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"If we’re big enough to fight a war, we should be big enough to look at it.” -Kenneth Jarecke


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<p>Good article and well worth the read; even if it probably doesn't tell anything one could not yet know, it's (in my view) always useful to read these examples, plus this article doesn't seem to condemn, but just tell what went on behind the scenes. It doesn't really matter whether one agrees with the choices made by Time Magazine, for example; it happened. Arguing about that in retrospect is futile; it is about lessons learnt and I think who wrote this article hit the right tone there.<br>

Can't see why it would hit the "off topic" toxic issues, as it's not at all about those endless political debates that polluted that forum. Rather telling to think it is.</p>

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<p>Here is a telling statement reproduced in the article that Ellis posted above:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>But Aidan Sullivan, the pictures editor for the British <em>Sunday Times</em>, told the <em>British Journal of Photography</em> on March 14 that he had opted instead for a wide shot of the carnage: a desert highway littered with rubble. He challenged the<em> Observer</em>: “We would have thought our readers could work out that a lot of people had died in those vehicles. Do you have to show it to them?”</p>

</blockquote>

<p>We had the Iwo Jima photo in the Weekly Discussion thread not long ago. Which photos are treated as iconic clearly serves someone's political end. Perhaps we could have a war memorial somewhere in which someone makes a huge statue of a photo like this, but it would not be funded by the state (the government). Nation states depend upon war, incarceration, and other atrocities for their very existence. One could argue that the Iwo Jima photo promotes and even glorifies war, whereas this photo does the opposite. One could even argue that it exalts peace, if only as a counterpoint. The civic religion does not seem to tolerate pacifist dissenters very well.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

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<p>The article reads:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"By deciding not to publish it, TIME magazine and the Associated Press denied the public the opportunity to confront this unknown enemy and consider his excruciating final moments." </em></p>

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<p>I'm sure this would make a great discussion in a journalism class, but from this average citizen's perspective, the photo will inherently infuse bias by appealing to the emotion of a viewer to be against the perpetrators of this death. </p>

<p>If the magazine published the gruesome photo of this enemy death, should it equally publish gruesome photos of coalition deaths? It raises important ethical and moral questions about journalistic responsibility. </p>

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After awhile, visual and emotional numbness sets in. Combat photographers in all wars face the same deli man. The

cliche is that "war is hell". Showing what happens in those fresh hells doesn't change that. Photographers would compete

to show ever more shocking images. How many of you flinched when you saw that photo, or Capa's photo of an anti-

Fascist being shot during the Spanish Civil War, or of Nachtwey's photos from El Salvador's un-Civil War?

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<p>Considering the enormous number of equally graphic and disturbing images from other wars past that illustrate the horrors of war, I don't understand why this particular one deserves special mentioning. What does it illustrate that is not already known? Similar images that have been published widely don't seem to stick in people's minds long enough to condemn a war (or actually stop it) before it actually starts. Thus the question arises what purpose does publishing such a picture actually serve? </p>
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<p>"<a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=Allo+Police&rlz=1C1CHFX_enCA521CA521&es_sm=122&biw=1440&bih=813&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=eMHnU7bBHZOhyATAyoL4Bw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg">Allo Police</a>" is a French weekly tabloid published in Montreal; great rag if you want to see gruesome photos of the week's traffic accidents and murders. </p>

<p>Equally gruesome War photos seem to be perceived as above other similarly gruesome photos and deserving of debate on its publication, but in the end I think it's all of the same; it becomes more of a reflection on society if we need gruesome photos in order to be sensitized to an issue. </p>

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I am reminded of the documentary footage in the movie " Judgment at Nuremberg" where the panel of 3 judges watches scenes of concentration camps. It was a more powerful argument of culpability on a grand scale than any of the words used by the prosecution . Stevens did not stop the film to alert the audience " Graphic images follow that may upset some viewers."

 

But a sanitary and justified war has always been promoted. As Kipling and other writers did in World War I where the blown body scraps of soldiers pulverized by shells( factory loaded by women incidentally) at battles like Loos and Verdun, losses of both sides, were not displayed to the British public. And not to my knowledge in Germany or Austria Hungary.

Losses were kept out of the press by official fiat..the why is up for discussion. Perceived need to recruit bodies to fill ranks of blind armies that' clash at night.'

 

I find the book and movie " Johnny Got His Gun" by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo as powerful an anti war theme as any I have seen. Not a popular book, but an honest one. The question persists. Why does hate inspire such savagery and hostility. Is it part of our psyche to kill on industrial scale and then cover up the results? Hide the grisly parts. In the Great War, -before we gave them numbers,- the UK was stirred to war fury (except for such as Bertrand Russel) and general officers like French and Haig felt that being blooded was a good thing for an empire. The USA has had its share of war fever and denial I hasten to add.....

 

A war poem of the time, WWI, began " Dulce et decorum est....(.Sweet it is to die for one's country." A big lie that was once acccepted.) My father decided to go to prison rather than be drafted to fight that brutal and costly war. I never blamed him once I studied history.... there are reasons to fight wars, that I understand. But the costs should be faced.

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<p>Very good comments, Gerry. I never fully understood the passion for war and destruction, certainly from a moral viewpoint, but also, pragmatically, from the simple knowledge of the lessons of history. They are started by the few, often with false reasons, and the public are swept into it on the basis of nationalistic sentiment. Few wars seem to improve anything and we sweep under the rug all the atrocities that accompany them. If I really thought that showing the horrors in photographs would improve anything in regard to human behaviour I would be glad to see it published, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence for that, other than short term braking of engagements before the next one comes along. Would publishing photographs exemplifying or extolling instead some of the more noble behaviours of humans do the trick? Maybe....</p>
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<p>Well, we've tried everything else. Lots of pictures of returning veterans, tales of heroic deeds (no doubt true) all tend, whether intentionally or otherwise, to glorify war.</p>

<p>Photography can surely help spread the word: there is a very inglorious side to war, and let us not forget it. We all know it, but for some reason we seem to want to avert our eyes. Some people want to help us avert our eyes by censoring such photos.</p>

<p>When I was quite young, I saw a graphic picture (in <em>Life</em> magazine, I believe) of a car full of teenaged boys, with the car wrapped entirely around a telephone pole. The car was absolutely destroyed, and several heads and bodies were seen either extruding from or hanging out of the wreckage. I got over my shock (after I did my informal body count), but I never forgot the lesson: telephone poles are basically trees, and, in a collision between a tree and car, bet on the tree.</p>

<p>I never saw the photo again.</p>

<p>There could be some value in remembering such sobering facts. Dulling of the senses does occur, however, as Ellis pointed out above. Still, the memory lingers.</p>

<p>The only formal statement that I ever saw of the Desert Storm casualty list (at the time) indicated just what a turkey shoot it was. In my hometown paper at the time, the story was buried back there with the comics and the classifieds. "Desert Storm" was apparently like shooting fish in a barrel, a rather inglorious thing to do. The number of Iraqi dead was horrifying. The country was still celebrating the glorious victory--and reveling in its brevity. Seeing how one-sided the score was might have put a damper on the celebration.</p>

<p>Why were the data on casualties not put on the front page, or at least somewhere that would be easily viewable? I am not offering a conspiracy theory here. We simply do not like to face the unpleasant reality of what "we" are doing. There may be other reasons. It isn't good P.R. for the "war effort" or "our men [and women] in uniform."</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>So, basically, it was unseen in the US.</p>

<p>In the UK it was published by the London Observer and I was actually going through Heathrow and I picked up the newspapers and I saw it was quite big, and that was basically the scene I thought I was going to see in all the newspapers around the world, since everybody had access to the image. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4528745.stm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4528745.stm</a></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, it was OUR war, after all. Don't spoil the victory parades, etc.</p>

<p>From the same link:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>It caused quite a controversy in London, which is what images like that are meant to do. They're meant to basically cause a debate in the public: "Is this something we want to be involved in?"<br /> How can you decide to have a war if you are not fully informed? You need to know what the end result will be, what the middle result will be.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The entire issue brings to mind this Supreme Court case in 1919:</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States</a></p>

<p>With regard to free speech, Oliver Wendell Holmes ruled that what might freely be said in time of peace could not be said in time of war. On that basis, he and others on the bench upheld the conviction of those who had distributed pamphlets against U.S. involvement in WWI.</p>

<p>We have had stronger censorial tendencies in this country than we care to admit, whether with regard to the printed word or images.</p>

<p>Fortunately, we have moved beyond the Scheck decision since 1945 with the ruling in <em>Thomas v. Collins.</em></p>

<p>-Lannie</p>

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<p>Leaders underestimate their subject's appetite for slaughter, which is why the censorship. It only took about twenty years for the people who went through WW1 to do it all over again on a much grander scale. The pictures didn't galvanize the opposition in the US to the Vietnam war, it was their friends and family getting drafted and expended for no apparent gain that did. </p>
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<p>We do get kind of numb to these things like another picture of the Statue of Liberty. However, recently, I saw the video of Isis soldiers" executing civilians all lined up in a row on their knees. What seemed most shocking was their coolness; they were shooting as casual as if sweeping the floor. One female victim fell backwards after the first fuselage. One feller walked over to her and causally pumped a few more rounds in her. There was no anger, hate or frankly any emotion in the killers. I think that was the part that was most shocking.<br /> Graphic video. <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=117_1394192847">http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=117_1394192847</a></p>

<p>I wonder if watching this video changes anyone's mind in the west whether we should get involved or stay out?</p>

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<p>Alan, that type of execution has been a daily occurrence in the Syrian conflict and posted all over YouTube. </p>

<p>To the average mature adult viewer, I think the shocking and revolting inhumanity demonstrated is so removed from our daily experience that most of us will simply wish it'd go away and be glad it's not our personal responsibility to resolve centuries of conflict occurring elsewhere in the world. </p>

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Yea, Alan, I had the same reaction to those images, and was shocked at the casual slaughter. As well as the employment of young kids kindnapped to be soldiers in Africa.

Christoper Hitchens in his books would likely argue that religious intolerance plays a big part. If you are schooled to hate the other tribe I mean.....And if doing a godly deed...

First World War re examined, In Britain, I read that the battles against non whites in Sudan, Kitchener and the cavalry was the primer for spirited warmongering in the next war. Maybe, But then the machine gun and giant arms of Krupp cannon in WWI did not stop the second war against white faces and nations of kin folk leaders. I get lost in the causes and history of conflict.

Politicians, Lannie, like to say " We can't stop these differences by force. Only DIPLOMACY." And I believe they mean it. But lately that hasn't happened so well either.

Our social institutions are not up to our technology in developmant and maturity writes Barbara Tuchman in her books like March of Folly etc...

Heck..What would she write now of this here century vis a vis the 14th.

That old century of invasion, slaughter, and plague.

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<p>"If we’re big enough to fight a war, we should be big enough to look at it.”</p>

<p>Maybe the question was in fact that "we" (whoever that is supposed to be) were not big enough to fight a war and therefore surely not big enough to see it in the newspapers or television. Maybe the picture was in fact shown to millions, at least in Europe at the time and now surely has been shown throughout the world, because it shows a dead 'enemy" soldier without name and identity and therefore nicely dehumanized to serve to illustration an abstract notion about war. Out there somewhere a family lost a son or father that could be identified if there was an interest in Western news-outlets.</p>

<p>Personally, I'm big enough not to need photos like these to known that war is never sanitized. People actually die of it and come back terribly wounded. I'm also big enough to know that most wars in my lifetime have had next to nothing to do with nation states defending themselves against invaders or even potential invaders, and more to do with empire building and power seizures. Where we all presently should need pictures, continuously, are pictures like those Alan mentions above of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq. What happens presently to the flow of pictures of dead civilians in Gaza, Eastern Ukraine, Syria, Nigeria these days ? </p>

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<p>Of course there is a sadness in needing these images to make people remind the real face of warfare; it is sad it is needed as counterpoint to propaganda and make-believe. It is sad because we're still not wise enough to resist the urge to start wars in the first place.<br>

As it is equally sad we still need the images of kids starving of hunger to make us realise (again) that parts of Africa essentially have no means of life for who lives there. Plus those terrible wars that rage there.<br>

And it is sad we grow numb by these images - that a sense of self-preservation makes us look away and continue with our own life, and start doing something that we deem more important at that moment.</p>

<p>But we're all human, and none of us can understand all that goes on in this world, understand the rage that triggers some of these wars, or the cold-blooded calculations that spawn deceptive propaganda, or see through all the smoke and mirrors of politics, diplomatics and power. We cannot empathise all the time with all the sorrows in the world, remember all and put everything into a perspective. It's asking a bit too much.<br>

So, I think none of us wants these images to be necessary, but at times they are. As the article mentioned, the Iraq invasion was presented as a "video game war" and these photos were an antidote to that. Images as the one in the article, or what Alan linked to, aren't about "being right in a world of wrong" but about giving us multiple sides of the story, so we can properly inform ourselves in a relatively more unbiased way.<br>

In this sense, for me, photos as these are needed. With the risk of numbing us, with the risk of shocking us severly. We should be big enough to look at it, hard and unpleasant as it is. It's the world we live in, and for which we all carry our bit of responsibility.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>I wonder if watching this video changes anyone's mind in the west whether we should get involved or stay out?</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Alan, possibly, but if the answer is to be a reaction with equal force what would that do except to increase the chances for more such mindless violence, and as always against fellow humans? "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is a linear and accelerated development of the same kind that has no antidote, no solution (albeit forced but only temporary ones).</p>

<p>If, instead, your getting involved means working to extend hands to others, even in regions labelled enemy, maybe there is some hope for change and the shocking images may be better understood for what they are by an increased number of world citizens. And when they become a critical number, the leaders of different regions may have to listen to their people rather than engage in their war and barbary games.</p>

<p>Impossible? Regrettably, however, there is no other solution. Historical examples have to be defied.</p>

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<p>Arthur, I wasn't asking the question from a humanitarian point of view, although that's an equally valid question. I was asking whether there are any fears that these people will use the same casual violence against us in the future and whether we should get involved now to prevent that, or look away hoping it won't happen because dealing with the issue is too painful to contemplate. </p>

<p>I ask that because Obama is now doing a balancing act. On the one hand providing humanitarian assistance as well as minor military action but on the other hand saying we won't put troops on the ground; a policy that most probably will fail. He's watching the polls knowing that Americans would prefer not to get involved again in Iraq. But if people saw these images, they might change their minds and realize that getting involved early will save a lot more later on if we wait. Europe is not exempt from this fight either. They're coming after you too. It's actually more vulnerable being much closer than America. </p>

<p>"Peace in our time" agreements only work when there's honesty and sanity on both sides. Hitlers have to be dealt with forcibly, the earlier the better, because it's the only action that works and will save more lives and horror than if you delay. </p>

<p>Can videos like these change people's opinions of what to do? Should they be played on public channels? Or continued to be fairly hidden on YouTube so we can go our personal ways closing our minds to the dangers that await us? </p>

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