This article explores the role of widely circulated images of Afghan people in building public support for the 2001-2002 U.S. war with Afghanistan. Emphasizing images of women, I argue that these representations participate in the more general category of "the clash of civilizations," which constitutes a verbal and a visual ideograph linked to the idea of the "white man's burden." Through the construction of binary oppositions of self and Other, the evocation of a paternalistic stance toward the women of Afghanistan, and the figuration of modernity as liberation, these images participate in a set of justifications for war that contradicts the actual motives for the war. These contradictions have a number of implications for democratic deliberation and public life during wartime.