This week The Sun and The New York Post, both owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., ran “leaked” photos of Saddam in his briefs.
“It’s troubling and unfortunate that these pictures were made public, and it’s certainly contrary to what our policies and procedures are,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon official. “That’s why we’re taking a hard look at what happened, and we’ll look to hold someone accountable.”
The New York Post and The Sun. Far right Rupert Murdoch. Champion of the Bush Crusade, Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch, the media manipulator.
I’m beginning to find it interesting that what Americans are most exposed to are the recurrent images of the candid camera type which are intended to be sexually humiliating or capture sexually humiliating, degrading practices to which Iraqi captives were subjected.
And, yes, I know that an outraged Joseph Darby broke the Abu Gharib story by slipping a CD of photos under an officer’s door.
But with the release of the Saddam photos, what makes it into the public eye and what does not seems to become more thematic and in some ways even more disturbing (at least to me).
Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy in Washington, said Friday that the mere appearance of Saddam in his underwear may be an affront to many Muslims who believe that the body is sacred.
“To show someone partially or almost naked is a kind of insult to Muslim sensibilities,” Masmoudi said. “Arabs will feel it is an insult, ihana in Arabic, which means degrading, to all Arabs. Why are they treating him this way?”…
The Sun said it had obtained the photographs from an unidentified member of the U.S. military who was quoted as saying the pictures were intended to show insurgents that he is no longer a legendary dictator and is instead “just an aging and humble old man.”
Masmoudi said that because much of the insurgency in Iraq is made up of Baathists and former members of Saddam’s government, the photos of their leader in a humiliating scene could encourage their attacks against Americans and the Iraqis working with them.
Contradictory. There are a lot of contradictions. One is accustomed to attempting rectification of the contradictory. If one imagines that the purpose of humiliation is to intimidate, to deconstruct culture and leave it meaningless, to debase morally, then what one might expect and hope the intimidated individuals may do is give in, give up, and there have been statements that the practices in Abu Gharib were a matter of PSYOPS and their intent was to intimidation and control. Though the investigations were confined only to a few underlings who are condemned as having gotten independently out of control, I don’t think it’s prudent to not assume a much broader theater.
The military argued that the leaked Abu Gharib photos were a danger to the troops because of their inflammatory nature. Similar to the Newsweek article and “Newsweek lied, people died.”
Now Bush says that he doesn’t believe photos inspire payback.
I don’t think a photo inspires murderers. I think they’re inspired by an ideology that is so barbaric and backwards that it’s hard for many in the Western world to comprehend how they think.”
Contradictory. The military says that the photos should not have been released, that it goes against policy. The media says the military released the photos with the intention of demoralizing supporters of Saddam.
I don’t expect the right hand to always know what the left is doing.
I also don’t think we’re ruled by complete idiots. I don’t think everyone, from top to bottom, over in Iraq or in D.C. hasn’t a clue about what they’re doing and they’ve managed to get where they are, to have grasped the control that they have, by pure dumb luck.
I don’t think conflicting messages and contradictions may be necessarily unintentional.
I also don’t think photos of Saddam, if intentionally leaked, are directed only as a part of PSYOPS against Iraqis supportive of Saddam. The news is also directed at Americans.
And when I look at the photos of Saddam, I think less of the war in Iraq than I do of the surveillance society we have become and are becoming. And I think of ways of viewing others to which we are becoming perhaps desensitized. Had we been shown photos of Saddam fully clothed for the media in his jail cell or outside it, then one may think of Iraq. Instead we are shown surveillance camera photos. If we accept a photo of Saddam in his underwear as customary and usual, as a natural byproduct of captive vulnerability, then we are very close to accepting the same standards applied to ourselves, excused by our living in a Patriot Act, post 9/11 surveillance-imprisoned world justifying loss of personal sovereignty, a collapse of boundaries, a forgotten understanding that what is inhumane treatment need not be appalling in the extreme.
Indeed, there are those who viewed Abu Gharib as little more humiliating that a frat or military hazing.
No, the photos are unacceptable. At least to me they are, and are less about Saddam than about what we’re expected to tolerate as a society.
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