Q&A with National Geographic's Catherine Karnow

Catherine Karnow with General Giap, 1994 Photograph by ©Catherine KarnowCatherine Karnow, a photographer for National Geographic, has been traveling to Vietnam since 1990. She was the only Western journalist to accompany General Vo Nguyen Giap to Dien Bien Phu in 1994. Among her projects in Vietnam is her documentation of the impact of Agent Orange on Vietnamese families.

 Q: What is the legacy of Agent Orange in Vietnam, and how have you attempted to document that legacy?

A: Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed 12 million gallons of Agent Orange over various parts of Vietnam. At the time, we didn’t think it was harmful; it was to destroy foliage so [U.S. troops] could see the enemy, the Vietcong, better. Of course we know now that it was highly toxic.  And the most shocking fact is that diseases from Agent Orange are passed down from generation to generation. It’s now in the third generation, the grandchildren, in Vietnam and in the United States. The diseases are consistent.

The current problems with Agent Orange can be divided in two categories. First there is the contamination, and finally the cleanup of the soil and water. Dioxin is still traceable in what are known as "hot spots," areas around what were our military bases, where containers of Agent Orange leaked into the ground; and where the planes took off carrying gallons of the chemical. In August of this year, 2012, the big news is that the U.S. government announced $43 million for cleanup of [toxins] around the Danang military base. However, that is not a lot of money and it doesn’t get at the real problem. In reality, not that many people are affected. Dioxin only presents itself in the fatty tissues of fish and ducks in a very small area in Danang.

The real issue is this horrifying fact that diseases are passed down genetically. The U.S. and Vietnamese governments do acknowledge this. And the U.S. government does compensate veterans and their families to some extent.  They do not compensate Vietnamese families.  It is estimated that in Vietnam today 150,000 children are affected with diseases associated with Agent Orange, diseases such as mild to acute mental impairment, respiratory problems, and many severe physical handicaps.

I have been documenting Agent Orange children since 1990, as part of my larger Vietnam work. In July 2010 I went to Danang to document the lives of two families. I wanted to show the difference in one family that gets support and another who get very little support. To show that even a small amount of support goes a very long way. The family who is served receives extraordinary care from a very special small American NGO called Children of Vietnam. They know where every donated dollar goes, and it goes to help the specific needs of that child or that family.

The story of Agent Orange children has been well documented. However, what we usually see are horribly shocking images of deformed children. I don’t think this is right, fair or ultimately effective.  I want to show how families are affected, to tell stories. As an American I feel a strong sense of responsibility to do something. These families need support; nobody’s listening to them or seems to care. Nobody wants to talk about it. It’s very different from in our country, where there are support groups.

Q: When did you first go to Vietnam, and what changes have you seen over the years as a photographer?

A: I first went in July 1990. At that time, the country was just opening up to the rest of the world.  It was quiet, very poor, very austere. But you felt a sense of eagerness on the part of the Vietnamese to open the country to the world. In 20 years, I have been a dozen times. Today, Saigon is an Asian city out of control. During the mid to late 1990s, the talk in Saigon was all about controlling the increasing traffic problems, and unplanned development.

But nothing was actually done about it, so now it’s sheer madness. The roads are a mess of bicycles, motorcycles, cars, buses, the odd vendor trying to get his pushcart through, and tourists standing on the curb looking terrified to cross the street.

Certainly, the sense of hopefulness and innocence is gone. There is government corruption, and a terrible bubble economy. The very rich people are getting much richer, and the people at the bottom are really suffering. It’s creating a country of desperate people. The government has an insane [need] to hold onto power, which is in the hands of a few top people. It is a corrupt oligarchy. There is nothing communist about Vietnam.

Q: What’s next for Vietnam?

A: I have no idea. I don’t think there will be an overthrow of the government.

Q: Given that your father, Stanley Karnow, is probably the best chronicler of the Vietnam War, do you think an interest in that country is a family trait?

A: It’s not that so much. When I was growing up in Hong Kong, the Vietnam War felt scary and close by. I grew up with a sense of fear that turned into curiosity. My whole life I heard about Saigon and Hanoi.  As an adult, a photographer, it was top on my list of places to go. Then my father’s book (Vietnam: a History) came out. It was the first look back at the Vietnam War. Previously, people hadn’t wanted to think about Vietnam. As a young adult the success of that book, and of the TV series, was a big part of my life.

In 1990, a confluence of things happened that became the impetus for my going. In March, my father, along with my mother, went to Vietnam to interview General Giap for The New York Times Magazine. I was just starting a career as a photographer, but didn't consider shooting the story. When they returned my mother said I should have been the photographer; that planted a seed in my head the idea I should go to Vietnam. I had been looking for a project to shoot.

In May I was in Sydney doing a project on Asians in Sydney, and [met a man from Vietnam]. He said he would be returning to Vietnam for the first time since he had escaped, in two months, and asked, “Would you like to be there with me?” I knew this was my opportunity. The three things came together. And the fourth thing: because my father had just been there, I would have great access if I went right away. Vietnam got under my skin.

Twenty years later, those are still my favorite photographs [from that first visit]. I have a special feeling for Vietnam and the people. The character of the Vietnamese people—I connect to them, I relate to them. The Vietnamese people are very family-oriented. They have a word—buun—seeing beauty in sorrow. I find that incredibly beautiful. They are very tenacious. They love photographers. How can you not love these people? They are very forgiving. I feel more at home in Vietnam than I do in many parts of this country.

Q: Are you planning any other photography projects relating to Vietnam or its history?

A: I give presentations on Vietnam for National Geographic; my next presentation is in March in Toronto. The first series of lectures were in Seattle this year, to 10,000 people total. It’s an ongoing presentation. I’m always thinking about my next trip to Vietnam. No matter how much material I have, my body of work doesn’t seem complete or up-to-date. The country changes so fast. There are many places I have never photographed.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: My photographs are documentary, but really, my work is deeply personal. Most of my trips there are not paid for by a client. When I am in Vietnam, I don’t sleep, there is so much to shoot, so many people to talk to, so much to cover. I exhaust myself with my own relentless fascination with the country. It is intoxicating.

Interview with Deborah Kalb, co-author of Haunting Legacy.

Q&A with Christiane Amanpour of CNN and ABC

Journalist Christiane AmanpourChristiane Amanpour is the host of CNN's "Amanpour" and the global affairs anchor for ABC News.

Q: How have relations between the press and the military changed during the time you've been covering wars and other conflicts?

A: The relationship has become much more controlled and P.R. oriented on the part of the military. It is much more difficult to get to cover a military operation or just a day in the life of a military unit. It is much more difficult to have on the record conversations with the military from the grunt up to the general. Almost every encounter with the U.S. military these days comes in the framework of an "embed." There are of course notable exceptions, mainly in print where you can spend longer and be less obtrusive. For TV, all the gear and the team make it harder to be invisible.

Q: How have changing technologies made it easier to report from the battlefield? Are there ways in which it's become more difficult?

A: Technologies have made it much easier to gather and disseminate news, pictures and video. It has been a huge advance and advantage. 

However it can also be a drawback because it has accustomed news organizations to a much lighter and cheaper operation, when sometimes you really need to go in with the best bulkier camera equipment and larger teams. 

Q: In your opinion, have U.S. policymakers been affected by the legacy of the Vietnam War when it comes to sending troops into battle?

A: I also believe that the rapid fire technological advances whereby people can access their news and information on ever smaller devices, in ever shorter bytes, has the unintended consequence of "miniaturizing the event" and then passing over that event much more rapidly than before. If the news cycle on everything, even serious events, gets shorter and shorter, then so does the policy-making cycle. Hence my feeling that policy making today is very reactive and therefore has a short-shelf life. This has a negative cumulative effect on conflict resolution and lessens the chance of fashioning a lasting progressive future.

Q: What has and hasn't changed for women war correspondents over the course of your career?

A: I was part of the first generation of the "female wave" of war correspondents. In every field this wave has just grown bigger. On the ground there are women everywhere and that is good. Now, for a woman at the very top of a TV news organization!

Q: What would you see as a "good enough" outcome in Afghanistan?

A: A good outcome in Afghanistan would have been one in which the U.S. had not taken its eye off the ball after the initial success of beating the Taliban and Al Qaeda back in 2001. It is common knowledge that all the important indicators in Afghanistan were in a positive direction until President George W. Bush switched focus to Iraq. Since then America's fight has been mostly reactive, infighting over policy and personality within the Obama Administration, with the aim of getting out come-what-may, has negatively affected the future state of Afghanistan.  Even U.S. reconstruction and governance efforts have been incoherent in strategy and aim, despite the billions of dollars and thousands of good lives that have been spent.

A good outcome would have been to build a realistically competent national Afghan army for basic internal security. 

Realistic efforts at nation building, which did not seek to build a little America but a reasonably secure state with a mix of national and regional government, and a strong constitution guaranteeing rights for all. A functioning national electricity and water grid, the promise of education for all.

Afghanistan is rich in natural resources (minerals and gems) and blessed with a potentially rich agricultural sector. Instead of building high-tech projects that had no chance of lasting once international forces left, the effort should have been on building a base to bolster Afghanistan's natural ability and productivity.

Lastly, when the U.S. and the west first intervened after 9/11, they were blessed with massive and genuine support from the majority of the Afghan people. Building upon that would have been the best outcome. Squandering it is the biggest danger.

Interview with Deborah Kalb, co-author of Haunting Legacy.

Q&A with Military Expert Judith Hicks Stiehm

Judith Hicks Stiehm at FIUJudith Hicks Stiehm is a professor of political science at Florida International University. Her areas of expertise include civil-military relations, the status of women, and political theory, and her books include Champions for Peace: Women Winners of the Nobel Prize for Peace, and It’s Our Military, Too!: Women and the US Military.

Q: Your most recent book is titled "The U.S. Military: A Basic Introduction." What would you say are some of the biggest misperceptions about the U.S. military?

A: I doubt that most citizens know that we have troops in 150 countries, that our Department of Defense divides the globe into combatant commands with a four star in charge of each region, that the senior officers who head those commands are referred to as warrior-diplomats, that our military's formal mission statements include countering transnational crime, human rights, humanitarian aid, etc., particularly in those areas where we, in fact, have no enemy and no threat, but where we still have a good deal of military activity.  (Example: Southern Command, which covers South America and the Caribbean.)

Q: What do you think will happen to the military budget in the next several years?

A: This is the first time in decades that there has been any talk about cutting the defense budget, which has consistently grown even when all costs related to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are removed, but the projected cuts tend to be for things which Congress may not be willing to accept, i.e., they tend to be cuts for things related to personnel and not for items such as the new aircraft carrier.  (We have ten or eleven carriers; the next highest is a country with two, and China is just acquiring its first, a second-hand carrier from Russia.

Q: How has the role of women in the military changed over the years that you've been studying that topic? 

A: Remarkably.  Numerically from less than 2 percent, which was the legal limit, to now roughly 15 percent.  Further, they can serve in virtually all roles except ground combat and even that is under discussion because women have been and are "attached" to units they cannot formally serve in.  Further, in both Iraq and Afghanistan where there are no "front lines" women have been in the line of fire. The changes have been propelled by the end of the draft more than pressure for "equality." At the beginning of the war women were limited to less than 2 percent of the total.

Q: Do you think the Vietnam legacy has affected U.S. policymakers involved in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and if so, how?

A: No. The Vietnam legacy was the Powell Doctrine, which was forgotten or dismissed by the Bush-Cheney administration.  Also, a Vietnam legacy included putting a number of important specialties in the reserves so we could not go to war without calling up the reserves.  That was supposed to put a damper on going to war.  But it didn't. Reservists and National Guard troops are serving regularly and over and over again, first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan.  The American public is generally detached, and Congress hasn't declared war since World War II.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Madeleine Albright once said, “What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?" I believe she was referring to our restrained response to conflict in Bosnia and Kosovo.  The converse would be "If you have a superb military will that lead you to use it?"  That is the question citizens should ask.  When I was at the Army War College for a year students were taught that the military's mission was to defend the U.S. and its "vital interests."  Now military strategists talk about  the interests of partners and allies and  training and "balancing" and more. The military is building roads and schools in other countries.  The problem is it can get a budget for things for which a civilian agency would not be funded.

Interview with Deborah Kalb, co-author of Haunting Legacy.

Q&A with Prof. Susan Moeller

Susan Moeller, director of the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda, Univ. of Md, College ParkSusan Moeller is director of the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda at the University of Maryland, and Professor of Media and International Affairs in the University’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Her books include Packaging Terrorism: Co-opting the News for Politics and Profit, and Shooting War: Photography and the American Experience of Combat. 

Q: As someone who has studied the images of war, what would you say are the images that stand out the most in people's minds from Vietnam, and why? What about Iraq and Afghanistan? Have there been particular images from Afghanistan or Iraq that have had a major impact on U.S. policy there?

A: Decades after the Vietnam War there are still specific photographs from that conflict that remain in the memories of those who lived through the war -- and perhaps even in the collective consciousness of those who were born decades after.  

The images that remain most vividly -- as singular icons of the war -- in the public's imagination are those that emphasize the horrors of the conflict for civilians, starting with Malcolm Browne's picture of a burning monk in 1963, then Eddie Adams' photos of a summary execution on the streets of Saigon during the Tet Offensive in 1968, Ron Haeberle's photos of the My Lai massacre (photographed in 1968 and published in 1969), then Nick Ut's photograph of a napalmed child in 1972.  Additionally many photographers, both news photographers and military photographers, took striking photographs of the suffering of American troops -- Life's Larry Burrows' photo essay Yankee Papa 13 in 1965 comes to mind, as does Don McCullin's photo of a shellshocked Marine in Hue in 1968.  

What seemed so radical at the time, was how up close and personal a view Americans on the home front had of the "collateral damage" of war, rather than just the combat of it.  The heroism of combat, although certainly captured on film, was less celebrated, and therefore lingers less in the collective history of Vietnam.

That's a major difference between the memorable images from Vietnam and those from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Yes, the ways that journalists, including photographers, videographers and others carrying cameras of one kind or another, have been able to work and travel in these newer wars have been substantially different than how it was possible to operate during the Vietnam war.  And so too has there been a sea change in the technology of coverage and in the news outlets that feature war photography.  

But beyond the changes in logistics, censorship, technology and media platforms, there have been cultural, social and political shifts that have meant that in general Americans have seen fewer images of the seamy sides of war. NBC's Battlefield Satellite News Gathering System -- better known as the "Bloommobile" -- allowed embedded journalists the ability (more or less) to transmit live footage of the race to Baghdad in 2003, but it was left to Al Jazeera and others to take pictures of the bombs when they landed, and those pictures were often dismissed by the U.S. government and many "Western" institutions as propaganda.  

It was only with the leaked photos from Abu Ghraib, which ran on CBS and in the New Yorker, that an alternative view of the war began fully to be acknowledged.  For all that there are today countless online sites capable of showing the best and the worst of war, among the diminishing number of mainstream news outlets there has rarely been the journalistic stomach -- or the budget -- to cover today's wars and confront the powerful as there was during Vietnam.  Some of those who have, such as NBC cameraman Kevin Sites who captured a U.S. Marine shooting an unarmed Iraqi insurgent in a Fallujah mosque, have been penalized for their temerity.  On other occasions, such as the occasion when Time magazine published the photos of the gravely injured Iraqi child Ali Abbas by Yuri Kozyrev, the vast majority of U.S. publications have not followed along and published the most challenging images of war -- even when they are simultaneously making news around the world.   

Q: You have written about the importance of covering international issues. What should be the top priorities today for a U.S. news organization's international coverage?

A: News organizations, no matter where their base is located, no matter what platforms they use and no matter what "beats" they cover, need to prioritize accuracy and transparency.  In no arena of news is that likely so important as in the coverage of violence and war, where information is essential to good policy, and the sources of that information have to be able to be assessed in order for that information to be considered credible.

Q: When it comes to media coverage of terrorism, another area you have studied, please give examples of what you consider the best and the worst coverage.

A: The goal of terrorists is to gain attention for their acts; terrorists commit terrorists acts that are outside the norms of behavior precisely so their transgressions will reverberate widely and fear will be spread.  The worst coverage of terrorism, therefore, is fear-mongering coverage that mythologizes an act or a group, rather than catalogues what has happened, relates the specifics of the incident (so the event is not conflated with all other terrorist acts), and contextualizes the situation.  The best and worst coverage of terrorism often exist side by side:  one outlet stokes a generic fear of "terrorism" in its audience, while another clarifies the known goals and identifies the specific actors.  Often the best coverage of terrorism is that coverage that never uses the word "terrorism" but instead notes as clearly as possible what has happened:  X number of people have been killed in Y way by Z group claiming credit.  Often the worst coverage of terrorism is that coverage that relies on generic words of tragedy and danger to provoke an often asymmetrical emotional and political response from its audience.

Q: Do you think today's journalists are affected by the legacy of the Vietnam War?

A: The public, politicians and journalists are all inheritors of the legacy of Vietnam.  Some of the legacies are positive ones:  we in the 21st century care more about civilians caught in the literal and virtual crossfire of war because the coverage of the Vietnam War brought home so clearly to so many the damage that conflict brought to the people of Southeast Asia.  Some of the legacies are negative:  the media didn't "lose" the war, but that canard remains current for many, and has contributed to the ability of Donald Rumsfeld and so many others to skew the public's perception of the role and value of journalists in wartime.  There can be no democracy without a free press, but Iraq and Afghanistan have weakened the ability of the media to fully act as a Fourth Branch of government.

Interview with Deborah Kalb, co-author of Haunting Legacy.

Q&A with former Sen. Max Cleland

Max Cleland served as a U.S. senator (D-Ga.) from 1997-2003. He served in the Army in Vietnam, where he was seriously wounded. He later was administrator of the U.S. Veterans Administration and served as Georgia secretary of state, and now is secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Q: What is your sense of how the legacy of the Vietnam War affected later presidents when they decided whether or not to send troops into combat?

A: Your thesis or theme was about the haunting legacy of the Vietnam War. I think there was a haunting legacy of the Vietnam War, up until Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld…[Earlier,] [Colin] Powell and General Schwarzkopf learned in Vietnam, and incorporated into the Persian Gulf War, concepts of overwhelming force, get it over quickly and come home—the Powell Doctrine. They learned that lesson in Vietnam, and so a positive lesson of the Vietnam War was that those lessons were learned: You have to have a military objective, get it over quickly, and come home. It goes back to a legacy of World War I. [Army General] Fox Conner [was quoted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates]. He said never fight unless you have to, never fight alone, never fight for long. That was all violated in Vietnam. The echo became, “No More Vietnams.”

It was codified in the Powell Doctrine. I visited with Powell when he was JCS Chairman. He said that a man told him, You don’t sound very much like a hawk. He said, I don’t get paid to be a hawk, but to win and win quickly. That was a positive legacy of the Vietnam War, perfected by former young officers of Vietnam: Powell and Schwarzkopf. … George H.W. Bush had been to war, had been shot down—he understood the costs of war, and [wanted] a limited war.

[With George W. Bush], all hell breaks loose—a president who never went to war and a vice president with five deferments. You put all that together, and you end up with the Afghan War that was started but never really done right, and then the concept of taking out Saddam Hussein this time, weapons of mass destruction that did not exist…meanwhile, Afghanistan was on the back burner. Bush let [Osama bin Laden] escape through the Tora Bora mountains. The open-ended conflict goes on through the entire Bush years. The economy goes to hell in a handbasket.

President Obama winds up the war in Iraq, but Afghanistan becomes another Vietnam. At least President Obama determines the exit strategy: This far, but no farther. Beyond 2014, what happens in Afghanistan is up to the people of Afghanistan. …The real haunting legacy is that there was no learning of the Vietnam legacy by the Bush administration. Obama’s surge, throwing good troops after a bad situation--that was Vietnam all over again. [But the] second part, this far and no further, set a date and we’re done, that is the good legacy of the Vietnam War.  The sad part is that the Iraq war under Bush did not learn [those] lessons. Obama’s first two years were more like Lyndon Johnson, then [there was the need to get out].

Q: How have veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars been treated back at home, compared with the treatment of Vietnam veterans?

A: After this country was attacked [on September 11, 2001] on our own soil, not distant, the whole rationale for being in the military became totally patriotic, something of honor and praise. So that is different than the attitude of the Vietnam War [during the draft]. Students who didn’t believe in the war, who didn’t want to go to war, started saying, Hell, no, we won’t go. There were demonstrations while the war was going on, back here in the United States, the whole country was aflame. Nixon was elected and continues the war for four more years. [Eventually] Nixon couldn’t argue for the draft any more.

…[Today] less than one percent of the American people [are in the military], and there’s a lauding of that defense by the 99 percent. It’s commendable on its face, but underneath those of us who did not go to Iraq are like cheerleaders in the stands at an NFL football game—we’re still cheering for our team, but we’re not interested in our son being out there on the playing field. We don’t want our child drafted to participate. That suffering goes on in that little bitty family of that little bitty community.

Fifty percent of the wounded are from [communities of] less than 2,000 people, from small-town America. The draft is by hunger, not a real draft. The pain occurs in small-town America, impoverished America, black and Latino America—[that’s who is] fighting our war. Above that are the cream of the crop, West Pointers, the upper class in the military whose father and grandfather were in the military. So there’s no real democratization of the American military. There’s a disconnect: You go fight, team, but we’re going to go to the mall.

…Ever since [9/11], people in the military have people saying, Thank you for your service. As a Vietnam vet, that never happened to me for the first 25 or 30 years. We could have used that. Not only that, but it was pejorative. [Vietnam veterans] didn’t want anyone to know they were Vietnam veterans. … [Meanwhile,] where are the young people [today]? They don’t have to worry about the draft. There’s no Occupy movement to bring the troops home, but Occupy Wall Street. It’s America’s silent generation in terms of the military. …This is not going to wind up well. It’s much like the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. We’re going to have our crew of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans back here, needing decades of counseling from PTSD, or a powerful loss of meaning for that service. I know how that feels. It’s one thing to struggle with your injuries, but to ask why, and there is no answer to that, is the greatest struggle of all.

Q: What is your sense of how things are going in the Senate these days?

A: …There is no respect for people out there running for office at all. Not only do they have their opponent, but outside money funded by billionaires, is destroying American politics. Fewer and fewer people are going to want to put up with millions spent against them. The Swiftboating of America continues. It’s out of control and it’s destroying our country.

Q: You are now the secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission. What does that job involve, and what are some of the issues the commission is facing now?

A: If all these people spending all this money could just spend a few hours at Normandy, they could get a little different perspective. I run 24 American cemeteries abroad. There are 125,000 bodies of Americans who never came home, and 95,000 names of the missing. They are all overseas, in 14 nations. Every American citizen ought to go by and see Normandy. The Secretary of Defense [visited] our cemetery in North Africa [recently]. These Americans have paid the full price of devotion for this country. It means a hell of a lot more than spending billions on negative ads.

Interview with Deborah Kalb, co-author of Haunting Legacy.

Max Cleland