Oppenheim Arts & Letters

NPR's Terry Gross Interviews War Photographer Paul Watson

"The wars in human hearts are just as important and are certainly connected to the larger wars we watch on tv's," says Canadian photojournalist Paul Watson to Terry Gross on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" program [1].

Later, given cause, Gross asks the Canadian journalist, "Are you saying that being a war correspondent is a form of mental illness?"

Watson answers without a skipped beat: "I think it is."

Follow the link and you'll find the interview quite good with the photographer who got That Picture when he photographed Staff Sargeant William David Cleveland's still limp corpse dragged by a festive crowd loyal to warlord Mohammed Farah Adid through the streets of Mogadishu.

The interview accompanies release of Watson's book, Where War Lives.

For additional web commentary, Paul Gessell's profile, "The haunting of Paul Watson," [2] provides a wrapper.

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1. Gross, Terry.  "Journalist Paul Watson on Witnessing War."  NPR, "Fresh Air from WHYY" , August 27, 2007.

2. Gessell, Paul. "The haunting of Paul Watson."  The Ottowa Citizen,  August 19, 2007.

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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Shrouded Promise for South Korean Hostages

Someone had to give, and the headline spells a stunner: "Taliban to free all 19 hostages, South Korea says."

One paragraph down: "But a Taliban spokesman declined to comment on the announcement, saying only that negotiations were successful and the governor of the Afghan province where the hostages were seized said talks were still going on." [1]

Fulfillment of the favored outcome should end the Taliban's interest in kidnapping as well as dampen its enthusiasm for violent leverage: after six weeks of threats and demands, it has not gotten its prisoner swap.

The chief benefit to the Taliban, if any, is that it may look a little bit better in the news for releasing hostages rather than butchering them, and it may have produced some negative public relations points for the Karzai government and coalition forces, specifically to the effect that Afghanistan remains a serious war zone in which the Taliban continue to roam and attack at will.

On that last point, South Korea's agreement to withdraw (albeit on schedule) its engineering and medical support from coalition operations as well as bar its nationals from travel to Afghanistan plays favorably to the Taliban's contention that it was born to rule the country.

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1.  Jin-Joo, Lee.  "Taliban to free all 19 hostages, South Korea says."  Reuters, August 28, 2007, 9:37 a.m. EDT.

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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Wikipedia on Nahr al-Bared

Ideally, the world's cooperative online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, would host a collegial, lively, and globally communal discussion about the truth in things, starting, certainly, with current events and histories.  Presumably, those of us who have followed stories like the siege of Nahr al-Bared from the Sunday bank robberies (alleged) and the raid on an apartment close to the camp about three months ago through to yesterday's evacuation of the 25 women and 38 children who comprised the families of Fatah al-Islam fighters would pipe in with the "facts" as they were relayed to us through either primary or secondary information sources.

Lesson learned and still in process: journalism and scholarship demand energy, focus, and time, enough at minimum, I feel, to have a physical folder in an office with news clip print-outs supported by independently produced interviews with government and military officials as well as representatives of camp residents and others.

I would say the same of Lal Masjid in Pakistan, another singular, history-making event.

Such coverage may not be doomed to ambiguity and argument in perpetuity, no matter the political motivations of the contributors: truth will out.  Founded in factual data and observation from multiple angles, stories will find their equilibrium.  Neither the vanquished nor the victorious will write history anymore.

For the moment, however, a couple of small details--and not so little depending on who, specifically, may be doing the writing and reading--recently got to me on accounts about Nahr al-Bared.

For example, Wikipedia's entry for "Nahr al-Bared" states: "The Lebanese Army is banned from entering all Palestinian camps under the 1969 Cairo Agreement." [2]

There is now an alternative statement in the "2007 Lebanon conflict" article: "But, under a 1969 Arab accord, later annulled by the Lebanese Parliament in the mid-1980's[4]but maintained in principle, the government has been reluctant to enter the camps." [1]

The second version (of history) is there becase I put it there based on a July 15 Reuters article in which I had read the following: "A 1969 Arab agreement banned Lebanese security forces from entering Palestinian camps. The agreement was annulled by the Lebanese parliament in the mid-1980s but the accord effectively stayed in place." [3]

One presumes, perhaps at peril, that Reuters' journalist Nazih Siddiq has actually a folder containing the 1969 Cairo Agreement on Lebanon's Palestinian camps as well as the annulment documents from the 1980's, not that any army worth its salt would care much to reflect on legal papers with enemy sniping at it as well as launching rockets from secure positions against citizens defended by it.

Still, the annulment of a cogent part of the Cairo Agreement has been missed in both articles, but the second caught my attention first and got its correction on that account.

Other slights of hand involved in Wiki's coverage of Nahr al-Bared:

• Mention of and character and facts having to do with the alleged bank robberies;
• Confirmation and location of the apartment "safe house" raided by police, possibly down to the apartment's number;
• Egress to or positioning of Fatah al-Islam militants at the gates of Nahr al-Bared or elsewhere.

From one journalist-scholar to another--whoever stumbles across this blog--one wants the story of the precipitating event told factually, honestly, and verifiably. 

Which of us, however, has the resources--access to primary accounts; energy and time--to both build and then protect such an entry over time? 

Answering that will be hard on the part of volunteers and suspect on the part of "think tank" and other professionals or invested personalities who have their various axes for grinding.

Of the two accounts on Wikipedia today, "Nahr al-Bared" and "2007 Lebanon conflict", the latter strikes me as the more immediately complete and factual in light of the story as told through Reuters and The Daily Star, also Al Jazeera, the more prevalent of publications that come up in my searching for information on the battle, which, not coincidentally, goes on as I type. 

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1. "2007 Lebanon conflict."  Wikipedia, as viewed August 26, 2007, 12:20 EDT.

2. "Nahr al-Bared."  Wikipedia, as viewed August 26, 2007, 12:30 EDT.

3. Siddiq, Nazih.  "Lebanon army advances into camp."  Reuters, July 15, 2007.

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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Thomas Point Shoals Lighthouse

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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Business Resumes

This Friday marks about 19 months out from the fire that destroyed my base in Laurel, Maryland, booted me into my girlfriend's apartment, which saw me about a month later booted out and into a room in a friend's house, and from there scouting locations from the Eastern Shore to Los Angeles before finally settling out of the immediate D.C. area but still in Maryland where I have had the privilege to have unpacked some 300 boxes put together by strangers in three frantic days, build about 14 bookshelves in advance of that, get in cable, replace furnishings, put up a library, and, last August around this time, welcome back the girl who gave me my freedom.

She's even moving in.

Welcome home, Anne.

The July-to-July year turned out fine for settling in, starting this blog, duking it out with my heart, learning a few more songs and singing a few open mics, and attending to the ordinary behind-the-scenes business of the photography business: accounting, advertising, equipage, insurance--but, really, I've been spread thin.  Jack of all trades, master of some has been the idea here but so many layers convert that to the more familiar saw.

After about a week of rain, warm weather has returned, but still here comes the end of summer, so on with everything, sez I, especially marketing this third quarter and a whole new set of rounds.

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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Update: Nahr al-Bared

070824-1410 EDT

Much better: "Militants' families evacuated from Lebanon camp." [2]

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Within the hour, Reuters has changed its headline from "Families of militants set to leave Lebanon camp" to "Families of militants flee Lebanon camp."

I would disagree with the word "flee": that is something done when the fighting starts. 

This, by comparison, represents surrender with a decent enough promised outcome: safety and a return to family (that as opposed to arrest, separation, trial, death, and orphaning).

Reuters reports the estimate of fighters remaining at 30.

At one point, I believe there were around 250 militants engaged with the Lebanese Defense Forces at Nahr al-Bared.

The story will continue in the courts and then some in the political arena as the Lebanese government incarcerates and retrieves personalities through the relationship skiens that characterize Al Qaeda-type guerrilla organization models.

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1. "Families of militants flee Lebanon camp."  Reuters, August 24, 2007.

2. "Militants' families evacuated from Lebanon camp."  Reuters, August 24, 2007.

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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Not Forgotten: Taliban's South Korean Hostages

Michelle Malkin has posted the faces of the Taliban's 21 South Korean hostages surviving to August 12 [1].  Of those, two have been returned home (and of 23 taken captive in July, two have been killed).

I'm curious today about the fate of the 19 who were, possibly, Out There in Afghanistan digging Koran and yogurt this past week (AKA "How I Spent My Summer Vacation"). 

In a first interview granted by the two released women, Kim Gi-Na and Kim Kyung-Ja, to Al Jazeera, the two note that another, Lee Ji-Young, volunteered to remain with the Taliban to abet their freedom [2}.

Good.  Evidence for the Taliban: Christians know and understand sacrifice too.

That nonetheless leaves information scant on the 19 hostages neither killed nor set free.

About two weeks ago, South Korean and Taliban officials met in Ghazni to negotiate over then 21 captive souls [3].  Apart from the good will gesture releasing two, I wonder what they chatted about: South Korean forces in Afghanistan have provided the coalition with noncombat support services--there's not much to gain for saying goodbye to them; parties actually holding chips and dealing cards haven't changed their game--i.e., there's nothing to negotiate--not that I can tell by Googling; and, as noted on this topic in earlier posts, when you go to get a brother out of jail, it doesn't matter whether you're Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan, or other, settling for money instead will come out looking very bad.

Possibly, the Taliban have dealt themselves their first welfare burden: 19 hostile, albeit sweet, mouths to feed. 

Forever.

Ask any American politician what that's like (x tens of thousands), and most will have only this sage advice: "You get used to it."

I shouldn't make light of this most tragic predicament whose real "light" has to do with the fact that "business" was not done swiftly in July and that time melts hearts as often as it hardens them.

We'll see which has happened as the Taliban continue to demand the release of prisoners [4} before all else.

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1. Malkin, Michelle.  "South Korean Christian Hostage Crisis: Day 24."  Michelle Malkin, August 12, 2007.

2. "S Korean aide worker gave up freedom: released hostage."  ABC News, August 24, 2007.

3. "S Korean-Taliban hostage talks 'under way'".  ABC News, August 11, 2007.

4. "Taliban to resume talks over South Korean hostages."  ABC News, August 20, 2007.

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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Ritual: Nahr al-Bared

One more day, bargains Scheharezade.

So it goes at Nahr al-Bared where Fatah al-Islam militants and the Lebanese Army have agreed to a short truce to provide safe passage to women and children long kept in the camp through the fighting.  Al Jazeera English reports that 22 women and 41 children will be searched, debriefed, and returned to their families [1].

Then, I suppose, "fighting" will resume, more soldiers will die, the last of the militant fighters will be martyred, and through the mouths of the spared and others, Fatah al-Islam's stand at Nahr al-Bared will be treated as legend.

Where the western mind wants to separate the notion of "glory" from the grim business and metrics of war, Islam seems to relish its poetry: Fatah al-Islam at Nahr al-Bared held off a nation's army for three months--that's going to serve the heart of some brave tale at the campfire.  Never mind:

• The displacement of some 31,000 already refugee Arabs for whom Nahr al-Bared had become home, albeit with spare comforts but all the services (and then some courtesy of various social and political service sectors) required of shelter;
• Lebanon's extraordinary efforts to spare civilian lives throughout the ordeal, especially the lives of children;
• The warrens of tunnels built as part of the Palestinian defense plan against Israel;
• The thoroughly contemporary arming and provisioning of Fatah al-Islam, from Kalashnikovs to Katyusha rockets.

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1. "Families set to leave Nahr al-Bared."  Al Jazeera English, August 24, 2007.

2. Siddiq, Nazih.  "Families of militants set to leave Lebanon camp."  Reuters, August 24, 2007.

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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Dusty Miller

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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Three Months: Nahr al-Bared

I have repeated common remark so often as to have made it common all over again: the last ten percent of the work absorbs 90 percent of the effort. Such has not proved untrue at Nahr al-Bared.

Writing for The Daily Star, Michael Bluhm notes, ". . . under Nahr al-Bared sits a warren of shelters and tunnels, intended to provide safety from Israeli onslaughts," and bombing those bunkers and then blasting again through the debris felled by earlier bombs has slowed progress toward finishing off the militants [1].

Monday, Bluhm notes, was the three-month anniversary of the onset of hostilities at Nahr al-Bared.

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On a loosely related note, Lebanese photographer Randa Mirza has up on her web a brief on her project that seems to place tourists literally in war zones, specifically using Lebanon's more dismal settings:

Media pundits fed or created this need. In both cases, they achieved transforming war into an entertainment, they created a new, worldwide “society of spectacle”. “War is exotic”, says Laurent Gervereau, and media enhances this paradox. [2]

As one of the world's virtual pundit-tourists who must confess to being so, I have found access to this latest global wrinkle in content delivery as compelling as it has been remarkable: when and where do you turn off the news, look away, refuse to look further?

I am certain that I am not personally "pulling" content through any foreign source--i.e., feeding the market for certain news; I am equally certain that a global communications tool, our Internet, and a lingua franca or two, including English, make way for conversations between once distant minds, and there comes with that access, interest, and inclusion of local events that have global resonance.

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1. Bluhm, Michael. "Army steps up siege of Nahr al-Bared, former general assures militants are 'doomed'". The Daily Star, August 21, 2007.

2. Mirza, Randa. "One Media, Tourism, and War Photography."

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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