ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author examines Griffiths work in Vietnam, both during the war and after, to consider his critique of American power and its hidden effects. The image filling the page opposite the introduction depicts a GI with a young Vietnamese girl on his knee. The penultimate image in the book is one of the most famous images of the war: it shows a Vietnamese woman holding her hands up to her fully bandaged head. While Griffiths seeks to sponsor compassion in the viewer he is also interested in drawing attention to the forms it takes within a post-conflict society. The author focuses on victims who have become beggars and learned to manipulate compassion in order to survive. This emphasis on compassion is reflexive, for it is also an important element of Griffiths's visual strategy to document suffering and prompt action.
