When Time Magazine published the cover that showed the face of a mutilated Afghan woman (for an in-depth take on it read this article) I immediately thought of Ernst Friedrich, who published a book entitled War Against War a few years after the end of World War I (1924). Friedrich used previously censored images from the war to make his case against war - showing what war looked like. Just like in the case of the Time Magazine cover, the most shocking images are those of people with terribly mutilated faces. (more)

So here we are, 86 years after the publication of Friedrich’s book, and Time is doing what Friedrich was doing, the only difference being that their case is for war and not against.

If anything, this tells us a lot about photographs and their possible uses.