Vested Interest

I first saw the images of the Amman suicide bomber described as a "fashion show" on a right wing blog. Then, the Washington Post story on Tuesday described Sajida al-Rishawi as "modeling" the suicide vest.

Like many others, my first reaction was: How could this woman still be wearing this apparatus on Wednesday, when the bombing was Sunday? The most likely explanation, of course, was that she was made to "model" it for the cameras. And, unless she only had one set of clothes with her then and since (which is a possibility), it seems the Jordanian police had her model her party coat as well.

What Ms. Rishawi did was utterly deplorable. To walk into a Jordanian and Palestinian wedding party filled with families and children the way she did -- that's insanity. Still, I think these images also represent an extreme form of propaganda, and I wonder whether they might actually be counterproductive in helping quell additional acts.

(There are dozens of political issues this brings up. The largest one, of course, is whether this bombing is ultimately neocon blow-back for Bush and Cheney's adventurist war.

The first day story on Ms. Rishawi played up the fact one of her brother was a "senior aide" to the all purpose Iraq villain, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The second day story, however, detailed the fact that Ms. Rishawi, a former resident of Fallujah, was radicalized as the result of the American evisceration of her city and the loss of two brothers and two other relatives to U.S. forces in Anbar Province. (News is, by the way, that one of the other bombers, Safah Muhammad Ali, allegedly had been grabbed up in a sweep by American forces during the Fallujah campaign in November 2004 and held for two weeks before judged harmless and released. ...As we know, Iraqi men tend to find that kind of experience just a little humiliating.)
However, any number of blogs can effectively sift the politics. Instead, I'd like to stick as closely as possible to the photos and their dynamics. As such, here are a few of my questions:

1. If the point of the attack, as the Sunday NYT Week In Review suggests, was to sow fear and mayhem, doesn't the widespread distribution of these images only propagate -- or even constitute -- its "success"? Also, by putting Ms. Rishawi on display on world wide television, doesn't it mimic, reinforce and ultimately legitimize the same kind of grandstanding technique used by terrorist organizations, and water down the argument that civil societies operate according to higher moral standards?

2. What are the implications of exhibiting such close up images of a constructed suicide vest? My sense is that such an instructive look has rarely occurred this widely with such detail. Doesn't divorcing the head from the torso give these shots the sense of a do-it-yourself tutorial?

3. According to a WAPO story, Jordanians (ironically, only men were quoted) were shocked that a woman was involved in such an act. In contrast to the Arab reaction, do you think the American audience will find this image novel because it depicts a woman bomber, or because it shows a live bomber?

4. Does the fact Ms. Rishawi has been dressed up and required to pose/expose herself (by what we can assume is a male police authority) represent an act of subjugation by Arab men over their women?

5. Pardon the callousness, but wouldn't this have been "just another suicide attack" if Ms. Rishawi hadn't participated, or if she hadn't survived?" Given the fact, is it suspicious at all that Ms. Rishawi did survive?

6. As a portrait, is it possible to infer anything regarding Ms. Rishawi's mental state or the way she's been required to pose? (You might want to refer to this enlargement at the TIME.com site.) I'm really struck by her facial expression. I guess I wonder if that intense stare and look of foreboding expression was coerced to make her seem that much more menacing. I didn't see the video, but the image doesn't really conform to the other outtakes in which she seems more traumatized and specifically avoids eye contact.)

How else do you read these photos?

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