What are Pictures Worth?

Pictures are in the news today.

Team BushCo has been dealt another setback to ignore:

Saying the United States "does not surrender to blackmail," a judge ruled Thursday that pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America's image.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the release of certain pictures in a 50-page decision that said terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they "do not need pretexts for their barbarism."

We aren't going to see those pictures any time soon and it's a real shame because we need to see them.  And these as well.  To get an idea how much, look at what National Mommy, Karen Hughes was told during her U.S.A. #1! Tour's stop in Turkey:

"War makes the rights of women completely erased, and poverty comes after war -- and women pay the price," said Fatma Nevin Vargun, a Kurdish women's rights activist. Vargun denounced the arrest of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq, in front of the White House this week.

Hughes answered with empty rhetoric - the kind of empty rhetoric that works like a charm here at home:

"You're concerned about war, and no one likes war," Hughes said. But "to preserve the peace, sometimes my country believes war is necessary," she said. She also asserted that women are faring much better in Iraq than they had under the rule of deposed president Saddam Hussein.

That War is Peace fairy tale didn't wash with the women and they let Mommy know it: 

Tuksal said she was "feeling myself wounded, feeling myself insulted here" by Hughes's response.  "In every photograph that comes from Iraq, there is that look of fear in the eyes of women and children. . . . This needs to be resolved as soon as possible."

When's the last time you saw a photograph in the corporate media of an Iraqi woman and child suffering the effects of the war?   Mommy might be right when she says "no one likes war."  What's for sure is that we like it even less when we watch it happen.  But when it's kept out of sight, well, you the rest.

Josh Rushing, the former Marine and subject of the film, Control Room,  who just signed on with Al Jazeera, seems to agree:

Control Room captured Rushing's growing respect for Al-Jazeera's staff, particularly senior producer Hassan Ibrahim, with whom he had many philosophical debates. In one scene, Rushing talked about how revolted he was by Al-Jazeera showing dead American soldiers and interviews with American prisoners of war. Then he noted that he had seen video of Iraqi casualties on the network and not been affected by what he saw.

"It upset me on a profound level that I wasn't as bothered as much the night before," he said in the film. "It makes me hate war."

When the film was released in 2004, reviewers commented on Rushing's candor. Rushing told The Village Voice that American media don't tell the whole story when they cover a war. "In America war isn't hell — we don't see blood, we don't see suffering. All we see is patriotism, and we support the troops.  It's almost like war has some brand marketing here," he said in that interview.

Right.  Almost.

      

 

Comments

[DavidByron]

I struggle to recall this feeling:

feeling myself wounded, feeling myself insulted

I know I should feel insulted by the horseshit that passes for political commentry in the corporate media and by the Bush regime. I just pretty much ignore it these days but it is insulting.

[eRobin]

I thought her use of the word "wounded" was appropriate as well.