New Prison Images Emerge

The shocking images that have emerged from Iraqi prisons, showing American and British soldiers abusing and humiliating prisoners, have created a "combustible international scandal". The photos, taken with the digital cameras that soldiers brought with them to communicate with families back home, mimic tourist snapshots – except in their horrific content. Without this sort of technology, these pictures would not have been taken or so widely distributed, and the report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba on prison abuses would probably have died unnoticed. In an ironic turn for the Bush administration, the same visual technologies that brought home the power of "Shock and Awe" and the 'embedded' journalists was then used to record the underbelly of the American army and hence undermine the American war for the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims worldwide. Technology has transformed the nature of civilians' relation to war, for the gruesome details are now recorded and transmitted home for all to see. If the soldiers at My Lai had had access to the same cameras, perhaps Americans would have seen the same images earlier. – YaleGlobal