Foreign Policy May - June 2015

BARRY ROSENTHAL “I started doing these images—groupings of trash I’d collected in coastal areas—as grids. At first, I would shoot them from overhead. Now, I am more interested in perspective. I lay all the pieces of trash on black fabric. Unlike before, I shoot across the fabric—the front is about five feet from the lens, and the back is 16 feet or so away. To create the appearance of a flat surface, I stand the objects up. Cups are fine by themselves, but for plates and trays I attach little legs made of wire so they are upright. I put the bigger objects in the back and the smaller objects in front, so everything appears level— almost like a wall. I also use a special camera that helps hide the depth.…

THE ODD COUPLE, WITH GUNS Can you start a revolution in Indonesia from a small house in America’s Wild West? Meet John Anari, a West Papuan freedom fighter, and Tom Bleming, a retired U.S. mercenary, who are hatching plans for an insurgency from the safety of Wyoming. Visit ForeignPolicy.com for pictures and video from journalist Alexander Zaitchik and photographer Charles Ommanney’s strange days in the Cowboy State. There Will Be Blood Sport Award-winning photojournalist Andrew Quilty captures Afghanistan’s ancient blood sports— from buzkashi (think: polo with a headless goat carcass) to partridge fighting— all still very much alive today. Quilty’s arresting images celebrate the tradition behind these often gory pastimes and explore how nearly four decades of war have influenced the culture of sport in Afghanistan. FP 360 Clouds Over Sidra, a virtual-reality film about…

For devotees of Santería— a centuries-old religion that mixes Yoruban ethnic traditions from the West African slaves brought to Cuba, with the Catholicism of the island’s colonial past—Dec. 17 is among the year’s holiest days. Thousands of believers flock to a small church in the Cuban village of El Rincón to celebrate Día de San Lázaro, the birthday of Babalu-Aye, the deity of illness and healing. The twins shown here have collapsed in exhaustion after walking dozens of miles to pay homage. The Santería community is among the many spiritual groups that Spanish photographer Jordi Pizarro has documented since 2010. By focusing on religious minorities—from Orthodox Christians in Israel to Hindus of Tamil descent in Malaysia—Pizarro explores how ritual, even when violent, helps reaffirm bonds and how such performance is fundamental…

EARLIER THIS YEAR, 51-year-old Israel Ticas spent three days on a small island off the coast of El Salvador, looking for the bodies of a half-dozen locals who had been murdered and then buried under a layer of mangrove soil. A crowd of people, many of whom were searching for missing family members, watched from the shore. Ticas, however, couldn’t offer closure to any of them—not an uncommon event for the lone forensic criminologist in a country that reported some 4,000 murders in 2014 alone. Working for the attorney general, Ticas and two assistants excavate the country’s clandestine graves—a result of El Salvador’s rising levels of organized crime and gang violence over the past two decades. But that’s not his only task: He’s also still uncovering bodies from the Salvadoran civil…

JOE WEISBERG: I have a dual perspective on the use of illegals. What is the point of continuing to run them? On the one hand, I see no purpose in it whatsoever— of putting all this effort into training these people and giving them these deep covers when they really have nothing to do, very little access, and no way to produce useful intelligence. On the other hand, I feel the same way really about all espionage; it’s all useless. Even the SVR [the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service] officers in the embassies, it’s the same for them. I don’t think they have access, and I don’t think they produce useful intelligence either. But, if you look at it differently, the illegals at least really have much better cover. Unless there’s…

“For several years, I worked outdoors whenever I traveled, making arrangements and collages out of plants. I was interested in what most people consider weeds. One winter day, I went looking for plants on a beach but found only trash. This inspired me to create art with dried-out waste, which I collect myself—over months or even years—in order to tell the story of how humans are destroying the oceans. Here, old bottles, tubs, cups, and plates represent hollow promises washed up on the world’s shores. They also signify a looming ecological threat. This sort of packaging remains in the environment for years; toxic plastic containers almost become part of the biomass. I have tried to create an anxietyprovoking image by using perspective as a tool to crowd everything to the choking…