Quote is from Arwa Damon's Iraq: Suffocating in a cloak of sorrow (CNN), image is from The New York Times January 26, 2013.
Huffington Post, February 8, 2013
“...I hear children’s voices inside the car, and I knew it was a family. The doors opened; the back doors opened, and kids just tumble out of the car, one after one after one — six in all. One was shot to the abdomen, though we didn’t realize he was shot at the time, though he was bleeding profusely and as soon as he dropped, there was blood in the street. The soldiers realized it was a civilian car. They ran and grabbed all the kids and ran them to the sidewalk. In the front seat, what ended up being the parents were killed, riddled with bullets, instantly dead.”
Jean-Marc Bouju | Time.com | March 31, 2003
Ten years ago. I doubt the desert remembers the barbed wire and hooded, shackled prisoners. Does it at least remember the screams of a boy clinging to a father who mumbled words of comfort from beneath a black sandbag? I hope the desert, too, felt relieved when an American soldier cut off the plastic handcuffs, and the man could finally embrace his child. But this desert has seen so much since the beginning of civilization that I do not think this was a remarkable day. This is not even a particularly noticeable war in the context of Iraq's 5,000 years of history.
But for me, this moment endures. The whole scene was surreal. This image was one of the last of my career. Three months later, I was disabled in a car accident. My daughter was the same age as the child in this photo. I look at her today and wonder what happened to that boy. I wonder why we were at war. What was accomplished? Ten years. An army of dead, wounded and mentally destroyed people. Maybe they, too, are wondering: why? I remember, and I wonder.
Farah Nosh | Time.com | March 4, 2009
I’ve listened to Iraqis share their tragedies over the years. “This is freedom?” is the ongoing Iraqi dark humor. I met Rena a year after she was hit by an American airstrike. She was eight months pregnant and walking hand in hand with her young sister in Sadr city in 2008. American forces were on a mission to 'clean up' Shiite militias. In an instant, Rena lost her left leg, her unborn infant, and her youngest sister. And in the same instant, much like the country itself, she became imprisoned by sadness. In my days with Rena, as much as we cried together, we laughed. Her longing to laugh and her surprising sense of humor filled me with humility. Exhausted by trauma and sadness, there was an innate strength and desire to move forward towards something better. Repeatedly lost with shattered expectations, hope is something that Iraqis have exhausted themselves in holding. Eventually Iraq’s violence would grow its own tired face, and like Iraq, Rena had to find a way to cope: through triumph. When you find lightness and humor, you find your way back.