Woman with the severed nose.

There was a blog on NPR recently that talked about what is too much to show a viewer of photographs.

There was an argument that showing an Afghan woman with her nose completely cut of was in some way too graphic for the average viewer. I had gotten mixed reactions to people that have seen this image. Some people thought it was extremely harsh and that it maybe shouldn't be on the cover. I personally agree with Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel when he says "In the end, I felt that the image is a window into the reality of what is happening" "I would rather confront readers with the Taliban’s treatment of women than ignore it." I feel like you almost need this extreme image to make people stop and see what is at stake. People so often go through life thinking "it happens to other people not me" and don't feel like they need to do anything to change it. Women in Afghanistan are about to lose some of the freedoms they had hoped this war would provide because we want to clean things up quick.
As far as censoring images because they make us feel uncomfortable or uneasy, sometimes we need to be taken out of our comfort zone to really grasp what is happening in the world today.