Iraq: ‘this is not a withdrawal, this is an act on a stage’Iraqi people greet pullout ceremony with ambivalence mixed with concern over an uncertain future
The small Navajo town of Shiprock, New Mexico, has experienced a high number of military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. Corporal Lyle Cambridge was killed in 2005 when his vehicle hit an improvised bomb outside Baghdad. His mother, Virginia Jim, discusses the impact of war on the Native American community
A selection of stories, photos, quotes, video and audio from guardian.co.uk, curated by James Walsh, Hannah Waldram, Carmen Fishwick and the Guardian's editorial team. We are also editors of the news tag.
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Flickr has had a re-boot and, as a result, it has released all of the photos of mine it previously had locked up...
