A Picture Says One Thousand Words (from one thousand different mouths)

The photographs in Standard Operating Procedure are presented such that the viewer would expect that the torture going on in some photos is as every-day as eating a meal or going to a bazaar. The photos of torture are shown in sequence with photos of sunsets, the Secretary of Defense, soldiers in the field, and daily activities. They also show photographs of the soldiers “at play” in the prison at Abu Ghraib, playing jokes on one another and even getting into some of the positions that they force the prisoners into at later times. In such photographs, it seems that, to the soldiers, homoeroticism and humiliation are simply a game.

I ask: Which do you think is daily activity?

(http://avaxhome.ws/video/Ghosts_of_Abu_Ghraib.html)

(about.com)
(http://avaxhome.ws/video/Ghosts_of_Abu_Ghraib.html)

I say all of them. In every photograph, the soldiers look like they are having a good time. Every event is just another game to them. It is because of that fact that I can believe that they “were just following orders” (Standard Operating Procedure), but I cannot believe that they did not know that they were in the wrong. Torturing people should not be fun, and that was how they saw their tasks. It is obvious in their smiles, their dangling cigarettes, and their constant thumbs-up positions.

Many times, the most striking photographs are shown first at an extreme close-up on the screen, and then they are pulled away into a photograph that is framed in white. They are positioned on a black background, so that they are the only thing in view for the person watching the film. This is possibly to show the viewer that it is “just” a photograph, but also that it is the most important thing going on at that moment. The photos are centered on the screen, a place of importance in any piece of art. The size change is meant to grab the viewer’s attention. As the photograph gets smaller, you want to look at it closer to make sure you don’t miss any details. In this way, the production makes sure that you are really looking. This effect is not used on photographs of Rumsfeld or the sunset. There is an obvious difference between the photographs of torture and the photographs of every-day life. Or is there?

I am emotionally moved in a very different way when viewing a sunset against the Seven-Man-Pyramid. I cannot help but wonder how the photographers simply stood by, reinforcing the horrific behaviors of their peers. Those taking the photographs admitted to doing so, but said that they were sorry for doing so (Standard Operating Procedure). The soldiers were not sorry for the ways in which they tortured their prisoners, though; they were sorry that they got caught. The myth that a photograph is objective (Class notes) is only solidified further by the statements given by some of the soldiers in the documentary.

I was most stricken by the various statements given by Lynndie England. One of her first statements that what she was seeing was “unusual, weird, wrong” followed by stating that “an example had been set” made me feel like she was referring more to the “example” being one of how to torture, rather than how not to torture (Standard Operating Procedure). I did not find myself believing her when she said that, in the photograph of her holding a leash attached to a prisoner, that she was not pulling him. Other soldiers being interviewed agreed with her, and others did not. I have to agree with Judith Butler that the mandate for war photography must be that “the mandate of the photo must not be clear” (Butler). Every photograph in the documentary, on the news, and circulating the internet is up against speculation of its content. The trouble is in figuring out your own stance on the matter.

I feel that the method of showing the photographs in Standard Operating Procedure had a few motives. Morris wanted his audience to know that there are multiple stories about what happened. He wanted to show them that, from the metadata involved, the acts of torture were as common to the soldiers as eating a meal or hanging out in their own cells. I think, though, that most of all, he wanted to let them know that “Photographs expose, photographs cover up” (Morris, via class notes). If there is one thing that I am taking away from this unit, it is that there is much more to the story of Abu Ghraib than was ever let public, and that we, as citizens, will never know the whole truth.

Butler, Judith. “Torture, Sexual Politics, and the Ethics of Photography.” From “Thinking Humanity After Abu Ghraib” panel at Stanford University.

Class notes, Gendered Bodies in Visual Culture. September 23, 2010.

Standard Operating Procedure. Dir. Errol Morris, 2008

Tristam, Pierre. "Congress Bans Release of Abu Ghraib and Other Torture Images." Middle East Issues. http://middleeast.about.com/b/2009/10/21/congress-bans-release-of-abu-ghraib-and-other-torture-images.htm