This should give the iconic flower-stuffed gun imagery a new kick. After serving in Afghanistan, British Army officer Bran Symondson returned to photograph the Afghan National Police — tender moments and lots of poppies. Yes, they are all stoned on that “absolutely stunning plant” and hash.

There’s a “beautiful underside” to this war-torn country. Symondson says, “You can really understand why there was a hippie trail through the country in the 1960s: fields of flowering poppies, pomegranate trees, snow-capped mountains… When you are there it takes your breath away.” “The Best View Of Heaven Is From Hell,” Bran Symondson, Jan 28 – Fen 20, Idea Generation Gallery, London

Talibanksy isn’t the only art collective operating inside Kabul, meet Roshd, translated as “growth.” Their aim is to brighten up Afghanistan’s capital with art and they’ve begun painting a few murals, like this one by 22-year-old Ommolbanin Shamsia Hassani. It’s inspired by clean women:

“Water is very clean and I want to show the women are clean too,” said Hassani. “It was the first time I was painting a big wall, I have always painted on small canvas … I have become very tired because it’s so big.”

Rampant misogyny aside, this is quite the positive message, no? (Photo: Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

The BBC cites a 2008 UN report that claims “98% of the country’s opium is grown in just seven provinces where there are permanent Taliban settlements” and notes how it allows “militants to purchase weapons with which they then attack the Afghan government and international forces.” So therefore British troops are collaborating with the enemy?

“Time Life” presents: The Torture Classics collection. All the “make me talk hits” in one mind fucking compilation, remastered for that “detention-cell perfect sound.”

Ubermorgen and James Powderly have collected all reported torture-tracks from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay, from “Born in the USA” to Puddle of Mudd to the Meow Mix song. What happens when you blast three Eminem songs simultaneously and consequentially for 24 hours? A CIA-crafted mash-up that “makes torture pure magic.”

Just listen to these reviews of the interrogation technique, condemned by the United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights.

Sgt. Mark Hadsell:

If you play the same song for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down, and your will is broken. That’s when we come in and talk to them.

Guantanamo Prisoner Ruhal Ahmed:

… It makes you feel like you are going mad. You lose the plot. And it’s very scary to think that you might go crazy because of all the music, because of the loud noise, and because after a while you don’t hear the lyrics at all, all you hear is heavy banging.

if you missed last week’s live-streaming 24-hour Torture Classics performance, see bits here.

This is a billboard, via the US military, currently running in Afghanistan. Why can’t Massoud be both (well, until he pulls the chord)? Says, Lt. Col. Allen McCormick, the former P&G marketing man behind this new effort to win Afghan hearts and minds and babies:

The [U.S.] military does two of three things well — they know who they want to reach and what they want to say, but they don’t know how to say it.

So, McCormick found a Kabul-based ad agency, Lapis, to develop the creative. Massoud is one of six cute babies used in the nationwide campaign. Let’s read that Utopian copy together. First, notice the use of bold letters on “Or Doctor,” and Caps on “Save Them.” Ooh, diabolically persuasive. Then: “If you build him a garden, he will plant roses. If you build him a battlefield, he will die a casualty.” That’s it, those are your only two choices, Afghan parents: rose boy or dead boy. Doctor or suicide bomber. If I was Massoud, I’d plant poppies. |via: Ad Age|

Photo: Julie Jacobson/AP via NPR