"It is nearly impossible to photograph the aftermath of a car bomb or street battle. In most cases, the scene is blocked by police, and cameras are simply not allowed. The government has decided that published photographs of deadly bombings aid the cause of insurgents."

I posed the implicit question in Pickett’s post on Twitter: Is the Iraqi government right that such photos aid the cause of the insurgents? And a follow up one: Is censorship always wrong?

Matthew Shorter had an interesting take on the issue from the top of a bus somewhere. (I’ve added in a few letters here and there from his original tweets.) While he thought such photos would help insurgents he also felt…

"…suppressing an image completely would be wrong; and the problem with context is that "social objects" acquire their own so perhaps the ideal scenario is for enough context to be embedded in the image.

"But it is very difficult to police in an open society. And I feel the danger of glorifying violence is less than the danger of suppressing information."

On this final point, I do tend to agree with Matthew but things might look different from the streets of Baghdad, where according to Pickett:

"…fear lingers. Seven years of brutal violence have left their mark here. Iraqis are haunted by bombings, kidnappings, murders and gun battles. They don’t trust the government, the media or each other."

This looks like an interesting new blog which apparently kicks off today. US Tech Sergeants Ken Raimondi and Nathan Gallaghan are going to travel through five regional commands in Afghanistan blogging and vlogging along the way.

Unsurprisingly, they think the story of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan isn’t being covered by the media:

"We want to show you what life is like out there, not just for service members, but for the Afghans we’re all here to free from the grip of war. From past experience, I can tell you the lives of people here are hard. Sleeping in small rooms packed to the ceiling with cots and bunk beds with platoons of soldiers who haven’t showered in a week.

"But they’re here for a reason; they’re working for a greater good. A greater good I feel isn’t covered enough in the mass media. I want to answer the question, why are we doing this? Why are service members and civilians out there being killed, wounded and suffering miserable lives? And I want to cover it from an “average” perspective, talking about it in normal speak so everyone can see this war as those on the ground see it."

I do wonder what sort of access they will have to Afghan voices on their hectic 30 day tour but fair play to them for going in with the intention of covering more than merely the military side of the story. It’s a NATO project though so don’t expect anything from too far ‘out of left field’.

Indeed, I’d be very surprised if they manage to access the sort of material you see in this recent post on the blog of photographer, Holly Pickett. (Warning: contains disturbing images from inside Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar).

It almost goes without saying these days that you can catch Raimondi and Gallahan on Twitter as well.