Slashdot Mirror
Digital Cameras Change War Photo-Journalism
prakslash writes "Back in 1945, it took three days between the time U.S. Marines raised the flag on Iwo Jima and the famous picture of the historic moment was published in all the newspapers. In 2004, it took barely an hour before the explosive photos from an Iraqi prison were seen all over the world. This drives home a defining fact of 21st century - the pervasiveness of digital photography and the speed of the Internet are making it easier to see into dark corners previously out of reach of the mass media. As reported in
recent news, some of the most shocking Iraqi photos were not taken by photo-journalists but by soldiers and government contractors who used a digital camera, a CD burner and an internet connection to zip the photos around the world with an ease that has never existed before."
The first prison photos to be shown on CBS were taken last year .
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
check the jpg comments to see if they've been gimp'ed. :)
:P
Those soldiers were stupid, like the photographing nanking
First rule of war
DO NOT photograph your warcrimes
These pictures were taken months ago. Iwo Jima beat them them to publication by a mile.
The Guardian has actually published an analysis of the authenticity of several photos published in the Mirror.
They're not hard to find.
What's more disturbing are the details in this leaked US army report
Was nobody paying attention when Rumsfeld, Gen. Myers and the other Pentagon brass were testifying? The pictures were apparently taken in December 2003, copies passed to Army CID mid-January 2004 and copies were first in the Pentagon around the start of February. Gen. Myers even knew CBS had the pictures long enough to request they not publish, at least for the time being - the potential suppression of the media being something both Senatorial and Congressional committees were quite concerned over. So from the pictures being taken to being front-page news took closer to five months than "barely an hour".
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Here is a link to some. I don't know if it's all of them.
(self)censorship seems to be rampant; I can't even find the original photos. Why should we trust the media when they won't even provide access to the origianal, undoctored pictures? I mean, that's the main evidence, why not give the public acces to it so they can draw their own conculsions?
Uh... the interesting thing is that the pictures are from this past August. And 3 (or 5?) of the people invovled had already been referred to Article 32 (Court Martial) proceedings as of 10 days ago.
So yes, they only took an hour to go around the world. But it took 8 months for them to make it into the public's eye anyway.
War crimes
True, but take any pictures not reported by a reasonably credible source with a pinch of salt. There are apparently a lot of pictures circulating that have been culled from a hardcore German porn flick. As you might expect these are already circulating around Usenet and the more sensational and inflamatory websites.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
From an article in the Sydney Morning Herald,
"For two weeks before 60 Minutes in America broke the torture story, it obeyed requests from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers not to run it for fear it would harm American interests in Iraq. The network ran it only after learning that other journalists would tell the story if it didn't.
(see http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/08/10839114 61425.html)
In this case, it was relatively "instant" only once the news was ALLOWED to be let out of the bag.((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10))
Sure most of the pics are re-touched. Tell me the blurryness in all those pictures was caused by something else.
If that's ok, more airbrushing and editing isn't such a stretch.
If they were just worried about showing nudity on the main page, they should at least provide a link to the originals. No, not because I get off on this kind of thing, but for the sake of offering the original unedited facts.
They were soldiers, but they were SPECIALLY TRAINED (as in Advanced Individual Training) in Military POLICE operations.
You see, every enlisted soldier has a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) which is his/her PRIMARY mission. This can range from cook to cop to construction.
Their SECONDARY mission is killing and destruction.
These people failed in their PRIMARY mission.
The acts committed were specifically designed to traumatize Muslim men by attacking social taboos. Not only did they know what they were doing, they were trained, after a fashion, to do it. Rumsfeld could not give McCain a straight answer on Friday as to who was in command and gave the orders to the MPs. And why was a brigadier general in Military Intelligence (Karpinski) given command of MPs, anyway? This looks deliberate. At least the rape rooms are shut down... err, under new management...
Un-professional
They didn't even think what they were doing was wrong."
Bzzt. Wrong. I'm prior active duty, and currently an activated reservist.
Un-monitored? Big deal. At 19, I was managing over $15 million dollars of assets. Most military personnel KNOW and UNDERSTAND their job and do it without hesitation or prejudice. They are situationally aware and are capable of making distinct decisions. These individuals made the WRONG decision.
Un-professional? EVERY basic military trainee is drilled on the UCMJ (Uniform Code Of Military Justice). There are simple "codes of conduct" you DO NOT subject enemy combatants to. Besides being unlawful, these actions are humiliating, degrading, and outright horrible.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
The four men brutally slain Wednesday in Fallujah were among the most elite commandos working in Iraq...Blackwater has about 400 employees in Iraq, said one government official briefed by the company. Its armed commandos earn an average of about $1,000 a day..
They were MERCENARIES.
Say it with me now...MERCENARIES.
I wish to freaking god the spin would stop.
It's ridiculous.
This was just on the History Channel within the past two weeks. Yes, it's a picture of the second team that was sent to the top of the mountain. Their job was to get the original flag back for the officer that donated it for the first raising (the only flag they could find on short notice) and put a bigger flag in its place. Two photographers were assigned to the group, one to take photos and the other to make a movie of the event.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
That video is unbelievable. What fucktards. The connection is a bit slow, so here is another copy of it loot.wmv
This website discusses the issue of double standards.
Double Standards - http://www.doublestandards.org/
Here it is, AGAIN!
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001/
Let me help you with the hard parts.
"There is abundant evidence in the statements of numerous witnesses that soldiers throughout the 800th MP Brigade were not proficient in their basic MOS skills, particularly regarding internment/resettlement operations."
Get that? They did NOT "KNOW and UNDERSTAND their job". That was in the report.
"Moreover, there is no evidence that the command, although aware of these deficiencies, attempted to correct them in any systemic manner other than ad hoc training by individuals with civilian corrections experience."
Not only didn't they KNOW their job, they thought that having people with CIVILIAN training would compensate for MILITARY training.
"I find that the 800th MP Brigade was not adequately trained for a mission that included operating a prison or penal institution at Abu Ghraib Prison Complex."
Again, they were NOT trained.
"However, I found no evidence that the Command, although aware of this deficiency, ever requested specific corrections training from the Commandant of the Military Police School, the US Army Confinement Facility at Mannheim, Germany, the Provost Marshal General of the Army, or the US Army Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas."
Even though their Chain of Command KNEW they weren't trained, their Chain of Command did NOTHING to fix it (above the company level).
"Almost every witness we interviewed had no familiarity with the provisions of AR 190-8 or FM 3-19.40."
They didn't even KNOW the AR's and FM's appropriate to their mission.
"Numerous witnesses stated that the 800th MP Brigade S-1, MAJ Hinzman and S-4, MAJ Green, were essentially dysfunctional, but that despite numerous complaints, these officers were not replaced."
The word "dysfunctional" applied to officers by a GENERAL in his OFFICIAL report.
Now would you care to tell me what "EVERY basic military trainee is drilled on"?
Most (not all) people join the Army because they are poor and ignorant.
The enlisted military is in fact smarter and more educated than the civilian population. Google it.
European and Arab news agencies have been reporting the same abuses since the Red Cross released a scathing report 8 months ago.
It's bad enough if you believe lies; it's far worse to repeat them.
The official policy of the ICRC is that reports are not made public, and no comment on the conditions of prisoners under ICRC observation is ever made to the media or anybody else.
The Red Cross never released any reports.
An alleged report has been leaked; the consensus of opinion among those who I work for is that this report has been severely doctored by whomever released it to the Arab press.
Arab news organizations have reported extensively on US troops destroying and stealing things in Iraqi homes during search missions.
What you mean to say is, "Arab news organizations have asserted without providing any evidence at all." They're just making stuff up left and right, but because they've got press passes, naive people believe them.
US news also hasn't covered the closings of anti-US publications in Iraq (which set off the current Najaf situation).
The Coalition shut down one newspaper, a weekly called Al-Hawza. It was shut down because it published articles telling its readers to kill Coalition authorities and Iraqi police officers. It was shut down for 60 days, and is due to re-open at the end of the month.
These are the kinds of stories that the Arab world sees every day.
Yes. These are the very lies that Al-Jazeera spews.
I write in my journal
If you did not yet hear about or read these sites :
:
Read how a Baghdad citizen felt about the preparations and during the war Salam Pax - Where is Raed ?.
Read about an Iraqi girl who lost her job and her hope for the future Riverbend - Baghdad Burning.
Read what an Iraqi female engineer tells about what's happening in Bagdad now A Family in Baghdad.
Read what an Iraqi architect has to say Raed in the Middle.
And in a slightly related note
The Stanford Prison Experiment documents an experiment that had to be aborted after only 6 days, because of abuses.
I guess you aren't paying much attention then. Rumsfeld has been all over the news stating that the photos are not only real, but that there are far worse very brutal pictures that have not been publicly released. There are also at least two prisoners who were murdered, with two homicide investigations under way.
Indeed, very correct. Here's the pictures, for contrast:
The first picture. Note the tiny flag, and the pretty bad angle. Not a very cinimatic shot (though, personally, I think the soldier holding the gun in the bottom right gives a feel of danger to the picture, as he appears to be "on guard" and defending the position).
Here is the changing of the flags...
The second shot that everyone knows very well. Obviously, a very different feel to the picture.
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger
Meanwhile, abusive governments may assert that journalistic coverage of POW treatment is itself a war crime.
And if found guilty - their service will likewise protect their rights as their sentences are carried out - even if the guilty ones have sworn those same oaths themselves in the past - even if the guilty ones may be on the list you provided.
...
Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;
Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Ghraib. Taguba's report listed some of the wrongdoing:
Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time.
Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear;
Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
Writing 'I am a Rapest' (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.
Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;
Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;
Threatening male detainees with rape;
Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell;
Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.
Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
Um, no it didn't. I will be charitable (unlike the post I am replying to) and assume you misremembered Bremer's innuendo as if it were factual. What he actually said:
---
"These false articles not only mislead readers but constitute a real threat of violence against coalition forces and Iraqi citizens who cooperate with the coalition in the reconstruction of Iraq," the letter said.
Sheik Mahmood al-Sawdani, a Sadr spokesman, denied that the newspaper had incited violence, and said it was shut down because it "rejects the occupation."
---
Emphasis added. Note the weasel words: constituted a threat of violence, not made a [i]literal[/i] threat of violence. By Bremer's twisted logic, the US news media who have published the torture photos "constitute" a threat of violence against US troops. Which of course is nonsense.
Female Prison Rape in NY
They didn't prevent the abuse of prisoners, and you think they would have been able to communicate or enforce a no-camera policy? Have you read the Taguba Report? The whole 800th Military Police Brigade was poorly run from the commander on down. Hardly anyone knew anything about the Army Regulations, the Geneva Convention, etc. that specifically related to their job as prison staff. For example, the prisoners were not even counted as often as required. In addition, basic Army standards - such as the saluting of officers - were not enforced. The environment was ripe for such abuses to occur. I could go on, but I suggest that you read the report yourself.
What report? According to the Red Cross, any communication on the treatment of prisoners is considered sensitive material, and is not made available to the public.
According to the USA Today, the Red Cross "repeatedly demanded that U.S. officials correct problems in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison before recent revelations about the abuse of Iraqi inmates by American soldiers." (See article here)
What complaints?
I'm sure at least some of the prisoners complained.
What eye-witness accounts?
Oh, gee, I don't know, all the other prison guards that were standing by, knowing damn well this was going on, without doing a thing to stop it? And how far up the chain of command did this go, with no one doing anything to stop it?
What change? Remember, the soldiers pictured had already been held over for an Article 32 hearing (an official investigation, kinda-sorta similar to a grand jury in civilian criminal law, only not really) before 60 Minutes made with the shock and awe.
The public now knows about it, which will certainly encourage the military to clean up its act. That's what changed. Further, just because the military started acting on some of the violators does not mean that there weren't more violators out there. Now, with the public knowing and demanding that it stop, more strides will probably be taken to make sure that it does stop (a complete investigation, etc etc).
The pictures changed nothing but public opinion.
You make it sound as if public opinion is irrelevant. Remember, the United States has civilian control over the military. And guess who elects the civilians that have that control? Oh yeah, the public. And guess what 2004 is? An election year. So don't tell me that it was "just" public opinion that changed.
The public opinion shifted from the false position that every Iraqi prisoner was being treated equally and well to the equally false position that every Iraqi prisoner is being hideously tortured.
Bullshit. I don't think anybody thinks that. But do you disagree that even a single prisoner being mistreated is too many?
You've got front-page news of what is, in perspective, a very small event.
Do you understand what's at stake here? We invaded Iraq under the pretense of removing WMD. That has yet to pan out (maybe it will, maybe it won't), and after a while, the justification for the war switched to "at least Saddam is gone, at least the torture chambers have closed, and at least Iraqis will never have to live in fear anymore." Well guess what, the torture chambers are back open again. Do I think what the US has done is as bad as what Saddam did? Probably not, but I'm waiting to find out what these other images are that Rumsfeld talked about yesterday before I make my final decision.
The United States is supposed to be the leader of the free world, the country the rest of the world looks to for morality. And right now we're not being a very good role model. There is already plenty of anti-American sentiment around the world, and we certainly don't need any more fuel on the fire. I, for one, am currently ashamed to be an American, which is something I have NEVER felt before. So don't tell me this is not front page news.
No no, it wasn't posed. The photographer thought it didn't turn out, so he set them all up by the flag like the type of picture you see for a high school football team. When his editor asked how he got such an amazing shot, he said it was set up (thinking that the editor was talking about the football team mug shot). Later when he found out the actual picture of rasing the flag turned out, he said no, it wasn't fake. But it was pretty much too late. Just like Bill Gates said 64k of ram was enough for everyone .... Silly internet, err, editors :)
"I don't think the pics out of Iraq are re-touched, but the ease and power of photoshop and such is something to keep in mind..."
It's harder than it looks.
It's a LOT easier to fake these photos just by setting up something convincing. Can't speak for the American ones, but the British gov'ts been criticizing the pics of their alleged abuses. The pics depicted the wrong guns, the wrong trucks, etc. Never mind Photoshop, pictures are just plain decieving.
"Derp de derp."
War has always been about turning the enemy from a human to a monster. For a quick example from WWI, look at these posters:
1 2
These posters depict Germans as horrible and inhuman, and thusly, killable. In times, people on both sides have bridged the gap, but the horrible nature of war is to turn the enemy into something monstrous: Krauts, Japs, Jews, terrorists, Capitalist Pigdogs, etc.
probably the number. Assuming it's only ten, but stating it as fact is most likely what happened to your karma.
note: just guessing, total WAG. I also guess the real number is way high over ten. And if you include the cute term "collateral damage" to "unfortunate close by civilians" I guess getting blown up or shredded or ventilated or whatnot in a normal way in war might count as torture. Also, over to the other war in ashcanistan, they offed three thousand prisoners by locking them in steel containers for days, Whomever didn't croak of thirst and heat, then got machine gunned and plowed into mass graves then. And torture and whatnot was and is still common there, it's common all over the place actually. That story came and went rapidly.
The first general at gitmo (when they started transferring prisoners there, and no I won't call them "detainees", that's intellectually just insulting and wrong) quit, because he wouldn't condone or participate in torture under his watch, that's back in the news someplace, I read it several times, too lazy to google for it now though.
Yeah, that was the real problem in that prison: the cameras! If it weren't for those pesky cameras, there would be no crimes, right?
Actually, Rumsfeld said something to this effect. They asked him how such a thing could happen, and his characteristically evasive answer was that the the security precautions need an update when everyone has digital cameras and phones and 21st century stuff. So that's the lesson for the Pentagon: we need to make new rules about cameras in the vicinity of sanctioned torture and rape.
You think I'm being cynical? Look at Rumsfeld's own words from yesterday:
(source)In order to admit a picture as evidence (at least, in a normal criminal court--I don't know what they have to do in military courts), you generally do three things:
1) Print it.
2) Sign it.
3) Date it.
You then submit that to the court. For reference, my information on this comes from the US DOJ CCIPS page. Note that their position on this is similar to how they treat non-digital photographs--that is, they don't insist on the negatives, but they present developed photos to the court. I believe that they cite more case law in there about that so you can read up on it yourself. I'm still digesting lots of 4th ammendment case law from it, myself...
The eye witness accounts didn't have an effect
Permit me to conferm this.
Ohh the accounts did get a reaction from me.
And I quote "Bull Shit" And that is exactly what I said.
And I must say for the record I still don't believe the storys.
For what ever reason there is far to much temptation to lie or hype the facts even when the facts are on your side.
If your not careful you make your storys unreasonable or impossable.
I believe the clames that reached my ear were impossable. The conditions discribed that is clamed old frail men were enduring for months would have killed a stronge healthy adult male in weeks if not days.
However it is quite possable the reason the storys were misinterpretations of real abuse or real abuse blown out of preportion.
Say for example every day a guard trips a certen prisonner by using a tazer on his leg.
If you tell me an obveously healthy man is being beaten daily I'll call you a lier.
Show me a picture of him being zapped and I'll believe you.
Photos like words can lie. To verify the athenticity I like anyone else examine the details.
Words are few and filtered by the bieses of the speaker plus the urge to hype creates flaws in the story that would lead people to believe it's not true.
But a photo is a machine recording. The flaws would be from camra defects or intentional fabrication (rather that accadental fabication)
Also pictures are worth 1,000 words.
If a photo is faked there is a greater chance of a flaw in the photo to prove it.
If a photo is real there is little chance of an accadental flaw slipping in.
Testimony is imperfict. We speak from bies. Flaws in our clames will ALWAYS slip in. Interigate someone long enough they will conferm what ever you wish to conferm even if by accadent.
When cameras are outlawed, only outlaws will have cameras
And abuses of the system will become offical policy.
There is a saying
"An armed socity is a polite socity"
(Yeah I'm a gun rights nut)
Well it applys to camras as well as guns.
Picture this: A person walks into a bank and pulls out a gun. Everyone hits the floor.
Now picture: A person walks into a bank and all the costummers are packing wepons.
If he pulls out a gun odds are he'll have 20 wepons pointed at him.
With camras. If everyone is carrying recording equipment we are less likely to lie cheat steal.
I think socity has become more and more polite with the advent of camras and later of recording tape.
During the original gulf war some of our reporters went missing.
Soon we'll see a day when a random person in some nation is kidnapped and with the push of a button or an utterence of a word the events are automaticly recorded on an internet jernal.
Or maybe a person is pulled over and suddenly the police shoot the person. The recorder detects the loss of life signs and transmits a video uplink to an internet server.
I know certen law enforcment groups, privacy advocates and political groups will want to make this stuff illegal.
But I think this kind of technology is helpful in protecting our rights, libertys and generally putting con artists and criminals in jail.
I don't actually exist.
Exactly right. The technology does exist to disseminate war information quickly but in fact Iraq has been one of the most poorly reported wars in a long time at least as far as the U.S. media coverage goes. You pretty much have to turn to the Arab networks to see any of the reality of what's been going on in Iraq. Those networks are, no doubt, slanted against the U.S. but the U.S. networks have been sanitized to the point they aren't giving any information at all about the real situation there. Pretty simply the American media has been completely cowed by the Pentagon through a variety of means.
In particular most journalists have been embedded which gives them unprecedented access to military units but at the price that the military has gained massive control of what the journalists do and don't report and when. Since they live with the soldiers they were also showing a severe propensity to see things the soldiers way and not objectively. I'm guessing journalists who aren't embedded are having a real problem moving around Iraq or covering the story. You see very little truly independent coverage by American journalists. Embedding journalists was a stroke of genius by the military propagandists.
Its also a simple fact of life most of the major media outlets have been incredibly reticent to cover controversial aspects of the war until recently for fear they will be branded unpatriotic, and that it will hurt their ratings which will hurt their advertising revenue. They know Fox will launch a broadside at them if they stray away from the party line that all is well in Iraq, and a host of politicians like Tom Delay will accuse them of treacherously undermining our troops in the field.
If you look at the coverage of Vietnam those journalists actually covered the real war in all its gore and ugliness. It caused Vietnam to become extremely unpopular, but mostly because people actually saw what was happening. The Pentagon has gone to great lengths to make Iraq appear to be clean, neat, tidy and heroic, though only by covering up most of the blood and the brutality which only came to light because a private with a conscience made a report they couldn't ignore and someone else with a conscience finally leaked the pictures at great personal risk, just like Daniel Elsberg did with the Pentagon papers during Vietnam. If that person hadn't stuck there neck out to expose this I doubt you would have ever seen the pictures because the were classified and DOD would have buried them, while they court martialed some little fish.
Its a simple fact that since 9/11 the Bush Administration decided to take the gloves off and have been condoning torture in myriad ways but with plausible deniability, by doing it at Guantanamo off shore, by sending prisoners to foreign governments like Syria and Saudi Arabia for torture, and by just looking the other way in Iraq and Afghanistan. The whole point of creating the term "enemy combatants" in place of POW's and in side stepping Geneva convention protections was precisely so that intelligence could be gathered by any means necessary. The soldiers in Iraq are probably being court martialed for being stupid enough to take pictures that destroyed plausible deniability more than for the actual torturing.
Its important to note Cheney and Rumsfeld are experts at hiding brutality by the American military. They are the leading suspects for having buried the investigation of the 101st Airborne's Tiger force that went on a civilian killing spree in central Vietnam. That investigation died in the Nixon administration during Rumsfeld's first stint as Secretary of Defense and while Cheney was Nixon's chief of staff.
Fact is since 9/11 the Bush administration felt they were facing a ruthless enemy and if they wanted to win they had to be equally ruthless. Unfortunately in Iraq, with the surfacing of these pictures, its undermined the only remaining rationale for the war in Iraq, that the U.S. was liberating the Iraqi's from Saddam's brutality when in fact the U.S. is being pretty brutal itself. Its hard for the Bush administration to rant against "Saddam's rape rooms" when proof has surfaced that the rape rooms are still in use today.
@de_machina
I hear ya. My Dad was a Sergeant with Australian Infantry, doing two tours, and I tell ya, the slide shows we get at home are fucking seriously scary. Nobody wants a loved one to go to war.
The pictures on Iwo Jima were just as stated and shown above, but they were not reinacted, according to the photographer who took them. This is all now very well researched. There was another (fourth) picture of the platoon taken at the same time, on the same roll, with everyone facing the camera, which was obviously posed, and more "formal". Later, there was confusion when the photographer was asked whether some of the pictures were posed, and he replied yes, thinking of this other "formal" picture. The famous photo was an unrehearsed, unreinacted, replacement of the original flag with a larger one.
"At least" is a good qualifer for something from Oct-Dec 2003, more like six months. And 60 Minutes II and the Washington Post have been the first two with pics, not the NYT. You're quite correct that the digital nature of the photograph really has no bearing; the pictures would look the same in the grain of film.
While I'm posting, anyone check out the original Army report? The Smoking Gun has a PDF.
Allow me to finish my post by quoting my favorite section from the fifty-three page report (n.b. Too long for Rumsfield to read):
6. (S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:
a. (S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
b. (S) Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
c. (S) Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d. (S) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e. (S) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear;
f. (S) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g. (S) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
h. (S) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
i. (S) Writing "I am a Rapest" (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
j. (S) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
k. (S) A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
l. (S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
m. (S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees. (ANNEXES 25 and 26)
8. (U) In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses (ANNEX 26):
a. (U) Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;
b. (U) Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;
c. (U) Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
d. (U) Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;
e. (U) Threatening male detainees with rape;
f. (U) Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell;
g. (U) Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.
h. (U) Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
Robert Fisk (reporter for the independant in Baghdad thinks that the soldiers were instructed to do what they did.
Not stupid -extremely calculated:
"Someone decided that the photos would be the final straw, the breaking point, the moment of capitulation for these young men. Make them simulate oral sex. Make them look at the penis of their best friend. Get a girl to admire their attempted erection. This was truly Saddamite in its perversity. So let's, as the Americans say, get real. Who taught Lynndie and her boyfriend and the other American sadists of Abu Ghraib prison to do this?"
What I'd really like to point out here is a certain section of the U.S. Army report on Iraqi prisoner abuse titled "OTHER FINDINGS/OBSERVATIONS".
Exactly. They excelled in believing the enemy image that they needed to believe to carry out their military tasks with excellence as well. The reason why those incidents took place, is because some soldiers have been simlpy too long in the frontlines. Some soldiers are allready serving in Iraq for 19 months. Their reality has been reduced to 'kill or be killed'. They have no control over their 'enemy', and their 'enemy image' has been broadened from the Iraqi army/regime to the whole Iraqi populace.
Imagine yourself, having no control over your enemy, being utterly frustrated with the war, and fearing every day some bomb is going to go off near your head. Being near some detained people under these circumstances, for whatever reason, will probably be enough for a lot of people to just completely freak out.
I'm not trying to talk them out of their guilt, because they are guilty, but I think the whole U.S. military is to blame. And the American public as well. The American society absolutely loves the military for their acts of grandeur, in a simplistic kind of way. I hope now finally these photos will wake up people from the ncie dream they have about sophisticated technology in the hands of simple minds at the helm of the most destructive force in the entire world for far too long, and imho, for the wrong reasons. The US prides itself continuously on their morality, their faith, and the fact that god will be on their side. But American morality often is not more than pretty lyrics that keep the dream alive. The reality is that those men serving in the military have been completely brainwashed in order to kill in the most efficient way, and that our modern military society even then EXPECTS THEM TO BE MORALY sane. But I'm afraid these supermen never have, do not and will never exist.
So please stop touting about how well they acted in war, when in fact, they are completely fucked up in their heads. Thank you.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Although the capturing device has accelerated the 'flash to print' time, the main reason why the Iraqi photos travelled around the world so fast was the networking infrastructure that meant that they could be sent and received quickly.
A major factor in the publishing delay for WW2 photos was the time it took for the photo to get to one or more mechanisms for mass-distribution (i.e. then, the Newspapers).
Prior to the rise of the interconnected broadband public Internet, the only way that photos could be sent was by proprietary point-to-point sytems: initially wire transfer, more recently various forms of ISDN connection.
It was only during the 20th Century that the mass distribution of pictorial information became possible - through Newspapers, News reels and then TV.
In all this, the evolution of the camera itself plays a very small part... It is the rise of the public internet, with common (open) standards that allows hi-resolution photos to be sent quickly with confidence that they'll arrive in a form that can be viewed and published has transformed photo-journalism, along with the option for these photos to be published to massive audiences at almost no cost via public web sites.
A Recent Reuters article states some questionable methods of interrogation were approved to be used in Guatanamo Bay.
I've always found it ironic that the US believes everyone looks up to them and aspires to be like them when in my experience (and I've been to a LOT of places around the world) the US is used as a reference on how NOT to be.
Someone named Fred said it much better than I could:
Note how obedient the Iraqis are. Think about this. One man doesn't give another a blow job for the amusement of Twiggy unless he is terrified of the consequences if he refuses. Is it only psychological torture? In the pictures, yes. Somebody is behind them with whips and pliers. Those men are scared shitless, and they have a reason.
That's an excerpt from here.