"In contemporary conflicts, any mention of culture
may mask the sound of a revolver being drawn" Hermann Goering
(Quoted in Paul & Bogler 1998: 35).

Author George Orwell (1949) wrote about the future of the modern world at a time when 1984 was merely a date in the distance. The seeds for Orwell’s dystopian reality can be found in today’s society: "And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’,” (p. 20). The fact that today’s modern state is itself one filled with the conflicting realities of success and failure, knowledge and ignorance, torture and peace – it is crucial to examine how such dichotomies have come to shape the seemingly progressive reality of today.

Many have deemed the invasion of Iraq as the American government’s ‘brass-knuckled quest for information’ – a strong statement given that the self-appointed ‘land of the free’ is insinuating that justice can be achieved regardless of the cost. As President George W. Bush stated, “I will never relent in defending America – whatever it takes” (quoted in Draper, 2007, p. 390). However, one power that the Bush administration failed to consider is the power of digital technology. With the war in Iraq being filtered to the American public through the use of sound bites and rumors, there is an extreme disconnect between what is happening on the frontlines in the Middle East and the information available to the public. The mediated message that has been crucial for the Bush administration in selling the war to the masses has suddenly, through digital technology, started to be questioned. While truth can be considered the first casualty of the Iraq war, it is important to examine how technological advancements in the hands of amateurs have reshaped the notion of truth. With the unprecedented release of controversial photographs from the American military prison, Abu Ghraib, the existing beliefs regarding activities in Iraq have been altered. The representation of war that was captured by the personal cameras of American soldiers has provided a tool for examining the difference between the redacted images shown in newspapers and the landmark amateur photographs that illustrate what really happens when the unexpected becomes public:

When the first words and images about Abu Ghraib appeared in May 2004, much of the initial shock came from sheer surprise. None of us had ever seen anything like this. Now, after seeing so much analysis and exegesis, the novelty fades but the revulsion is deeper: the hooded, naked, manacled men huddle by cell gates; the grinning US soldiers point at the prisoners’ genitals; the off-stage photographer obsessively records each move; dogs are about to attack naked men in their cells. I must admit to my own private reaction: these are the only atrocity images that I have seen that I literally cannot bear to see again (Cohen 2005: 27).

The ‘War on Terror’ has become a war synonymous with technology. The realities of Abu Ghraib made their way into the lives of Americans as a result of the power of such technologies in transferring digital images from the frontlines of Baghdad to the front pages of national newspapers:

Where once photographing war was the province of photojournalists, now the soldiers themselves are all photographers – recording their war, their fun, their observations of what they find picturesque, their atrocities – and swapping images among themselves and emailing them around the globe (Sontag 2004: 27).

For the American military the war’s latest adversary may be digital technologies such as digital cameras, home video recorders and cell phone cameras, and their ability to disseminate images that question the status quo. The technology of photography has become an unpredictable insurgent, a detrimental, and unforeseen weapon against the Americans in Iraq: “Abu Ghraib initially became big news because digital cameras in the hands of military personnel enabled the press to build a story that was largely buried behind Pentagon walls before the photos emerged” (Bennett et al., 2006: 468). As Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, stated: “[Today’s soldiers] 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” (quoted in Sontag, 2007, p. 27).

The digital images from Abu Ghraib were shot by American soldiers from an American cultural perspective, with a common understanding of legitimate means of torture, as constructed by popular media. The American soldiers posted at Abu Ghraib relied on their own knowledge of torture to inflict pain on Iraqi prisoners. Such references to the knowledge of traditional methods of torture are often displayed in a humorous or sanitized fashion in such Hollywood films as Dazed and Confused or G.I. Jane (see Appendix 1). The American public did not bat an eye at the acts of sexual violence, domination, and abuse depicted in such films, and yet when the heroic soldier proudly wearing the American flag is caught referring to such visual references, shock and outrage follow. The hypocrisy of the occurrences at Abu Ghraib and the subsequent coverage in the U.S of the abuse, reflects the power structure of a society that prides itself on its seemingly upstanding morality while producing visual images (through both film, television and magazine photos), that compromise any notion of a sound morality. In examining the unfolding of an event that those in power had hoped would never surface, it is evident that the sanctity of American society has been compromised. With the accounts of torture at Abu Ghraib having been exposed, the once seemingly truthful coverage of the War in Iraq is now, more than ever, being questioned.

The manner in which the events of Abu Ghraib have been manipulated by politics, redacted by the press, and altered by photographers made these acts of torture especially troubling to the American public. This paper sets to provide an interpretation of the manner in which the American President, the public, and the press reacted to the release of the photographs of torture from Abu Ghraib prison.

First, the manner in which the images were accidentally released to the public brings up questions of power and authority in American society. The common trope, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, which traditionally was used with regard to the policy about homosexuality in the U.S. military (Shilits 1994), appears to have become the motto for the agreement between the press and the military regarding the war in Iraq. When such an agreement is breached, primarily as a result of the availability of technology, journalistic autonomy is questioned.

Second, the shock and awe value of the photographs is surprising, given that it can be argued that these images released from Abu Ghraib are similar to depictions of visual imagery that represent pictorial narratives found in American culture. These photographs are similar to classic images of sex and violence depicted in today’s popular culture. The fact that these acts were performed by the American soldier, a figure who traditionally upholds American values and vigor, makes these photographs contentious. In addition, it is important to examine the culturally tailored torture techniques that emerged at the hands of American soldiers who resorted to torture techniques previously witnessed in popular visual images.

Finally, when the occurrences at Abu Ghraib were discussed by the media the topic of torture was undermined. Regardless of the visual images representing torture, the press began to manipulate the American public’s idea of torture by relying on specific semantics in their coverage. The press became diffident in reporting on whether the actions were those of abuse or torture and who was to blame for the seemingly ‘out of control’ actions of the 800^th Military Police Brigade stationed at Abu Ghraib.

Manipulate: To influence or manage shrewdly or deviously

The manipulation of the perceived events in Iraq managed to convince the American public that the prisoners at an American prison were being treated in an acceptable manner. However, what was considered ‘acceptable’ was up for debate. “The behavior at Abu Ghraib is nothing more than a good time… sort of like hazing, a fraternity prank. Sort of like that kind of fun” (quoted in Warner, 2004, p. 74). This statement was uttered by Rush Limbaugh in May 2004, when asked about the alleged abusive occurrences taking place behind the walls of Abu Ghraib prison. Many Americans were shocked and confused when confronted by the scandalous pictures appearing in The New York Times: “The events depicted in the photos demanded interpretation as they were highly challenging to American’s social identity as a morally upright nation” (Bennett et al, 2006, p. 470). How could a country that prides itself on morality, have committed such disgraceful acts? The rumors could not be real – and then the photos were released:

When U.S Army Specialist Joseph Darby arrived at this post at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in November 2003, he heard about a shooting in Tier 1A. He asked the military police officer in charge of the area, Specialist Charles Graner, if there were any photos of the site. Garner gave him two CDs of photos, but they were not what Darby expected to see. As a Washington Post story later put it, those images would soon become “iconic, among them, the naked human pyramid, the hooded man standing on a box hooked up to wires…” (Higham & Stephens, 2004). It is a measure of the photographs’ impact that they could be described as ‘iconic’ only three weeks after CBS’s 60 Minutes II made the photos public on April 28, 2004 (Bennett et al, 2006, p. 467).

The power of the printed image has been a longstanding tradition during times of war. Newspapers printed images from the frontlines in order to help bring the reality of the battlefield to the homes of those awaiting loved ones. It is the choice of news journalists to decide which photos are printed and which ones are discarded—strategically selecting a specific war storyline to provide to viewers while still keeping the agenda of the day in mind. With journalists wary of which photos to publish and whether the pubic should be aware of the goings on behind prison bars in Baghdad, journalistic autonomy began to be compromised, with the line between fact and fiction starting to blur.

In Salon of 1859, Baudelaire wrote, “A foul society has flung itself, like Narcissus, to gaze at its trivial image on metal” (quoted in Tagg, 1988, p. 51). The power of the technology of the photograph has managed to endure the test of time as a result of its indisputable rawness – transmitting the reality of any situation in a manner that is open to all interpretations. The iconographic power of the photograph provides viewers with a currency unlike any other technology – both amateurs and professionals have the ability to capture events, and neither is more or less powerful than the other. According to communications historian James Tagg (1980), the emergence of the photographic camera from a professional tool to a layman’s hobby is what has allowed many scholars to examine the power struggles within a given society:

In the decades of the 1880s and the 1890s, photography underwent a double technical revolution, enabling, on the one hand, the mass production of cheaply printed half-tone blocks and, on the other hand, the mass production of simple and convenient photographic equipment. At the very moment when certain professional photographers were seeking, in reaction, to exhibit their status as artists in all kinds of refinement of printing technique, this double revolution stripped the image of what Walter Benjamin called its ‘aura’ by flooding the market with cheap and disposable photo-mechanical reproductions and by giving the untrained masses the means to picture themselves (p. 66).

The defining moment in the history of the photographic camera was the instant the technology became available to the masses (ibid, p. 65). Gone were the days when those with both power and money captured the events of the day, suddenly the amateur was given autonomy in deciding what was worthy of remembrance: “An ideological contradiction was negotiated so that photographic practice could be divided between the domain of art, whose privilege is a function of its lack of power, and the scientifico-technical domain, whose power is a function of its renunciation of privilege” (ibid, p. 66). For the men and women who began capturing their actions at Abu Ghraib on their digital camera, they too were exercising power through the photographic lens. However, it is crucial to examine why these soldiers decided to have Iraqi prisoners pose in the specific way that they were represented. In analyzing the photographs, it is evident that a specific power relation was being performed—that of a colonizer imposing specific standards on the colonized. All of the photos represent a classical American visual reference point: the hoods that are similar to those used by the Klu Klux Klan, poses emulating American pornography, or even a thumbs-up gesture by a smiling soldier. These images, if taken out of their context, can be found in visual imagery across the country.

With the combination of professionals and amateurs contributing to the construction of photographic images, underlying representations of power and identity are consequently created. Michel Foucault argued that, “power in the West is what displays itself most and hides itself best,” (quoted in Freund, 1980, p. 10). The mistaken release of the Abu Ghraib photographs to the media by American Army Specialist Joseph Darby illustrates how new technology challenges the West’s power structure as described by Foucault. For Foucault (1979), power relations are best examined in comparison to punishment and how the punishment of criminals by those in power is a direct commentary on the discourse of authority in society: “The punishment is carried out in such a way as to give a spectacle not of measure, but of imbalance and excess; in this liturgy of punishment, there must be an emphatic affirmation of power and of its intrinsic superiority” (p. 49). The disturbing photographs taken by the soldiers at Abu Ghraib encourages this notion of political discourse whereby there is always a powerful and a subservient character in the narrative of punishment.

Redacted: To prepare, edit or revise for publication

When the press was confronted with Darby’s digital photographs, editorial boards from major newspapers across the country met to discuss how such images directly challenged the War in Iraq narrative that had previously been presented to the public. Questions about trust, control and depictions of power circulated as editors considered how to respond to images that contradicted what had been deemed the status quo. In the photographs from Abu Ghraib, the relations of power are shockingly depicted. With soldiers flippantly directing a thumbs-up to the camera, while grinning beside a pile of naked bodies, Foucault’s notion of the power of punishment cannot be more evident (see Appendix 2):

The photos on 60 Minutes II, on Wednesday, April 28, 2004 were riveting – a hooded figure in a ragged black poncho balanced uneasily on a box, an off-kilter Halloween Christ with bare feet and palms plaintively open, electric wires running from the hands like the strings of a marionette; an American girl with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth in one photo and an impish grin in another as she points derisively at the genitals of a naked, hooded Iraqi man and signals thumbs up; smiling soldier behind naked men posed in a tangled human pyramid; hooded, stripped prisoners simulating fellatio and sodomy; an unmuzzled dog snarling at a cowering, naked prisoner (Rajiva 2005: 10).

American art historian Aby Warburg argues that photographic representations are merely mirroring society’s pre-established priorities and ideals (cited in Eisenman, 2007, p. 38). He terms this phenomenon, the ‘Hellenistic pathos formula” – theorizing that photographs are representations of ‘introverted oppression, eroticized chastisement or rationalized torture” (Warburg, 1998, p. 90). In examining the pornographic nature of the majority of the photographs released from Abu Ghraib, Warburg’s theory is confirmed. The reference point that these soldiers referred to when carrying out the acts of torture can be found in popular images from many mainstream media; Media that normalizes such images of domination in television shows, advertisements, and films.

A news article published in The Washington Post on May 11, 2005, attempted to disprove the argument that the soldiers who committed the acts were psychologically unsound: “The U.S. troops who abused Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were most likely not pathological sadists, but ordinary people who felt they were doing the dirty work needed to win the war,” (quoted in Bennett et al, 2006, p. 475). The ambiguous term ‘dirty work’ takes on many meanings and when one has to consider which techniques to resort to in order to extract information, many turn to what they know. For the average American, images of violence are rendered realistic and possible through their depiction in popular media. These soldiers relied on pre-existing notions of torture that they learned through witnessing fictional accounts in movies, television shows, and videogames to aid them in fulfilling what they deemed their ‘patriotic duty’.

According to Brooke Warner (2004), author of Panic: Origins, Insight, and Treatment, the heuristic approach to coercion applied by soldiers at Abu Ghraib is most visible in examining the torturous acts committed by female soldiers toward Iraqi prisoners:

Perhaps the three women’s transgressions are unique because of something the feminist movement worked toward but whose generation never completely embraced. But this generation gets it, lives it. Women are no longer the “delicate sex.” Young women are tough, hard-edged, and aware of their power. The post-feminist world is an increasingly more violent world. Television, cinema, and videogames have had an effect, no matter what the media moguls claim to the contrary” (p. 71).

The images released from Abu Ghraib depicting female soldiers holding onto a leash around a prisoner’s neck references a form of sexual domination that is often encouraged by images in popular media (see Appendix 3). Ironically, the images from Abu Ghraib that shocked the nation are fundamentally based on pornographic images that have been circulating in popular culture for years. However, now that the all-American soldier from the land of the free has taken the reigns into his or her hands, an underlying American belief has been shaken to the core. Yet, the images of sexual domination, homosexual eroticism, and rape are images that have already been caught on film – and have been viewed by many Americans.

According to communications scholar Richard Jackson Harris (2004), erotica as a stimulator of aggression is becoming more widespread in American media: “Sexual violence is by no means confined to pornographic materials restricted from minors” (p. 307). Therefore, the generation of soldiers fighting in Iraq grew up with more images of sexual violence than their parents or grandparents who fought in Vietnam or World War II (see Appendix 4). Vietnam veterans were exposed to the nostalgic sense of sexuality from Playboy, while today’s soldiers have the world of Internet pornography at their fingertips. With the Internet available to the troops in Baghdad, their access to sexual images is more predominant than previous generations of troops.

Harris cautions the media industry, explaining that individuals who are prone to use violence in their own lives are more likely to become aroused or incited to violence by sexually violent media: “Sexually violent media often affect men very differently depending on their propensity to use force in their own lives” (ibid). With the military encouraging violent means of resolution in times of conflict, combined with the socialization of many soldiers growing up in an era of television where rape and sexual violence are normalized, it seems inevitable that the events at Abu Ghraib occurred:

The Taguba report finds that an American MP “had sex” with an Iraqi woman; Iraqi women were forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts (according to some reports also their genitals); and naked female prisoners were videotaped. The evidence was shown to Congress but not deemed suitable for the public… The anonymous letter writer ‘Noor’ claims that she and others were stripped, raped, and impregnated by American soldiers. The lawyer Swadi investigates and finds her case credible and representative of systematic abuse and torture by U.S. guards “all across Iraq” (Rajiva, 2005, p. 133).

While Harris argues that sex and violence in mainstream movies is often characterized by the woman as the victim of rape, a combination of homoerotic practices and reverse sexism occurred at Abu Ghraib,. Female soldiers took up the role of sexual dominator, performing what could be interpreted as vengeful acts against Iraqi men, often emulating dominatrix images from popular culture. Salon writer Cathy Hong quoted neoconservative author Stephanie Guttman as saying, “Women can act just as badly as men. I think they have been aware of the Islamic attitude about women – which is not respectful. They may have subtly enjoyed being sadistic to the kind of men who enjoy humiliating other women” (Warner 2004: 75). The male soldiers also acted out their own fantasies, reverting to fraternity-like hazing rituals as acts of torture or dominance, thereby subjecting the Iraqi prisoners to the role of rookie or freshman (see Appendix 5). As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, “[it was] a good time… sort of like hazing, a fraternity prank” (quoted in Warner, 2004, p. 74).

While these images are consistent with the notion of American soldiers colonizing the Iraqi people, it is crucial to consider the role of authority in encouraging such behavior. The American soldiers resorted to a culturally displaced form of punishment, a means of colonization imposing American standards of torture on a culture whose idea of humiliation and punishment is worlds apart. The acts of torture at Abu Ghraib can be seen as culturally tailored, with soldiers relying on their prior knowledge of torture (in an American milieu) as a standard of mistreatment:

Arab Islamic people value modesty as a means of minimizing sexual interest during the public routines of life and as symbolic submission to God. Female modesty is well known. Westerners would have no intuitive feeling for the unbearable shame of a father and son forced to face one another stark naked, with genitals exposed (Rubmin 2004: 9).

Floyd W. Rudmin (2004), author of Torture at Abu Ghraib, and the Telling Silence of Social Scientists, argues that previously gathered information regarding Arabic cultural norms was used in devising ‘appropriate’ forms of torture at Abu Ghrab: “It is most unlikely that reservist guards from Virginia could have found that positioning pornographic or could have conceived it themselves as a torture technique. The work of social scientists was probably involved in devising such torture” (p. 9).

While the soldiers themselves resorted to their own exposure to torturous methods, social scientists well versed in Arab cultural norms may have been involved in the devising of such acts. A text that some researchers have marked as a landmark document in its explanation of the cultural differences between Arabs and Americans is Raphael Patai’s 1973 book, The Arab Mind (cited in Starrett, 2004, p. 11). Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist whose Abu Ghraib accounts in The New York Times have been deemed the most-telling descriptions of the horrors behind the accusations, cited Patai’s work in his research for the American military: “[The Arab Mind] as one source of our government’s understanding of the psychological vulnerabilities of Arabs, including the notion that Arab men are particularly subject to sexual shame” (ibid, p. 10).

The majority of American soldiers were raised in a culture that focused on virginity, vulgarity and victory encouraged by Hollywood films and MTV, a different view of sexuality is often espoused. According to Patai, Arabs approach sexuality from a more discrete and sacred perspective: “To the Arab mind, the realm of sex is a more personal and more sensitive area of life than to the modern Westerner” (p. 126). Therefore, the sexually violent acts of torture at Abu Ghraib, while appearing as almost second-nature to Americans (as a result of images from popular media) were foreign to the prisoners. In fact, in The Arab Mind, Patai references that sexual experiences are regarded as sinful in the Arabic culture:

In the typical Arab home, the existence of infantile sexuality is either ignored or denied. The repressive attitude of the mothers with reference to sexual manifestations in their children is so strong that 75 per cent of the mothers questioned in a study on the subject stated that their children had never handled their own genitals… The result of such child-rearing practices within the context of a religiously oriented culture, as Arab culture, is to create a close association in the child’s mind between sex and sin… In biblical Hebrew and Talmudic Jewish societies, fornication (i.e. any kind of illicit sexual activity) “was looked upon as the arch-sin, the sin most hateful to God, the one sin that He can never forgive”. This ancient view has been retained completely by the Arabs to this day (ibid, p. 129).

As a result, not only were the prisoners at Abu Ghraib being humiliated by American soldiers, they were also disgracing their God in being forced to perform sexual acts. This cultural clash implemented by U.S soldiers occurred as a result of the disparity in sexual images originating from two opposite cultures. The readily available visual images, inundated with sexual references, are second nature to the American population. However, in a culture where sexual propriety is highly regarded, such acts are more destructive than perhaps intended.

Alter: To change or make different; modify

The events from Abu Ghraib are just that—raw events that the public, the press and the President could not ignore. However, the controversy surrounding the Abu Ghraib images reached a new perspective when famed photographer Andres Serrano created his own interpretation of Abu Ghraib for the cover story of The New York Times Magazine on June 12, 2005. Instead of resorting to the amateur photographs released to the press, Serrano created his own interpretation of the photographs (see Appendix 6). While Serrano’s photographs were representative of the kind of abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib, they were much considerably more tame and constructed than the real images.

The series of three photographs contained underlying influences of American power using neutral representations of the horrific atrocities that actually took place. The first photograph shows two hands bound together with wire; the second photo provided readers with the image of a man’s face covered by a white cloth, with a water bottle being poured over him; and finally, the last photograph contained merely a dark figure with a pointed hood over his face – not dissimilar to historical photos of the Klu Klux Klan (see Appendix 7).

These constructed images printed in The New York Times Magazine allowed readers to consider whether the tame photos were accurately representational of the atrocities (Duganne, 2007, p. 70). The mild suffering illustrated in the photos undermines the abusive activities that occurred at Abu Ghraib. In strategically selecting photographs that were not as shocking as the original digital images, the authenticity of the events at Abu Ghraib is questioned. These photos do not provide an answer—they problematically attempt to make abuse artistic:

The manner in which the compositions are meticulously composed – right down to the trickle of blood running down one of the handcuffed hands – suggest that the suffering may in fact, not be “real”. That the photographs were taken by artist Andres Serrano heightens this association. Known for highly stylized and carefully staged images that often depict bizarre, morbid, and what some consider offensive subject matter, Serrano’s name – one that many Times readers would find familiar – also placed into question the ‘realism’ of what is depicted (ibid, p. 72).

The common argument that art represents life should be reconsidered with regard to how the press strategically chose to display the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. The constructed photographs undermine the horrors faced by Iraqi prisoners and instead are presented in a more aesthetic manner – a representational account that hardly does justice to the acts.

Subjugate: To bring under complete control or subjection; conquer, master

Along with deciding which digital images to provide or conceal to readers or viewers, the press also had to decide whether to refer to the atrocities at Abu Ghraib as forms of ‘abuse’ or ‘torture.’ For national newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post the term ‘abuse’ seemed to be the most neutral term to refer to the behavior of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib (Bennett et al, 2006, p. 475). The Washington Post’s editor Leonard Downie argued, “Abuse is obvious from the information and images we have, and is serious in its own right. Torture is a more loaded term and its use requires more information about whether the abuse constitutes torture” (quoted in ibid, p. 479). The focus of many news reports was not on the torture itself, but rather the Administration’s role in ‘fixing’ the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.

One man who provided a realistic account of the events at Abu Ghraib was Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968 (Rajiva, 2005, p. 17). Hersh’s first Abu Ghraib account was published May 10, 2004 in The New Yorker. The following is an excerpt from his article, “Torture at Abu Ghraib”:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; 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 broomstick, and using military dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance, actually biting a detainee (p. 10).

Following rumors that Hersh would publish a series of articles in The New Yorker, other media organizations came out of hiding and attempted to report the truth about what happened behind the barbed wire in Baghdad: “Anticipating the outrage, CBS had actually sat on the story for two weeks at the Pentagon’s request and ran with it only when it became clear that a report of the army’s secret internal investigation by Major General Taguba had been leaked to Seymour Hersh” (Rajiva, 2005, p. 13).

According to a content analysis of the news coverage of Abu Ghraib conducted by scholars Lance Bennett, Regina Lawrence and Steven Livingston, the term ‘torture’ began to appear in more news articles following Senator John McCain and other leaders’ demand that the White House to “limit the cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners overseas” (Bennett et al, 2004, p. 479). A polarizing battle between Republican and Democrat inclined newspapers emerged, focusing not on the events from Abu Ghraib and the digital images that provided the truth, but instead on which political party could deflect the blame with the most discretion. What followed was the media’s strategic coverage of how the Bush administration managed its mishaps and the repeated televised apologies the President made to the Iraqi people:

Rather than meeting with a blanket cultural prohibition on discussing torture, the Abu Ghraib photos enabled an event-driven news pattern to briefly and tentatively challenge the news management capacities of officials, but the fragile event-driven news dynamic faded as the administration aggressively took over the framing virtually unchallenged by top-level officials…On May 5, Bush addressed the Arab world in a televised speech that characterized events at Abu Ghraib as regrettable abuses (ibid, p. 480).

The power of the digital images from Abu Ghraib to bring the reality of the prison into the lives of Americans, was short lived as the press blithely turned a blind eye to the events and focused instead on the task at hand – a debate on party lines.

Closure: The tendency to see an entire figure even though the picture of it is incomplete, based primarily on the viewer’s past experience

In 1949, George Orwell wrote about “Good People doing Bad Things.” He warned that, “Long-abandoned practices like torture would not only be common again, but would be tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive” (Cohen, 2005: 54). An enlightened country by its own standards, the United States has managed through the events at Abu Ghraib to shed light on cultural discrepancies during times of conflict—discrepancies that are distinguished as a result of technological innovations.

The extreme disconnect between the digital images of Abu Ghraib and the reality of ideas and the truth associated with the war in Iraq was brought to the limelight by amateurs, relying on the use of their digital cameras as purveyors of truth. Functioning as both President Bush’s army of soldiers and as tourists with cameras in tow, the American military has managed, through the accidental release of these photographs, to challenge the nation’s morale one photograph at a time. Since the first photographs of torture were released in May 2004, the American public’s understanding of the events in Iraq has become blurred. Citizens began demanding answers from once long-standing bearers of truth and reason – the American military, the American President, and the American media. However, the American public rarely considered that these images of torture were in fact inspired by images of American popular culture, nor did they consider that these images are primarily representations of previously established photographic norms.

As art historian Aby Warburg (1998) stated, “Photographs fail to arouse mass outrage in the U.S. because they are nothing out of the ordinary” (p. 15). The blame should not be fully placed on the American soldiers posted in Baghdad, but instead on the power of the visual image to provide a point of reference for acts of sexual violence, domination, and abuse. The images from Abu Ghraib sparked not only outrage, but a continuous question-and-answer session between those in positions of leadership and those who look to leadership for understanding. Such a period of questions will inevitably continue until U.S troops return from a war riddled with unanswered questions.

Appendix 1:

Popular Media’s Ability to Encourage Masochism

Traditional hazing as seen in Dazed and Confused

Dazed and Confused. Dir. Richard Linklater. Universal Pictures, 1993

Dazed and Confused

Dazed and Confused. Dir. Richard Linklater. Universal Pictures, 1993

G.I. Jane

G.I. Jane. Dir. Ridley Scott. Hollywood Pictures, 1997

Appendix 2:

Private Lynndie England, 22 years old giving ‘thumbs up’ to acts of torture.

Danner, Mark. “The Logic of Torture”. Abu Ghraib: The Politics of Torture. Berkeley,

California: North Atlantic Books, 2004. pp. 17-47

Appendix 3:

Images of Female Sexual Domination in Popular Media and at Abu Ghraib

www1.istockphoto.com

blogs.commercialappeal.com/…/shortbus4.web.jpg

www.jwcaketops.com/.../ images/on_a_leash.jpg

Abu Ghraib prisoner with Pr. Lynndie England

Duganne, Erina. “Photography After the Fact”. Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the Traffic in Pain.

Ed. Mark Reinhardt. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007. Pp. 57-77

Appendix 4:

Pornography – From Vietnam to Now…

Playboy issued during Vietnam War (1965-1975),

November 1968 issue

Playboy issued during Vietnam War (1965-1975),

October 1971 issue

Maxim issued during Iraq War (2003 – present),

January 2004

Playboy issued during Iraq War (2003 – present),

April 2005

Playboy issued during Iraq War (2003 – present),

August 2007

Appendix 5:

‘Hazing-like’ Rituals at Abu Ghraib and in Popular Culture

Abu Ghraib prison, March 2004

Duganne, Erina. “Photography After the Fact”. Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the

Traffic in Pain. Ed. Mark Reinhardt. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007. Pp. 57-75

Abu Ghraib prison, March 2004

Duganne, Erina. “Photography After the Fact”. Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the Traffic in

Pain. Ed. Mark Reinhardt. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007. Pp. 57-75

Hazing ritual at U.S college

Nuwer, Hank. Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing. London: Longstreet Press, 1990, p.21

Appendix 6:

The New York Times Magazine, June 12, 2005

Photos by Andres Serrano, pp. 6-9

Appendix 7:

A Hooded Reality?

The Klu Klux Klan and Abu Ghraib Prisoners

The Klu Klux Klan

Chalmers, David. Hooded Americanism: The History of the Klu Klux Klan. Durham,

North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1987, p 10

Abu Ghraib Prisoner

Barrett, Ron. “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Abu Ghraib Story Broke Out When We

Saw Visual Proof of Torture. Why Not Sooner?” Columbia Journalism Review.

July/Aug. 2004, p. 16

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