Study Diary 6

I have now finished my blog, however there are some things that I could have improved.

I found a lot of research, like the documentary “Standart Operating Procedure”, by Errol Morris after I finished my blogs, which concerned the Abu Ghraib scandal. Also, I found some more articles on guardian.co.uk that would have made my research more complete.

What I also didn’t get a chance to do was researching whether events like this one have occurred before, where people took pictures of torture or prisoners of war who are in a lower position than them. I came to find that, apparently, nazi soldiers in WW2 took their cameras for their own use, and took pictures as they went trough the Soviet Union taking pictures of their hurt or even dead “enemies”. As I didn’t have enough time to research this I couldn’t add this to my blog.

I do realize that there are some gaps, and that my first few entries aren’t as strong as my latest one, however I tried to make up for this when I realized it.

There is one more video that I would like to add before I finish, just because I feel that even after all that time in prison, Lynndie England still doesn’t seem to have understood the reason why she was sent to prison in the firsts place.

She hesitates in taking any blame, and when she does it seems forced. Her cheeky, arrogant smile and attitude haven’t changed, and in my view, she sees it all as a joke.  As if her making money and fame out of torturing others wasn’t enough.

Lynndie Enlgland talks about her book

Bibliography

Alex J. Bellamy (2008). Security and the war on terror, Taylor & Francis. p. 42-49.]

english.ucumberlands.edu/litcritweb/glossary.htm

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, 2007, Rory Kennedy

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8323446

http://aejmcmagazine.asu.edu/Journal/Spring2010/HarpStruckman.pdf

http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Y2nbX-ecV2YC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&ots=6t1RMN2bmQ&sig=YrnH4AfgiXhNxEwntth1omxUX2I#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/16/graner.court.martial/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4718328.stm

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iraq/abughraib_timeline.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/3028585.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3806713.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4176885.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4176885.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4287266.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4490795.stm

http://photography-tips.lifeblob.com/2010/06/what-is-photojournalism/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-82848561528142057#

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html

http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-retail-stores-not/4450879-1.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/lynndie-england

http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=8560

http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=8560

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iraq/abughraib.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/27/60II/main614063_page3.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/27/60II/main614063.shtml

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/05/60II/main615781.shtml

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/12/60II/main617121.shtml

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/07/60minutes/main2238188_page4.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1192701/Why-hell-I-feel-sorry-says-girl-soldier-abused-Iraqi-prisoners-Abu-Ghraib-prison.html

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/3/21/the_ghosts_of_abu_ghraib_doc

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/11/guantanamo_a_look_back_at_six

http://www.economist.com/node/2647493http://www.economist.com/node/2647493

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529366,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pictures/image/0,8543,-13404919007,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/25/standard-operating-procedure-gourevitch-morris

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/may/15/iraq.usa2

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/28/iraq.usa

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/03/abu-ghraib-lynndie-england-interview

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=charles_graner

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=lynndie_england

http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/latest/lynndie-england-4

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7683481/

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?currentPage=2

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/14/051114fa_fact

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=65771

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=9E754595D18BD7E035C83647CC73E57F.inst2_1b?docId=5001934917

http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/introduction

http://www.servinghistory.com/topics/Lynndie_England::sub::Biography

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article6207484.ece

http://www.usatoday.com/news/graphics/abu_ghraib/flash.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13065-2004May9?language=printer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072601792.html

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-photojournalism.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vQ3pvi6JLY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvHd9i_ayiw

Liz Wells (1998). Photography: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge. p.120-125

 

The Abu Ghraib Scandal and ethics

The photograph of Lynndie England and Charles Graner portrays a happy image of a couple, the man leaning over the woman in a traditional defensive manner, resting his head on her shoulder and the woman casually sitting on a chair relaxed, almost manly. She isn’t very graceful in her stance but both of them seem genuinely happy posing for the camera. They have a huge Hollywood smile and that sparkle of happiness in their eyes. Their relaxed mood makes it feel look like they are comfortable in their surroundings, almost like they’re home.
In fact, if you took the background out, which suggests that they are in a prison, this would just be a holiday snapshot of a couple who are having a good time.
Therefore, if you didn’t know the rest of the series of these photographs, you wouldn’t guess that this couple was Lynndie England and Charles Graner. The very two people, who became the faces of the Abu Ghraib scandal. Especially Lynndie England who became the “poster-girl of Abu Ghraib”.
Whilst I was doing my research, I didn’t really come across this photograph much. It was the rest of the series, the disturbing images, which made it into pretty much every newspaper around the world. The pictures of England and Graner posing behind a human pyramid made of naked Iraqi detainees.
The media is known for preferring to use more ‘shocking’ stories and images which are guaranteed to grab the audience’s attention and there is no point in denying that we do love scandalous stories. But this story seemed a bit extreme, even though it was said that there are more even more extreme photographs, which haven’t been released. But doesn’t this prove that once again it is the government controlling our knowledge and awareness of what going on by only releasing the ‘harmless’ photographs for damage control?
But how rational was it to publish these ‘harmless’ pictures in the first place?
All-American white soldiers, apart from one, who are part of the invasive force, who have come to democratize the mess that Iraq represents by torturing it’s natives. Linking this to my original image we can see that this applies to it. They feel so comfortable and supreme being the capturers who hold all authority whereas the natives are the one’s being captured and stripped of their basic rights. So displaying these images will make American patriots feel even more powerful as they feel that they have supremacy no matter what and the Middle East is in their hands, not worth anything because they are terrorists.
America is known for being a patriotic nation, so most of that nation would have a strong opinion about the ‘war on terrorism’ and fiercely believe in what the army was doing. For instance, Joseph Darby wasn’t able to go back to his hometown after reporting the abuse to his superiors, because his town was a military town so they saw him as a ‘rat’. The Army even went as far as telling Darby that his life was in danger if he went back. So because after 9/11 pretty much every middle-eastern person became a terrorist in the eyes of this patriotic majority, we can assume that a lot of people thought about this event like Lynndie England did. Her comment was that this was “nothing compared to what they would do to us”. It is therefore questionable how ethical it was to publish these pictures, as this majority still saw Darby as the bad guy instead of questioning the systematic problem of the U.S military.
This suggests that the media didn’t stress this problem strong enough for people to understand the measure of this event and torture. The media turned this into a twisted ‘love story’ instead by focusing on Lynndie and Charle’s relationship instead, giving her the excuse of being put under pressure and wanting to please her man and the Bush Administration to blame a few individuals who claimed to be following their orders. But looking at the picture, we see pride and self-satisfaction in their pose. And this is what’s most disturbing; the fact that they don’t see the error of their ways. The happiness of the main picture could also be related to this.
Knowing all this, we can now look at this and see what would have lead to their blissful state of mind that is reflected in this photograph: self-satisfaction and power. Even in the other pictures these are the factors and the fact that the tortures almost looks too routune,are even more disturbing than the torture itself.
It is not possible to look at this photograph as an individual one, because the rest of the series are what makes this more than a white couple smiling and this series is exactly why we know that these aren’t two lovers, these are ‘monsters’.
To conclude this essay I will ask a few questions:
My main argument which states that it wasn’t ethical to use these photographs so casually just to add a shock-factor to the stories, but would the world have taken this event seriously if it wasn’t for these graphic images? Would this picture of Lynndie England and Charles Graner be enough to identify the soldiers who did these disgusting things? Or do we need to see it for ourselves in order for it to sink in?

I-map

imapfinalmi

 

Critical Review Plan

As I am going to end my blog with a Critical Review, I am now going to plan how I am going to structure it.

• Brief analysis and summary of photograph
• Wouldn’t be able to understand if you didn’t know series and story behind it
• Media want shocking stories, therefore concentrated on twisted ‘love story’
• Too extreme? Government only released ‘harmless’ one’s. Damage control?
• How rational was it to publish them? All American soldiers torturing Iraqis
• America is patriotic; will this aggravate hate against what they see as terrorists?
• Made look too normal? Media not critical enough?
• Focus on a few instead of systematic problem
• Questions: what if images weren’t released, how much attention would the story have gotten?

 

Research Findings

I have spent the last 9 weeks researching the story behind my main image. Looking at the photograph, there is a man and a woman in uniforms, obviously soldiers, in what looks like a prison. They seem quite intimate, with him protectively leaning over her. Also the huge smiles on their faces seem very genuine along with their sparkling eyes. Their comfort almost suggests that they’re home. But because now we know the story, we know that there is more to it than this.

From my research, I found that the picture we were given wasn’t used much, probably because it’s not ‘shocking ‘ enough. The rest of the series display the torture a lot more graphically, maybe too graphically even, which guarantees the pictures to have a bigger shock-factor.

This picture, like the others, was taken as a souvenir. This put them into the category of Domestic Photography. However, these pictures later became forensic evidence of what happened at Abu Ghraib. So in a way they served as photojournalistic photographs, which could have been taken by a journalist.

But how ethical is it that these photographs were so casually displayed all over the world? Native Iraqi’s who being tortured by the invasive force because in they’re eyes they were ‘all terrorists’? On the other hand you have this photograph of a couple pretty much taking a ‘holiday snapshot’.This will be the main point of discussion for my critical review.
I also came to look at different representations and theories about those representations. The media mainly focused on Lynndie England and Charles Graner who therefore became the faces of this scandal, which turned into the outcome of a twisted love story. Lynndie’s, possibly choreographed, defense more than played up to this reflection of the story, claiming that she was so in love that, even though she didn’t want to be in the pictures, she was did so to please her man. I also found a book, which analyzed Lynndie’s role in the media and the Army, and why she was portrayed in this particular way. What the book suggests is because the Military denotates “hegemonic masculinity”, the Lynndie England case’s message was: when women finally get some significant empowerment, they use it for the worse.

When it comes to justifying what happened, there were a lot of theories. The soldiers claimed that they were following orders, the Bush administration claimed that this was the work of a “few bad apples”. Researching into it, it seemed that there were a lot of policy changes for how detainees were to be treated. Soldiers claimed to be confused and said that they were never given clear guidelines. So why take pictures if you are only following orders? Lynndie England said that they were taking photographs to show the C.I.A their work, who then told them “good job”.  I would have to agree with Seymour Hersh, who said, “372^nd abuse almost seems routine, a fact of army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide. Others said that this happened because, for example, Lynndie “came from a place where people didn’t know better”.

But surely all this doesn’t justify what went on?

The Outcome

The outcome of all these soldiers got court martialled.

All of these US soldiers were dishonorably discharged from the U.S military for dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault, and battery among other charges:

• Javal Davies: 6 months imprisonment
• Roman Krol: 10 moth’s imprisonment
• Charles Graner: 10 Years imprisonment
• Lynndie England: 3 Years imprisonment (was paroled after 521 days)
• Sabrina Harman: 6 month’s imprisonment
• Megan Ambuhl: “dereliction of duty and sentenced to reduction in rank to private and loss of a half-month’s pay”
• Ivan Frederick: 8 years 6 months imprisonment

Brigadier General Karpinski, who was in charge of Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons at the time, was “demoted to colonel and subsequently retired”. She was the only “high-ranking” official to face serious punishment.

When it came to General Geoffrey Miller, he was promoted to Deputy Commanding General for detainee operations in Iraq. He even received the Distinguished Service Medal at the pentagon’s Hall of Heroes.

Lynndie England, who was ‘nobody’ before this scandal, released a biography when she came out of prison, ironically enough, called “Tortured”. It was written by Gary S. Winkler, and authorized by Lynndie England.

[http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2004/US/Northeast/05/04/karpinski/top.karpinski.cnn.jpg accessed 29/11/2010]

[Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, 2007, Rory Kennedy]

[http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/410K2tDhXzL._SS500_.jpg accessed 29/11/2010]

[http://news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/iraq/graner51404chrg.html accessed 29/11/2010]

[http://www.cdi.org/news/law/abu-ghraib-ambuhl.cfm accessed 29/11/2010]

Photojournalism

My original picture could be classed as being photojournalistic as well as domestic photography, because even though it was taken as a souvenir and for personal use, it became a ‘’special event”, which was seen as newsworthy. These pictures were informative and spoke for themselves, like a photojournalistic photograph would. In a way, they became the story itself.

“Journalism that presents a story primarily through the use of pictures.”
(wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn accessed on 27/11/2010)

Photojournalism is basically what photography was invented for in the first place: capturing the moment in order to be able to show it to people.

Photojournalism is medium which aims to share realistic “eyewitness accounts” of events and people in the world in order to publish it in the media world, for example, they compliment a news paper article.

They can either be a series of images that speak for themselves or they can be accompanied by explanatory text.

The areas that would be more likely to offer photojournalistic opportunities are wars, special events and disaster scenes.

It is easy to confuse photojournalism with documentary photography as both of them document important events.

The difference between them is that photojournalism focuses on “special events”, e.g. a bomb explosion aftermath, whereas documentary photography documents ongoing events, for instance, how the rate in obesity has risen.

As technology developed editing photographs digitally become more and more popular, The fact that photo manipulation can bring out colours, get rid of impurities and even merge several images together has created a whole new world of possibilities for photographers.

Whereas around 50 years ago we had to believe in what we saw in the picture to be true, now people question things straight away.

Probably the most famous example in the recent years of photo manipulation in photojournalism was Brian Walski. He was an award-winning photojournalist who was covering the Iraqi war in 2003.

He hit the news when his altered photograph was used in The Times, Hartford Courant and the Chicago. When the employees noticed that in the background there were civilians who were appearing twice. He informed his superiors at The Times, Colin Crowford, the director of photography. When Crawford finally reached Walski admitted to altering the image, so Crawford fired him.

This scandal caused a lot of debate about the ethics of photo manipulation, arguing that it photo manipulation caused credibility loss for photojournalism as a profession.

Walski’s explanation was: “Things are happening so fast. You have to watch out for yourself, and look what’s going on to be able to compose pictures.” He says he was under a lot of pressure to get some good photographs by the set deadline.

“ I had ten frames of soldier totally cut off. At some point I must have zoomed out. When that guy came up with the baby, I shot off ten more frames. I had just one where you could see the soldier’s face. The others he was turned away. I put four pictures on my laptop. I was going back and forth. There was no reason to do what I did. I was playing around a little bit. I said, ‘that looks good.’ I worked it and sent it”, he continues.

However, he accepts full responsibility for what he did and says that there is no excuse for it. He also feels guilty about making his colleagues look bad.

[http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-photojournalism.htm accesed on 25/11/2010]

[http://photography-tips.lifeblob.com/2010/06/what-is-photojournalism/ accessed on 25/11/2010]

http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-retail-stores-not/4450879-1.html [accessed on 25/11/2010]

[http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=9E754595D18BD7E035C83647CC73E57F.inst2_1b?docId=5001934917 accesed on 25/11/2010]

[http://massthink.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/ut-vietnam-girl.jpg accessed on 25/10/2010]

[Julianne Hickerson Newton (2001). The burden of visual truth: the role of photojournalism in mediating reality. Routledge]

[http://www.metapedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:Cultural_Hybridity_Discussion_Spring_2008:_Week_10 accessed on 25/11/2010]

Intertextuality.

“Intertextuality emphasises that texts have context” (Chandler: 201)

“A useful semiotic technique is comparison and contrast between differing treatments of similar themes (or similar treatments of different themes) within or between different genres or media” (Chandler: p201)

Types:
▪ Intertextuality (quotation) –
N/A
▪ Paratextuality (titles, footnotes, captions, narration…)
Lynndie Endland and and Colleague
▪ Architextuality (genre identification)
Domestic Photography/ Photojournalism
▪ Metatextuality (critical commentary on another text)
N/A
▪ Hypotextuality (another text or genre is transformed or extended by this text)
The photograph is being used by massmedia therefore it became photojournalism
▪ Hypertextuality (direct connections to other texts through hyperlinks, for example)
N/A
• Reflexivity (self-consciousness of intertextuality)
N/A
• Alteration (how much has the other text been changed)
N/A
• Explicitness (direct or indirect quotation)
N/A
• Criticality to comprehension (will it still make sense if you don’t recognise the reference)
It would look like a casual snapshot if we didn’t know the story that goes with it.
• Scale of adoption (is it entirely a mash-up)
N/A
• Structural unboundedness (is it tied to a larger structure – eg genre, series etc)
The photograph is connected to the photographs of the torture that went on in Abu Ghraib

Semiotics

“The study of the sign-systems by which meaningful communication or literary discourse occurs. As understood by semiotics, in a linguistic event a set of conventions (langue) is used to express a particular meaning.”

Semiotics in its simplest context focuses on the relationship between denotation/signifier and connotation/signifier so basically description and meaning. This theory suggests that when an object is shown to us, like for example in an advert, we first look at it, then we examine it closer to get the meaning of it.

Denotation is commonly described as being the ‘literal’ meaning of the object, whereas connotation is basically your personal thought of it.

Roland Barthes is one of the most famous theorists who played a big role in the development of semiotics.

When I apply this on the picture of Lynndie England and Charles Graner this is the outcome:

Deontation —–> Connotation

Lynndie England —–>Quite manly manner

Charles Graner —–>  Aiming for closeness

Tattoos  —–> US Marines

Handcuffs/bars—–> Prison

Boxes/tables —–>Not quite settled in/temporary stay

Uniform —–> Soldiers

Closeness in pose—–>He is protecting her

Garden chair —–> not ideal environment, not very settled

Another thing to mention is that even though one would think that because Graner is leaning over England, he is dominant, in this case England’s relaxed and non-submissive, relaxed stance, his dominance is reduced, which makes her the dominant character in this photograph.

2^nd order connotation/ myth

This is the outcome of where semiotics takes us. Barthes looked at myths as “dominant ideologies of our time”, things that are obviously true.

In this case the happiness would be the superficial happiness of the couple.
Considering the fact that these people are soldiers or even ‘monsters’, who are going to commit disturbing crimes, they have done a good job in displaying a natural kind of happiness, as if they are not in a prison but their home. This is the face of imperialism, as they are the force, which invades another country, but seem to have made it their own home. Whereas the natives are kept in inhumane conditions and are stripped of their most natural rights, these people seem to be supreme and happy, as the natives are suffering.

Another universal myth is the fact that they are smiling for the camera. Regardless of the circumstances they look genuinely happy. This universal myth could be applied on the rest of the series of these pictures, where Sabrina Harman and Charles Graner give the camera thumbs up next to a corpse.

[english.ucumberlands.edu/litcritweb/glossary.htm accessed 23/11/2010]

[http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html accessed 23/10/2010]