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March 21, 2011

Thoughts on the American Kill Squad Photographs

By Michael Shaw

1. Sad thing is, since Obama blocked release of the last set of Abu Ghraib photos, there are probably even more people out there who feel these should never have been released. And again, like last time, the other 3,997 from this incident probably won’t see the light of day.

2. Seattle Times feels the need to explain that they will be running the photos. It’s a local story for them, though, given proximity of the base where the soldiers are from and where the court martial is being held.

3. Hmm, what made me think of Bradley Manning. Can’t tell if it’s the sadism or the fact somebody on the inside felt these needed to be leaked.

4. Yeah, this is Jeremy Morlock, the guy from notorious Wasilla. His sister is reportedly a friend of Bristol Palin.

5. Chances are very good Morlock is high in this picture as the platoon was known for really doing it up.

6. Other elements: The red shirt makes this feel even more bloody. //  Of course, pulling the head back by the hair is all about the trophy. // The Forward Operating Base where all this went down is called “Ramrod.”

7. Looks like Gawker got their hands on the photo, too. They cropped it, though, so you get a closer look. The way they obscured the face also makes it a lot more chilling and sadistic than Spiegel’s all-too-effective pixilation job above, the difference in presentation also raising the point that there is all kinds of filters on what we get to see. (They’ve published an extra picture of Morlock, as well.)

Guardian article. Spiegel images.

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  • Darkwing Duck

    Do you think that people took these photographs in previous wars? Did we not see them because of the relative inconvenience of publicly displaying them? It may be difficult (or impossible) to disentangle the technology that enables people to easily create and display these images from the drive to do so, but I am quite curious about how ‘new’ this phenomenon is.

  • Dave Mclane

    Apologizing for the photo (not for what they did). Yet another slight-of-mouth for “Keeping America safe” (by keeping these guys out of America).

    Quite similar to “American exceptionalism” “… where we should not ‘confuse the abuse of reality with reality itself.” Reality itself is he unachieved ‘national purpose’ revealed by ‘the evidence of history as our minds reflect it.” [Chomksy, "hopes and prospects"] In short, American intent is the reality, not what America actually does.

  • Gerry Desrosiers

    His name is Morlock?

    H.G. Wells must be peeing in his pants.

  • Bugboy

    Too many cooincidences to get my brain around. That this guy is from Wasilla? I used to say there is no such thing as cooincidence. This is way too surreal, even the H.G. Wells tie in with the name.

    • black dog barking

      Yet another killa from Wasilla

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Mokray/767686527 George Mokray

    Digby quotes Sy Hersh, “It’s the smile.”

    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/hersh-its-cameras.html

    A friend, now deceased, was a psy ops officer in Vietnam tasked with studying “super soldiers,” the best of the best. He talked about interviewing guys who kept trophies, ears and, I think, eyeballs. There is a reason that war is hell.

    In my extremely limited experience, death has an energy that feeds upon itself and builds and builds and builds until all that’s left is blood and the rote act of killing. All who experience combat are wounded and never completely healed.

    • http://www.bagnewsnotes.com Michael Shaw

      The other thing Sy Hersh said that really struck me is how ordinary the scene is.

  • glen

    The thing that strikes me looking at the photo is how frail the dead man is. He is probably the same age or younger than the young soldiers, who are just out of high school. Without the guns and the uniforms, this could be a picture of a playground bully humiliating a school nerd.

    In many ways, our wars are really an extension of kids bullying kids, only with deadlier results.

  • Thomas

    That’s an excellent point about the filters shaping presentation. Gawker said that they got their images from Der Spiegel — is their “obscuring” of the victim’s face here actually an attempt to resolve the pixelated features?
    It would seem that news organizations that are concerned with their reputations have another argument in favor of publishing such troubling images; it’s irresponsible to abandon them solely to the galleries of disinterested scavenging barkers like Gawker.

  • Thomas

    That’s an excellent point about the filters shaping presentation. Gawker said that they got their images from Der Spiegel — is their “obscuring” of the victim’s face here actually an attempt to resolve the pixelated features?
    It would seem that news organizations that are concerned with their reputations have another argument in favor of publishing such troubling images; it’s irresponsible to abandon them solely to the galleries of disinterested scavenging barkers like Gawker.

  • Thomas

    That’s an excellent point about the filters shaping presentation. Gawker said that they got their images from Der Spiegel — is their “obscuring” of the victim’s face here actually an attempt to resolve the pixelated features?
    It would seem that news organizations that are concerned with their reputations have another argument in favor of publishing such troubling images; it’s irresponsible to abandon them solely to the galleries of disinterested scavenging barkers like Gawker.

  • Typewriter

    Remember when Palin attacked Michelle Obama about the “proud of her country” remark? This photograph is what makes me saddest about being an American. Another day, another war. And we don’t even have money to pay our teachers and give our own people jobs and healthcare.

    I agree with what someone else said about war being an extension of kids bullying kids but it also reminds me of the scenes I have heard described by rape victims when I was a counselor. Power and control.

  • Typewriter

    And I just realized what this scene triggered in me immediately at a more subconscious level- Jesus being persecuted. The slight build of the man,his semi-nude body,the posture of his hands and the blood evoke myriads of images from classic paintings to altar crucifixes.

    • http://www.bagnewsnotes.com Michael Shaw

      Typewriter: Spot on. I totally missed that.

      (That’s why I love having so many eyes on these photos and reading them as a community. Also, very glad to have switched over to this more professional comment system after what we were limping along with for the past year. Thanks to all.)

    • glen

      chilling. What a great eye.

    • quincyscott

      Definitely.

  • quincyscott

    What strikes me is the covering up of the corpse’s buttocks. Somebody felt that was the decent thing to do, but had no problem posing with the body for a thumbs up. Mind boggling.

    • Mjfgates

      They probably didn’t want anybody thinking that they were having sex with the dead guys… killing random Afghans is one thing, but teh gay, well.

  • Pingback: Michael Shaw: Reading the Pictures: Take-Aways on the Video Showing Marines Urinating on Taliban

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