Can publication of these photos stop the torture?
Even in the digital age, the power of the image has its limits, writes Peter Davis.
The reason the United States (and therefore the "coalition of the willing") is in serious damage control is not so much because the men and women who wear the uniform have committed atrocities. It is because those atrocities have been photographed and those photographs released. The vile acts we have seen from inside that Iraqi prison are probably no more vile than what goes on in many prisons around the world. The difference is, someone took a camera into Abu Ghraib prison.
As well as revealing the utter hypocrisy of the US claim to be fighting for freedom and human rights, this whole sorry saga also reveals the ubiquitous power of the photograph, particularly in the digital age where mass dissemination is immediate. When nations are in election mode, this power of the image is even more pertinent.
We witnessed this in Australia with the "children overboard" debacle during the last federal election campaign. In that instance, images that were taken for one purpose (the Australian navy documenting a rescue at sea) became used (and abused) for an altogether different purpose. The incumbent Government was so desperate to secure its power base it changed the context of those images. In so doing it blatantly (and successfully) exploited widespread prejudice and ignorance. The Government strategy was aided by a weak Opposition and a largely complacent media that took a long time to break through the Government spin.
With the US firmly in election mode, and clearly a long way from winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, the Abu Ghraib prison images could not have been released at a worse time. But unlike the fuzzy images we saw in Australia of children floating in swollen seas, these prison pictures cannot be spun out of context by a government desperate for another term. This is because much of the context of those prison photographs lies within rather than beyond the frame of the images. The pictures clearly show identifiable American military personnel humiliating Iraqi prisoners. Furthermore, they serve to substantiate what high-ranking government officials have known for some time (following a report from the International Committee of the Red Cross), that such violations are part of the culture of the military prisons. The Bush regime has no choice but to accept what these pictures depict.
So who actually took the images, and why? We might feel a little better if we thought that some images at least were taken by anonymous whistleblowers - colleagues of the perpetrators disgusted by what they have witnessed (indeed it was such a whistleblower who released the images to the authorities). And our sense of outrage might be tempered with a sense of justice if we thought some pictures were shot covertly by victims who somehow gained access to a camera and the means to disseminate the images. But the most likely and unpalatable truth is that the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison were taken by the perpetrators themselves.
The question is, why do people who commit vile acts photograph what they do? Is it a perverse form of trophy hunting? Is it a desire for validation - a visual statement of "I was there" (after all, this is what most amateur photography is about).
Are those who commit these acts so confident their behaviour is somehow legitimate that they fail to see the consequences their pictures might have? Are they so stupid that they couldn't imagine the pictures getting out? Or are they so plagued with guilt that they secretly want to be exposed? Perhaps these perpetrators have constructed themselves in the same way as the deluded perpetrators of the Nazi death camps or the Khmer Rouge massacres who clinically documented their atrocities.
Since its inception, photography has had the power to reveal previously hidden realities. In the digital age, photography is more pervasive and accessible than ever. But to what extent do the megabytes that are transmitted in nanoseconds around the globe really bite back? Can pictures change reality? Not according to one of the world's leading photojournalists, Sebastian Salgado. He argues that photography changes nothing; that the most it can hope for is to show that some things ought to be changed.
In one sense he's right. After all that was revealed and written about those images of children in the water, the attitude of the Australian Government to asylum seekers remains unchanged. Adults and children fleeing war-torn communities continue to be demonised and incarcerated.
These images from Iraq may trigger inquiries that result in trials and policy changes. Donald Rumsfeld may eventually resign. And the Abu Ghraib prison might be torn down. But it is doubtful these images will prevent future abuses of power.
In her recent book Regarding the Pain of Others, US philosopher and essayist Susan Sontag considers just how we might regard pictures of suffering. She quotes from Baudelaire's journal. Writing in the early 1860s (before photographs were reproduced in newspapers) he said, "It is impossible to glance though any newspaper, no matter what the day, the month or the year, without finding on every line the most frightful traces of human perversity." What would Baudelaire make of today's newspapers, particularly the online versions promoting "On Camera: Torture Gallery"?
Sontag's thesis is that context is everything. She points out there is no way the creator of the image can guarantee reverential conditions in which to look at such images and be fully responsive to them.
Perhaps the best we can hope for is that the possibility of the image will mitigate the probability of abuse.
Peter Davis is a writer/photographer and a senior lecturer in the school of communication and creative arts at Deakin University.