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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."
As a result of the near-instant publishing of "sensitive" materials, expect to see the military prohibit digital cameras shortly.
Yeah, right.
The Washington Post was allowed to post the Pentagon papers because they had a million lawyers behind them.. If we go to a mostly indy media, can the government harass editors and throw them into prison
If you think this isn't possible, what's changed between now and the alien and sedition act of before?
As I said, I don't think the pics are re-touched. That kind of shit always goes on in war, by all sides. It stinks, but it happens.
In fact, compared to some pictures I've seen out of Vietnam, those pictures are pretty G rated. A guy I know has a truck full of slides that would puke a dog off a gut wagon. Bits and pieces and crispy critters.
It's possible that the presence of the cameras actually made the abusers more harsh.
How many times do you do stupid things in pictures that you wouldn't normally do? When someone points the camera at you and you make a stupid face--would you make the stupid face at that person if they weren't taking the picture?
The same thing may have happened here. The abusers likely got caught up in the idea "this is funny! let's pose them THIS way! hahaha... now let's pose them THAT way!" If the cameras weren't there, the abuse still might have happened--but the abusers may have lost interest in it much more quickly--and thus spared some of the prisoners the abuse.
Those soldiers were stupid, like the photographing nanking
OK, as a vet, I know of what I speak. I was pretty much a mercenary, in it for the college fund.
Most (not all) people join the Army because they are poor and ignorant. It's a step up. IIRC, the bunch who took the pictures were reservists from West Virginia (I may be wrong). Reservists are not as well trained as regular Army troops.
These people were no different than idiot teenagers who video themselves trashing houses, beating up bums and shooting people with paint guns.
Except the teenagers don't wind up in Leveanworth...
Could it be because they are in fucking Dubai enjoying all the nice official pictures on those plasma screens?
Or could it be because they are busy sipping drinks at some Hotel in Baghdad?
Or *gasp* could it be becasue they are [in]embedded with coalition forces?
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
He was a chopper pilot who flew three tours. He carried a camera all the time and made slides of all the pictures he took. A mini-gun, rocket, bomb or napalm can *REALLY* make a mess of people.
That was a nasty ass war. The VC and NVA did really, really evil shit. So did we.
It's the whole "stare into the abyss" thing.
Yes, today's pictures can be photoshopped, but retouching war pictures or contriving them in general is hardly new. The famous Iwo Jima photo was not the actual flag raising right after the battle, but a re-enactment for the camera (God I hope I'm right about that, actually)
And when war photography first came to the fore, during the US Civil War, photography was treated like paintings, and photos were taken after the battles with soldiers set up in posed, contrived positions because of the long exposure time.
Just something to think about. The camera can be remarkable for conveying accurate truths, or for conveying convincing lies.
Yup...
I'm reminded of Thomas Nast, the cartoonist whose work in Harper's Weekly brought down Boss Tweed in 1870s New York. Tweed's timeless lament: ?Stop them damn pictures. I don?t care so much what the papers write about me. My constituents can?t read. But, damn it, they can see pictures.? Looks like 130 years and ubiquitous public education hasn't done much to improve the masses, but the power of images remains.
I'm tempted to offer to host them, if he needs somewhere, as part of the moral obligation we all have to document the effects of our actions, including war.
I don't have resources to scan large numbers of slides, unfortunately. But I can provide Web space.
Liam
Live barefoot!
free engravings/woodcuts
First - the bright side of thing is that army procedures at least are working somewhat - as in there were actual investigations even without publicity (though when the punishment for what the army itself calls "murder" is just being thrown out of the army and never serving any jail time...). However, this seems to be going on *despite* the Pentagon leadership who tried to minimise their scope and people's knowledge of them as much as possible within the boundaries of existing law and is more a testament to the strong structures put in place by previous Pentagon leaders and previous lawmakers rather than any real care for human rights of the current ones (who probably see them as more hinderences to their goals than anything else). This is why we need strong rights and checks and balances in a democracy. This example also shows the need for a strong free press in a democracy. What we are seeing are that the democratic structures in the US that previous generations laboured to put in place are still working.
Now, onto the bad side.
Personally, one of the things I find most repellent about the Pentagon's reaction to this issue is that they seem to see this more as a PR disaster then a humanitarian disaster. Of course they are making noises about how terrible it was blah, blah, blah. But Rumsfeld also complained mightily in his recent interview about how annoyed they are they are restricted by "peacetime rules" and hence can't control the dissemation of photos and videos on the web from servicemen and so the photos are getting to the media first without being vetted by the Pentagon.
"We're functioning in a - with peacetime restraints, with legal requirements in a wartime situation, in the information age, where people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise, when they had not even arrived in the Pentagon."
As a result there have been mutterings of increased censorship of servicemen from the Pentagon. Before the photos came out, they tried to suppress the details of the information as much as possible without being able to be accused of doing something illegal eg. press releases released at times they know no-one will be paying attention (an old government trick) with only the barest details (not even the names of the soldiers accused nor any real details of the crimes). Nor was there any attempt to inform Congress at all (even though they were having high level meetings with Congress just a few hours before the photos were published and the Pentagon had known about it for ages as they asked CBS to delay broadcasting them during the fighting at Fallujah). Is it just me, or does *everything* about Iraq seem to shock Congress nowadays? "We didn't know anything!" seems to be their standard response. They are getting to be pretty useless as one of the 3 branches of government. The report about the prison abuses that was leaked to the New Yorker is defined as "Secret" even though the Pentagon admitted there was no real reason for it to be so.
Also the fact that they are trying to pass this off as a few rogue soldiers rather than a systematic problem (which is something their own report and the Red Cross make clear). It almost seems as if the major problem is not that what happened happened, but the fact that the mass media actually found out and are making a big story about it. Now, let's hang some soldiers as scapegoats, make a few noises about "being sorry" and hope it all goes away without us having to make any real changes so we can go back to doing the same thing as before.
Pictures can't be criticized as being biased (not much anyhow). Pictures can't be called liars. Legitimate pictures can't be disputed as being false (the truth of the matter can be proven quickly).
Words can be spun. People's reports can be biased. Words can be taken out of context.
I don't believe that at all. The pictures looked bad of course, but that was nothing compared to the report that went along with them. The pictures showed troops going over the line, but not as dramatically as the report does. The pictures don't show rape, sodomy, or any other of the serious tortures that took place.
I think most people can understand the use of a little excessive physical force, and all the reports I heard previously never said anything more than that... Reports of "abuse" can be taken so many ways.
The biggest reason pictures are important is because it gives credibility to the words from any source. So, until the pictures came out, the press was incredibly cautious when discussing abuses. Now that they have the pictures, they've finally put all the "words" out in the open.
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Here's the quote with more context:Rumsfeld is answering a question pertaining to why he didn't publicly preempt the media by divulging the crimes and the photographs himself rather than delaying their release until after the investigation.
My interpretation is that in hindsight, he wishes he had, but that there were no extant military criminal procedures to do that, even though that would have been helpful in the court of public opinion. In the last paragraph (which you quote), Rumsfeld is summarizing the difficulty of managing traditional military protocol, including investigation (e.g. at the Pentagon) with the importance of US, Iraqi and, indeed, world public relations.
There is certainly a balance which must be struck between military (or even police) action and public divulgence. Consider if it turned out (as it has in many other cases) that the reports or the pictures were fake. Divulging the pictures or the charges prior to an investigation into their veracity can greatly mislead the public. Then again, acknowledging the possibility that they might be true may help.
I do not think it can be concluded that the solution Rumsfeld put forth is to "make new rules about cameras in the vicinity of sanctioned torture and rape". If anything, the context implies that the Senator's and Rumsfeld's solution is to develop procedures that will allow for some public divulgence prior to a completed criminal military investigation.
A sibling poster questioned the "against the law" portion. I suspect Rumsfeld may be referring to the Geneva convention or other military rules of which I am unfamiliar.
I was a soldier for 16 years. Not in the US military, but in my time I've build roads, bridges, hospitals, fed people whose villages were destroyed by a tidal wave, cleared landmines, and been deployed to countries in risk of being over run by their powerful neighbors, but never had to kill anyone. Spent plenty of time carrying a loaded weapon in places where it was a distinct possibility though, and several of my close friends did need to kill people.
.50 cal awake for 3 days, under a degree of stress that someone from a pampered and priviliged existance has trouble comprehending.
Despite what sheltered individuals such as yourself may believe, the military isn't fundamentally about killing people. The machinery and act of killing people is incidental, and subordinate to its primary aim as a tool by which to absolutely impose by a collective act of will an outcome on people who don't want to accept negotiation or rational argument.
Killing is often necessery, and the tools and preparations and training for killing form a big part of military training. Sometime killing happens inadvertently due to supidity, or carelessness or racism, or maybe because some private has been at that
Members of the military are merely a broad spectrum from the society they are drawn from , and there are many very clever, intelligent , funny, caring human beings in most militaries, all the way through to people who really are at the shallow end of the gene pool, are ethically and morally deficient, and easily suggestible. At the end of the day, regardless of their background, abilities, or motivation for joining, these people have given up some of their freedom and human rights, and an unlimited liability to their society, so people like you have the right to call them sick fucks, and sleep in a warm bed safe at night.
To the survivors of some of the places I and some of my fellow soldiers have been deployed to, when option a) was continuing to be collectively abused and repressed by violent thugs, and option b) was for soldiers to drive them away, clear the roads of landmines, and allow the NGOs to start rebuilding their country, the benefits were far more direct and tangible, than inventing a cure for cancer.
The military is nothing but a tool for a government to use, and if you don't like how your government uses your military, and you have the luxury of living in some form of democracy, take a good hard look at yourself, and the government you elected.
Although there are pertubations, democratic countries generally get the quality of government they ask for.
The arguable inevitability of the subjugation of the nation-state to the multi-national corporation is a whole other argument.
Well, as long as US officials deny the "detainees" the status as prisoners of war and thus the rights one gets with that status, I guess the Geneva Convention really doesn't bother Rumsfeld that much.
When American soldiers get captured and tortured, beaten or whatever, US press and officials are all over the place shouting "Respect the Geneva convention", while the soldiers the US capture are denied that basic right.
Also, it is strange that it doesn't bother the US public more that there are also employees of private companies responsible for torture and interrogation. Why don't the US just outsource the whole war to some company?
It is disgusting.