“Is this something we want to be involved in?” was a question the US media asked itself numerous times when, Kenneth Jarecke, American photojournalist, attempted to have his Gulf War photo of a charred Iraqi soldier (Figure 1) published. This question, however controversial, was never posed to the people most in need of asking it, the American citizens. What qualities of the photo deem it too graphic to view? Taken during the tail end of the war on February 28th 1991, in fact, about an hour before the declare of a ceasefire, it was not published in the United States until several months later, with media professionals citing it as too brutal for everyone to see. There was a concern that Jarecke’s realistic snapshot of the impact war has, would disturb the serene capitalist nature of the United States, that it would not only demonstrate the obvious destructivity war creates but, suggest a loss of humanity. With media so immersed in American homes, censoring everything it touches, allowing and disallowing particular trains of thought, the reality is: Americans cannot handle seeing brutality as a result of their own hands. How would Americans personally justify supporting the war and taking lead in the attacks against Iraq? What would be the implications of a “peaceful” society being subjected to such cruelty?
With a press team and public affairs officer in tow on Highway 8, the Highway of Death, in southern Iraq, miles away from Kuwait, Kenneth Jarecke happened across a dead man in a truck. Knowing instantly that he needed to photograph the scene, he hopped out of their convoy and approached the vehicle, with no one stopping him, besides the fact that it was against the rules.[1] What he had captured was a full colour portrait, of a man in a dilapidated vehicle, whose skin is completely incinerated, his face showing, but no longer recognizable; who pulled himself up above the dashboard just seconds before the closing of Jarecke’s shutter. As the last moment of a dead man with no name, and even if a name were known, it would be unknown to us; his identity, in appearance and in name, has literally been erased. The dark copper of his charred skin resembling that of the rust overtaking the vehicle he rests on, the texture of his body blending into the foreground — a sepia toned image reflecting the dawn of a sunrise and beginning of the end.
From the description of the photograph alone, it clear that even before the snapshot was taken, there was going to be controversy, in fact, the real live scene in and of itself was controversial. There would be no debate that this photograph was destined for criticism, for those who were brave enough to do it, and because of its uncanny realism of the impossible, captured by the lens, it was inevitable that many feelings would arise. Susie Linfield put it best when she said that photography includes “a host of conflicts and anxieties [and] the doubts that photography inspires are the doubts modernity inspires. [It] is a proxy for modern life and its discontents, which may explain some of the high expectations, bitter disappointments, and pure vitriol it has engendered.”[2]
In this essay, I intend to conduct a thorough investigation of the societal ramifications and political ethics involved in delaying Kenneth Jarecke’s Iraqi soldier photograph from entering American media as it pertains to cultural norms, historical practices, and art-critical perspectives of relevant and reputable theorists. When attempting to uncover answers as to why it took the United States several months to feature the photograph in any of the media platforms, television or magazines, there are a number of avenues to consider ranging from before the image was taken to after it was published. We must engage in this critical investigation first with the general understanding of the photo being an art form, closely evaluating its formal qualities and aesthetics which may deem it as such and we will do so in relation to that of works created by Richard Avedon and elin o’Hara slavick. Next, we will assess the democratic system as a form of society, which dictates the media as a mode of visuality, and its deeply engrained tendency to censorship such graphic images entering into the media stream strongly influences the messages that result with perspectives from David Campbell and Susan Sontag. Finally, this paper will address some of the ethical implications with viewing Jarecke’s photograph, the subjective issues that arise from within the individual in relation to context of the image, an identity crisis, with support from Girogio Agamben and Suzanne Slavick.
I
Now, we must pause for a moment and consider one thing, what does the image, as an art form, reveal to us? Whenever we look at something, we instantly place ourselves in the position of a spectator, observer, viewer, or what have you, and those two dimensional labels typically refer to an audience looking at an image from a distance; look, and move on. But, when we find ourselves looking at an image that is gruesome and/or graphic, our reflex is often one of disregard. Part of Western culture’s upbringing involves a set of norms dictating how we conduct ourselves in society, and whether we are aware of it or not, those norms are translated to artistic forms as well. When presented with an image such as Jarecke’s, our intuition is to look away because we have been conditioned to think that there is an unethical element in subjecting ourselves to graphic images. In situations like these, we no longer feel like a spectator, observer, or viewer — labels that indicate disconnect with the image — but rather a voyeur, a label that also inscribes deep feelings. While it is commonly understood that a voyeur is someone who receives sexual pleasure from watching engagements of sexual activity, in the art-critical world, the term is used to denote a fascination with or enjoyment of watching others in pain, and for the sake of this argument, we will use the latter. Such voyeuristic or pornographic images instil a wrongness or embarrassment to view them, as if inherently some sort of crime or taboo is being committed. And, photographs captured using traditional manual cameras and film roll and a process of chemical picture development, like Jarecke’s, incurs a further closeness to the captured event, much different than that of a painting; documentary photography allows those deep feelings to surface by placing the viewer alongside the soldier himself.[3] And, I must demand that we analyse Jarecke’s photo not from a voyeuristic point of view, a point of view that places it in a negative shadow from the beginning and primes the image for being judged with low expectations, but rather from an artistic perspective, as an art form.
An important aspect to analyze in Jarecke’s Iraqi soldier is that of his pose, moreover, his gaze. The scorched man, with his horrifically exposed musculature, seemingly smiles for his picture perfect moment; his lips thinned and teeth exposed, arms outstretched, sunken eyes squinting and head tilted perfectly towards Jarecke’s lens, as if wanting to be documented. The power of the gaze has long been a theme evident in fine arts, serving as a window to the onlooker’s soul, an aside breaking the third wall, and the Iraqi soldier, for as long as he was posed in that way before Jarecke arrived, looks as though he knew that moment was coming. The Iraqi soldier’s stare eerily invites us, as spectators, to step into the war scene, however the role we take on, as active participants or passive bystanders, within the photograph is up for interpretation. Thierry De Duve experiences a similar position of morality upon viewing Richard Avedon’s Napalm Victim photos (Figure 2), where she notes that the gaze of the figures left her feeling disturbed and uneasy as their eye-to-eye contact fully realized for her the great misery felt within, that it was, “the fear on their faces [and] the disarming abandonment in their eyes at the very moment of the snapshot… as if it were addressed to me in person.” De Duve goes on to say that the connective moment she shared with them allowed, “the people in the photos [to] rise from the dead, and only then did this unbearably controversial exhibition acquire its true legitimacy.”[4]
Kenneth Jarecke captured his photo towards the end of the war while elin o’Hara slavick’s mixed media representation, Baghdad, Iraq, 1990 – Ongoing (Figure 3) reimagines its onset. “This drawing takes as its reference a newspaper map showing the targets hit during the first 24 hours of the first ‘Gulf War’ in 1990 “… dropping 177 million pounds of bombs on the people of Iraq in the most concentrated aerial onslaught in the history of the world.”[5] Her image reveals the numerous amounts of people bombed during the Gulf War, claiming uncountable casualties, most of who were children, indicating the toll fear and sadness can take on both the attackers and the victims. Besides the variations in representing the war between Jarecke and o’Hara slavick, the image created by the latter includes a caption or subtext which provides background info on the image being perceived, something that typically accompanies a journalistic photo. The image created by o’Hara slavick’s accompanying text, encourages me to imagine the scene that took place in its entirety, as well as muster up any feelings associated with them, and, in lieu of the actual artwork, this short blurb reinforces the visual message that she is attempting to portray, the massive scale of suffering caused by war. And, unlike Jarecke, her image remains in line with the other images of the Gulf War that were released, the aerial view and sheer beautification of the war. The Iraqi soldier, on the hand, needs no subtext. Its graphic nature and known context of its capturing, speaks for itself, possibly too well. And it may be this aspect that made it too difficult to swallow in the immediate moment of the war occurring. Whether I agree with this or not, it may have been that it was just too soon for Americans to confront their fear, and moreover, in the manner in which it was presented.
II
Prior to embarking on the Gulf War journalistic excursion, Jarecke and his press team had a certain set of rules and guidelines they were meant to follow in regards to what they could and could not document. This “embedded reporting” was no new practice for photojournalists as the time, and though the rules surrounding this have become stricter, it was understood that they were to stay away from scenes that promote anything anti-American, that is, representations of the dead on foreign grounds or American grounds, rules that the media promised to abide by as well.[6] American war and its images of violence have always included some form of censorship, permitting only a handful of military photographers to capture war footage with the strict purpose to document the control their armies had over the enemy. The Vietnam War contradicted this as the first televised war, highly publicizing criticism on war; thus a stricter form of censorship was enforced during the First Gulf War, which “disappeared all evidence of dead bodies, an unknowable number on the Iraqi side, substituting instead the antiseptic ‘eye’ of the smart bomb and effectively blacking out coverage of American atrocities,”[7] indicates Dora Appel in War Culture and the Contest of Images. The resulting coverage of the war then, was overly sanitized and unrepresentative of the actual goings-on, portraying information of falsehood. As I mentioned previously, Jarecke took it upon himself to photograph the charred soldier, clearly sidestepping the rules he formerly agreed to, but as well, even though the press official had some reservations, neither of his team members prevented him from doing so. What does this say about the validity of the image in the first place? Were the US media officials in the right to refuse the image even if it were obtained wrongly? I think that there is no clear yes or no answer, and instead, we must rely on further investigation to fully draw it out.
The images that became so synonymous with the war of 1990-1991 involved fleets of jets shooting across the sky, smoke ascending into the atmosphere, and missiles tracing streams of light overhead — aerial images that represented what Sontag deemed as the techno war.[8] Such photos dually mask the brutality of war and symbolize the dominant power and advantage American troops had over its enemy, being beneath them, that America was watching their every move and predicting all future ones from a position near Godliness. Furthermore, this idea of the hero in the sky and enemy on the ground presents itself in the form of a live re-enactment of the US national anthem, “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there… On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,”[9] which subconsciously transmits to its citizens the sense of liberality and hope that is the hallmark of the country. Kenneth Jarecke’s photo does reflect the aspect of the enemy on the ground but it also exposes the cruelty of war, blemishing the essential elements of US nationalism, unearthing a narrative that had yet to be told.
The production of these narratives, at least the end product received by viewers, should not be taken into account on an individual basis. Any form of news, of war or what have you, is subjected not only to a system of elimination but also a lengthy process of filtration. Certain media receives certain news stories depending on the leftness or rightness of their platform, and those stories may provide opposing perspectives, be played at varying lengths, or may omit aspects that may not line up with public opinion. Nevertheless, when a ripe story surfaces, reporters and journalists engage in a “feeding frenzy” in order to be better than the other media sources and provide the best news coverage for their viewers.[10] And in this political debate, the originality of the news often gets overlooked or misplaced and what results then, is a plethora of contradictory viewpoints of the same story, airing both simultaneously and constantly. In Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War (Retort), a passage states that, “the present condition of politics does not make sense unless it approached from a dual perspective – seen as a struggle for… dominance [and] as a battle for the control of appearances.”[11] When examining the effects of images on the public as it pertains to war, violence, and national policy, one must take into consideration the modes of visuality that deliver, not only the content but also the framework of war, to the living rooms of typical American citizens. Media projects fears drenched in a message of where the bad people are, assuring viewers that it’s not them and not near them. And when the media, television, posters, advertisements, and film, is so entrenched and engrossed within a society, shoving down the throats of Americans invariable, repeated images of the same theme, a compassion fatigue, or desensitization of the meaning those images originally entailed sets in, ultimately distorting and minimizing the impact it would otherwise have.[12]
It is important now, to discuss this ‘democracy’ by which Americans can, or are allowed to, partake in war activity. The freedoms of association, of expression, of press, of speech outlined in the American Constitution states that every person deemed a citizen of the country has a right to exercise these on a daily basis through various forms such as protesting. “We the people” is a phrase commonly used by the American government and its citizens to denote that it is the voice of the many that dictates everything from policy making to constitutional amendments and to deny a population this voice, a population that is significantly larger than the government that encourages it, is to have a society operating on chaos and disorganization. However, when situations arise that challenge the ability for a country to smoothly operate, that is, when misrepresentation of the “land of the free” is a potentiality, the government will intervene. This takes form in underhanded and subtle tweaks made to laws and presentation of information that often becomes either ambiguous or unknown to the general public. To maintain democratic coherence by means of dominant intervention though, is to inherently contradict the definition of democracy in the first place. To quote Jacques Rancière from Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield’s The Paradoxes of Democracy: Post War American and U.S. Foreign Policy, “Democracy as a form of government is threatened by democracy as a form of social and political life and so the former must repress the latter,”[13] This paradox, as politically fuelled as it is, lends itself to be deeply routed in art as well, emphasizing the weakness and strength art forms possess in terms of political action, and politicians are well aware of this. Art retains not only the ability to highlight the weakness of said democratic government but also, the strength to impact change within the social forces that influence it.[14] Photojournalism is the most obvious example of this where the artistic form interacts with the political form, when factual images of a certain matter such as war are intrinsically anti-democratic, anti-American, anti-political, and the government takes it personally and decides to act.
When the war ended, the photo was immediately published in March of 1991, in the UK magazine The Observer, as well as Libération, the Parisian magazine, with both magazines refusing to publish it on the covers. Contact Press Images, the agency for which Jarecke represented for years, turned him down and even removed the image from the wire service and prevented it from hitting any desks of media outlets.[15] In an article from the UK magazine The Guardian called Graphic content: When photographs of carnage are too upsetting to publish, photo editor Roger Tooth outlines the decisions facing media of whether to run an image such as Jarecke’s, assessing whether it is “deeply shocking, insensitive to human dignity, [has the potential to] be painful if seen by relatives or friends, or [could] run the risk of forcing readers to turn away form the story.”[16] While this explanation provides foundation for understanding why America refrained from the Iraqi soldier, it is still unclear as to why other countries felt justified in doing so. Why was it that the rest of the world was ready to see the carnage ensued by war and America was not? Though America chose not to release the photo, it still managed to be circulated through the news media in part due to the magazines that originally opted in as well as the increasing popularity of the internet, and it wasn’t until several months later that American Photo, decided to feature Jarecke and his controversial photo, at which point the entire strength and significance of it was lost. Refusing to publish this photo rightly caused uproar as it marked a criticism on American justice and what it means to be free. The fact of the matter is that by withholding such valuable information, such evidence, the media is indirectly declaring that it never happened in the first place, a notion which Sontag supports in Judith Butler’s Photography, War, Outrage, “if there is no photo, there is no atrocity.” Such photographs of war are critical to the sustenance of a society and recording of history and to pretend a portion of it did not occur is to diminish a nation’s sovereignty, ignore justice, deny truth. But we should not eagerly jump to the conclusions in blaming the media for its overly mass produced images of war.
III
Let’s consider the September 11th attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon of 2001. The result of this event was not to necessarily just cause destruction to American buildings or American citizens but, rather, serve as a metaphor for the States’ timely economic collapse, ultimately instilling fear and threatening the country’s state of capitalism and long time way of being. Through modern day technologies, television, radio, and social media, the event was constructed into such a powerful visual seen by many near and far, that it demeaned what it meant to live in a civilized part of the world — America. So then, why air images of Americans being destroyed and not Iraqis? The answer is not so simple. What we must do is look at the answers we do have and assess from there. It exposed the “permeability of [American] borders,”[17] and a vulnerability the country’s citizens had not previously known existed. Borders that clearly indicated who was part of “us” and who were part of “them.” When the twin towers fell, it was abrupt and not predicted by anyone. While Americans knew the “what” of the story, that iconic buildings were dismantled and the people inside were lost, the “how” and “why” were unknown. The country was ill prepared and unsure of how to deal with the attacks and so the government did nothing to explain, citizens worried about loved ones, and the media kept recording. The problem with this then is the fact that visuals as strong as the ones captured of September 11th, without context or captions, allow minds to inaccurately interpret and freely catastrophize. And when someone, or a whole country in this matter, dwells on threats caused by an image, they become vulnerable and unable to deal with real imminent threats. Turning our attention to the image of the Iraqi soldier, Americans knew the “how” and “why” — bombs were dropped on Iraq by American troops serving and protecting their country — but the “what,” the result, was unknown. Nobody in the US had seen the death of the Gulf War and it was inconceivable that the deaths of the war would be or could be caused at the hands of an American. And upon viewing Jarecke’s photo, the whole story would play out and that was too much to handle.
If, hypothetically, US media chose to release the photo of the Iraqi soldier as soon as it was presented to them and Americans were to have seen it, the narrative they have subscribed to would change from hero to villain, exposing a gray zone, “[an] incessant alchemy in which good and evil and, along with them, all the metals of traditional ethics reach their point of fusion,” as Giorgio Agamben explains in Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive, — the victim becomes the oppressor and the oppressor the victim.[18] What I mean here is not that Americans view themselves as victims insomuch as they are aware of the opposing views outside of the country where, if not monitored, could pose a threat and paint them as such. The photo depicts the heartless and savage aspect of war that Americans are not use to seeing and choose not to see. Heavy with emotion, the charred Iraqi soldier confronts the all-American fear of being the bad guy, the villain, forcing the American viewer to reflect on who they are, what they do, and how they view themselves within humanity. Whenever image and atrocity are said in the same sentence, themes of empathy and identification present themselves, indicating that regardless of the position the viewer takes, good or bad, left or right, if the image is as atrocious as it is deemed to be, that is, it represents a level of human pain and suffering, there is an internal introspection that occurs.[19] When “the vicarious suffering ends up annulling the difference between the actual sufferer and the viewer, the suffering all but disappears, consumed by the commiserating viewer,” states Suzanne Slavick, in Out of Rubble.[20] What she dictates here is an inevitability of the viewer of a disturbing photo becoming part of the photograph itself, personifying the emotions, morals, and values within it, if only for a brief moment.
This mergence of states, then, reveals an identity crisis within the viewer, as they are confronted with conflicting questions and answers, ideations and propositions of who they actually are, especially in the face of suffering. Regardless of the individual viewer’s history of suffering or experience of trauma, viewing a photo such as Jarecke’s puts all viewers in a position to be traumatized, for the outside world to clash with the inside; a crossroads that requires extensive analysis of existence. However, one can only assess one’s own place in the world in relation to that of others, and thus, it is the group that impacts the conclusion of the self, a process of transaction whereby one’s self awareness is influenced or impacted by another.[21] The trauma here, as it is presented in images, in art, is a shared collective experience, a force that is political, not subjective, that “does not offer us a privileged view of the inner subject; [but through] extension in space or lived place, it invites an awareness of different modes of inhabitation,”[22] says Jill Bennett in Empathetic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art.
elin o’Hara slavick says in Bomb After Bomb: A Violent Cartogrpahy, says that, “The true enemy becomes ‘less external than internal,’” pointing out that the problem with war and conflict in general is not the fault of the ‘other person’ but rather that of the self and the fact that we are too eager to point fingers.[23] The ideals that are imposed as part of Americanhood involve a sense of freedom in and loyalty to one’s country and, upon demonstration of the photo, it is revealed that troops weren’t sent overseas to maintain these ideals and protect its citizens in a heroic manner but, rather, to cause harm to other humans. It may not be that the everyday, hardworking American would feel that they themselves directly caused harm to the unrecognizable Iraqi soldier, but they have equal responsibility in the warfare due in part in their proximity to friends, neighbours, and family members situated in Iraq, and also in that they heavily support war efforts through television and democracy.
What exactly was it that Jarecke documented? In the opening to chapter 4 of Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag claims that in order “to catch a death actually happening and embalm it for all time is something only cameras can do, and pictures taken by photographers out in the field of the moment of (or just before) death are among the most celebrated and often reproduced of war photographs.”[24] She makes this claim in reference to that of Eddie Adams’ Saigon Execution photograph (Figure 4) that captures the image of the South Vietnamese national police chief the moment he shoots a Vietcong suspect, which was staged by the General himself. The question that arises when comparing Jarecke’s photo to that of Adams’s is one of co-spectatorship.[25] What role does the photographer play when he is subjected to the torture and death of another person? While Adams had prior knowledge of the execution and attended with the purpose to document it, did he, as an ethical human being, possess the responsibility to prevent its occurrence? Not exactly. He was given a rare invitation to the execution to witness a condemning moment, one that does not permit him to interfere on both an opportunistic sense and an ethical sense — he attended as a photojournalist, not as a human rights activist. In the case of Jarecke, he happened to stumble across the rusted over truck with the dying man attempting to escape, and from a quick glance at his condition, it was evident that all hope was lost for him. Jarecke took it upon himself to approach the vehicle and photograph the scorched man inside; he too was there for documentary purposes but the opportunity demonstrated itself in a different form; he felt a sense of obligation, a duty to report — “It’s what I came here to do. It’s what I have to do.”[26] He brought to light the purpose of an artist and the role his photograph has in regards to exposing truth about a matter as troublesome as war, which is to reveal the problem, not simply make a critique about it or frame it in a certain way as the media does, and to allow interpretation of said problem. Despite this contrast in authenticity, both images witnessed something only a camera could, according to Sontag, but Giorgio Agamben says otherwise.
A hidden truth was exposed, far beyond the complexities of a photojournalist endangering himself while jets filled the sky and troops covered the ground, a testimony revealed, only made possible by someone who has touched bottom. And this someone who has touched bottom, seen the end, is made through the example of a man burned alive, a man who remains as the closest possible answer to the complete truth, the truth of humanity within war. If this man is to be beholder of a wholesome justice that could potentially turn warfare on its head, then what this makes Jarecke is, by proxy, a survivor to pass along said truth, a living testament of this unknown man,[27] as “no on can bear witness from the inside of death, and there is no voice for the disappearance of voice – from the outside – since the ‘outsider’ is by definition excluded from the event.”[28] Of course Jarecke by no means would have had any clue of the words this burned man would say or if there in fact were some beneficial truth to those words, but it’s not the words that are the point. The mere image of this man, in the location, and position, and condition he was in, speaks volumes to the kind of truth all Americans were most in need of hearing but prevented from. While it is in my nature to disagree with Agamben in his stance that only those who are dead can accurately speak a truth but can’t because they no longer exist which completely disregards the testaments of the survivors, I contend that this image is the closest one could possibly get to the complete truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — and if that is the case, wouldn’t it be that the photograph itself is the survivor?
IV
It may be a stretch to say that the photograph is a survivor; it is an inanimate object, devoid of feelings, executive functioning, and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, but it does allow us to contemplate something else. If the image of the Iraqi soldier, besides the obvious fact that he is not alive, contains an overwhelming amount of nullity and is absent from elements of humanity, what then, does it mean to be human? And furthermore, should we even care about the Iraqi soldier? If we think of the self in relation to others, that is, “I” can only exist if there is a “they,” we move from autonomous beings to dependent ones. In sharing this interconnectivity with those surrounding us, near and far, we are encouraged not to engage in acts of grievance alone but rather, in a manner that concerns all, regardless of whether we know the lost person or not, regardless of whether we are aware of what exactly within that person was lost.[29] As Judith Butler writes in Precarious Life: The Powers of Violence and Mourning, “I am not fully known to myself, because part of what I am is the enigmatic traces of others.”[30] However, it may be difficult to view the world this way, to live this way, as messages of differentness, of individuality, of self-sufficiency are very much engrossed in Western culture. It seems that the grand problem that arose concerning Jarecke’s photo highlighted societal issues within the country rather than the image itself. It is no unknown fact that Westerners are used to seeing violent images on a regular basis and to say that the graphic nature of the image was the reason for not publishing the photo sooner is a fallacy. We should not pretend something didn’t happen based on the rationale that we might afraid of how it could be perceived. If we can walk the walk, we should also possess the ability to talk the talk. As Kenneth Jarecke himself declared in the interview with American Photo magazine, “If we’re big enough to fight a war, we should be big enough to look at it.”[31]
Undoubtedly, the existence of photography in the first place has affected modernity, as we know it, providing the international world with tangible snapshots of moments in time. And, when photographs are coupled with words and presented through various media outlets, the end result is a cross-section of politics and technology, a cross-section that blurs the previously defined line of reality and virtuality.[32] It’s possible that Jarecke’s photo is that of a martyr in some respects, whether he was drafted into war off of the streets of Baghdad or whether he voluntarily joined the Iraqi army, wilfully abiding by the demands of Saddam Hussein, we just don’t know. We also don’t know his name, his age, if he had any children or a spouse, and it is unknown whether knowing any of these details would in fact change anything. What we do know is that he had a will to live. A psychological will so strong that he fought for life until his physical body no longer could. And so it becomes our responsibility, as witness to his last testament, critics of conflict, admirers of photography, to memorialize not the Iraqi man himself, but the symbolism inscribed within him.
The fact of the matter is that America was not ready to stare back in the face of death, to confront fear. Because of how they have been conditioned to view violent images, to view media messages, and to view the individual self, viewing the Iraqi soldier and the actions that caused his untimely end, would imply an admission to how the world views them.
Thus, I shall say in regards to further steps, the image of the incinerated soldier should encourage us not to be passive beings when it comes to violence, not to take as fact everything we are presented, instead, it provides for us a foundation for which to be active observers, always questioning everything we see and everything we don’t see. And, so long as humans instill suffering in others, there will always be a purpose for photography as a form of representation, and the Iraqi soldier has become that. As war can destroy objects and other physical entities like literature that account for the factual history of events, it cannot destroy the ideals or concepts only portrayed accurately through visual representation. Unlike all other art forms, visual art transcends time, transcends space, and transcends reality, depicting what isn’t said, what isn’t heard, ultimately paving the way for what will be.[33]
[1] Torie Rose Deghett, “The War Photo No One Would Publish.” TheAtlantic.com. Last modified August 8, 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/the-war-photo-no-one-would-publish/375762/
[2] Susie Linfield, “A Little History of Photography Criticism; or, why do Photography Critics Hate Photography?” in The Cruel Radiance : Photography and Political Violence. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 13.
[3] John Taylor, “Caught Looking,” in Body Horror: Photojournalism, Catastrophe, and War, Critical Image. (New York: New York University Press, 1998): 17.
[4] De Duve, Thierry, “Art in the Face of Radical Evil,” October Magazine, no. 125 (2008): 22.
[5] Catherine and elin o’Hara slavick, “Annotated List of Plates,” in Bomb after Bomb: A Violent Cartography, (Vicenza: Charta, 2007): 95.
[6] Judith Butler, “Photography, War, Outrage,” PMLA 120.3 (2005): 823.
[7] Dora Appel. “Technologies of War, Media, and Dissent in the Post-9/11 Work of Krysztof Wodiczko,” in War Culture and the Contest of Images, (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2012): 19.
[8] Susan Sontag. “Chapter 4,” in Regarding the Pain of Others, 1st ed., (New York: Picador-Farrar, 2003): 66.
[9] “The Lyrics: The Star-Spangled Banner,” AMHistory.si.edu., accessed December 8, 2016. http://amhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/the-lyrics.aspx
[10] W. Lance Bennett and David L Paletz, “The News about Foreign Policy,” in Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War, edited by Daniel C. Hallin and Todd Gitlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994): 24.
[11] Retort (Iain Boal; T.J. Clark; Joseph Mathews; Michael Watts), “The State, The Spectacle, and September 11,” in Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War, (London: Verso, 2005): 31.
[12] David Campbell, “The Myth of Compassion Fatigue,” in The Violence of the Image: Photography and International Conflict, (London: I.B. Taurus, 2014: 106-107.
[13] Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield, “The Paradoxes of Democracy: Post War American Art and U.S. Foreign Policy,” Saint Louis University Public Law Review 35, no. 2 (2016): 319.
[14] Dronsfield, “The Paradoxes of Democracy,” 321.
[15] Deghett, “The War Photo No One Would Publish,” accessed October 24, 2016.
[16] Roger Tooth, “Graphic Content: When Photographs of Carnage are Too Upsetting to Publish,” TheGuardian.com. Accessed October 24, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/23/graphic-content-photographs-too-upsetting-to-publish-gaza-mh17-ukraine
[17] Retort, “The State, The Spectacle, and September 11,” 31.
[18] Agamben, Giorgio, “The Witness,” in Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive, translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen, (Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2002): 17.
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[24] Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, 59.
[25] Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, 59.
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[28] Agamben, “The Witness,” 35.
[29] Judith Butler, “Violence, Mourning, Politics,” in Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, (London: Verso, 2004): 27-28.
[30] Judith Butler, “Violence, Mourning, Politics,” 46.
[31] Eugene Reznik, “The Story Behind Ken Jarecke’s Horrific and Controversial Gulf War Photo.” AmericanPhotoMag.com, accessed October 24, 2016. http://www.americanphotomag.com/story-behind-ken-jareckes-horrific-and-controversial-gulf-war-photo
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[33] Lutz and slavick, “What We Cannot See,” 103.
