[x]

Browse More Like This

More from ~cainerose

View Gallery

Featured in Groups:

Not currently featured in any groups.

Details

Submitted: December 4, 2004
Image Size: 204 KB
Resolution: 450×540

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 25
Favourites: 45 [who?]
Views: 1,980 (0 today)
Downloads: 216 (0 today)

[x]

Ruinby ~cainerose

Photography / Photojournalism / People

Kabul, Afghanistan
October 2003:

This is a resubmission. The lonely street in war-torn downtown Kabul. This burqa-covered woman hovers like a ghost down the dusty avenue amidst the skeletal remains of the devastation from US airstrikes in October 2001. We are led to believe that a full-scale military invasion could be planned, organized and mobilized in less than a month with the post-9/11 assault on Afghanistan. We are led to believe that the end justifies the means and as few "collateral" incidents as possible were the result of "our" precision air strikes and "smart" weapons. We are led to support "our" troops in an unbridled aerial massacre which left thousands, untold, dead and wounded. Civilians, non-combatants...women, children, elderly, fathers, mothers, daughters, grandmothers...lives...ruined.

I met a devastated woman later that afternoon. I do not remember her name. Her face will haunt my waking days for eternity and steel my resolve to do everything I am able to end the mechanism called war. She left with her oldest son to visit her sister outside of Kabul just before the US air invasion in October. After safely delivered to her relative's home, she bid farewell to her firstborn child as he made his way back to the family home. She would never see him alive again. He joined his 7 brothers and sisters and their father one last time before a steel-bellied behemoth swooped down from the heavens and made a living hell out of their city and made a mother of 8 children and wife of 25 years, a war widow. That nameless woman lost her entire family that day. I see that single tear roll across her withered cheek. No burqa could ever mask her pain. That vengeful moment. That sorrowful moment. That unkind moment, "my" country stole her life away.

~~love 0 0~~

~~joy 0 0~~

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

sad 1 1

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~hedonisticsoldier Apr 5, 2010

Nice work...I watched those buildings millions of times and never had the ability to capture the site...its good to see someone remembers.

~dejopezz Dec 4, 2008

cool but sad , hope one day i can go there

~intersik101 Nov 17, 2008

exactly what i beleive photography should be.. a story to awaken ppl .

!ExAbrupto Jun 10, 2008 Photographer

Very well done once again... The empty sky, so meaningful!

*baader-meinhof Aug 6, 2007

a beautifull photo that tells a terrifying story, expressing the things in common between the woman and the building. having been through much myself, I feel desperate when I see people like her, with nowhere to go and nobody to help them...I admire them for having the courage to stay alive

~Awhalefoundation Jul 25, 2007

This picture is great. There is a new photographic competition going on… please go to my main page and find out more if you have any suggestions or pictures you would like to submit to enter then please do so. Thank you.

!pawelw Apr 16, 2007

In the name of democracy... I feel ashamed of what the Western world represents when I see things like this. We have become hollow men, without meaning, shouting powerful slogans but without faith, acting against the morals and standards that our nations were built upon. My only question is: why?

~Sadiya Feb 2, 2006

amazing photo... nice touch of blue from her burqa (like a tear? or a ghost?)

has someone set up shop in that building?

~tilt176 Jan 19, 2005

this really is a ghostly scene. sad sight, but a real good capture.

~avotius Dec 6, 2004

eloquent, the words and the photo both, thats all I can say because nothing I could say would be half as meaningfull as what you have done here

More from ~cainerose

Featured in Groups:

Details

Statistics

Ruinby ~cainerose

The Journal Portal

Polls

What is your preferred drawing software?

deviantART [dee·vee·un'nt·ART]

Keep in Touch!

Deviousness

Add Media

Style