Our Tools of War, Turned Blindly Against Ourselves

By ROB NIXON

What is a war casualty? The answer appears painfully obvious. It asserts itself not through argument but, more viscerally, through photographs: a torso shredded by a road-side bomb; a bloodied peasant spread-eagled in a ditch; a soldier (cigarette dangling nonchalantly) smashing his boot into a dead woman's head. Yet such images account only for immediate, visually arresting fatalities. What about those casualties that don't fit the photographic stereotypes, casualties that occur long after