The Power of Pixels

Today we had American Studies Day-A day which focused a lot on the power of photography as a means of sending out a specific message. Bearing this in mind, I found it so ironic and all the more fitting that today as I opened up my yahoo mail, right in the front box was this article. It discusses the fate of pictures of American troops torturing prisoners. The pictures allegedly showed "grinning American soldiers posing with detainees — some of the prisoners naked, some being held on leashes". Naturally, the reaction to these photos was strong American sentiment all around the world, but especially on the part of the nations affected first hand by this abuse.
While I definitely agree that the negative consequences of the circulation these photos are immense and not beneficial to foreign relations, whether or not I agree with Obama's decision to try and block these images is a different matter. I mean, they are real photographs-to hide them from the public would be censorship, regardless of the motives. Also, to ban them would be ignoring the issue, which is one that should not be treated lightly. While Obama has now made it clear that the actions taken by the previous administration were completely out of line saying, "Any abuse of detainees is unacceptable. It is against our values. It endangers our security. It will not be tolerated." -regardless, what happened happened and cannot be swept under the rug. By making it publicly known but also stating that by no means is that ever acceptable, hopefully the people of America and of the world might learn from this experience and not make the same mistakes again.
This whole situation just further proves what we discussed with Professor Mazur. While yes, admitting that American soldiers tortured prisoners would affect people, it is photographs of the event that really take the whole thing to a new level, that get a real rise out of people.