Why soldiers took pictures:

[trof]

Because they could.

Viet Nam was the first war in which the average grunt had access to cheap instant photography. Many shipped over with a relatively new little gadget in their rucksacks: the Polaroid camera.

Many used them to send snapshots back to the folks at home. Pictures of them and their buddies; usually in macho, "Rambo" poses.

And some used them to take "souvenir" photos of what most of us would now call "atrocities". They were passed around and swapped, like baseball cards. Happily for the American psyche, few (if any) were circulated among the general public or made the nightly news.

Cheap instant "imaging" in Iraq is just bigger, better, faster, and, as we have now seen, with MUCH wider circulation.

[SuffragetteSal]

1. I have seen websites

of photos of Vietnam, dead young men in piles, intestines falling out, limbs missing. Some American soldiers did take photos and have them up on websites as we speak.

[slackmaster]

2. Good point

Digital photography and the Internet.

:toast:

I just got a digital camera and take it just about everywhere. Unlike the film days it costs essentially nothing to take as many photos as you want.

That said, it was pretty dumb of them to take pictures of illegal activities. OTOOH their naivete turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

6. They didn't think it was illegal - apparently they were given that message

They thought it was something to be proud of. When you're given the message by your leaders that these people are "evildoers" and that it's ok to just over and kill the whole lot of them - what do you expect?

I've heard many Republicans say things along the line as: "Just blow up the entire Middle East and wipe those people out." They do not think of them as people. They are worse than animals in their books.

[slackmaster]

12. Soldiers are supposed to know better

They are required to disobey illegal orders. They're not robots. "I was only following orders" has rarely been accepted as an excuse for war crimes since the Nuremberg trials in the 1940s.

Every person in the military is responsible for knowing that international law prohibits that kind of mistreatment of prisoners. The standards for treatment of prisoners of war follow the standards for treatment of prisoners as defined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. See http://www.military-network.com/main_ucmj/main_ucmj.htm and in particular Article 93 at http://www.military-network.com/main_ucmj/SUBCHAPTERX.html#893.93

I've heard many Republicans say things along the line as: "Just blow up the entire Middle East and wipe those people out." They do not think of them as people. They are worse than animals in their books.

Again, soldiers are supposed to think for themselves.

[emulatorloo]

3. IMHO the taping/photos is part of the torture, designed to humiliate

Pallas180 has found this article in the Guardian about R21 torture techniques being taught to US special ops. The techniques described as R21 are exactly what we are seeing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html

While is doesn't say anything specific about photography, it would make sense that the prisoners are told/see that they are being photographed and this is part of the humiliation.

Pallas180's thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=106&topic_id=7723

[stellanoir]

4. NPR did a report this morning of an exhibition of photographs

of lynchings from the South in the 1800's. They said the lynchings were often delayed until the photographers had arrived. The witnesses would be smiling broadly. The photographs were often turned into post cards that would be sent far and wide. They were commonly sent to families of victims of crimes that were "allegedly" committed by blacks. Those lynched only crime was their ethnicity.

It struck me how this heinous vigil anti-ism isn't so far removed from the commonly held myth that Iraq was somehow tied to 9/11, being the rationale behind why these atrocities in the prisoners is "okay". . . .or so the wingnuts claim.

Have we learned anything whatsoever. . .?

The celebratory documentation of lynchings gradually resulted in their termination. Hopefully the documentation of our human rights abuses will lead to our cessation of such practices.

We have irrevocably been discredited.

[Old and In the Way]

5. There does seem to be a correlation between people who commit

hate acts and intelligence (or lack thereof).

[mmonk]

8. the commonly held myth

that these Iraqis were somehow connected to 9/11 is indeed part of the brutality and the lack of humanity by some here in the US. The media needs to be reminded of this everyday for a long time. They are partly guilty if only through neglect and sloppy journalism.

[Skittles]

9. I agree

the American media has a lot of blood on its hands. And FOX - their chronic cheerleading for Bush and this despicable war - it disturbs me that so many people want to listen to such obvious trash.

[0007]

7. From what I've heard. The photos were taken for souvenirs

to take home.

They were used to see what prison could get the prize winning photo. Most were downloaded and sent home.

Accordingly, many CD do exist and many do have all the photos. Kind of like saving baseball cards in hope they'll be a collectors item one day.

[Bunny]

10. For what it's worth:

I am in possession of a photo taken in Nam. Two dead VC, lying side by side, with their brains laying neatly on the ground, next to their skulls. It is horrifying. My friend claims to have taken the picture, and it is in the photo album from his "big camping trip".

It is a gruesome photo, but probably not unique to the time, place, and circumstances.

[kentuck]

11. Sometimes they take photos because they don't understand the moment

and they hope to look back sometime in the future and hope they can somehow assimilate what they were experiencing at that time...not that they enjoyed the moment, but that they were there and they know that somehow and someway, it is important....They just don't know why...

[AlCzervik]

13. This morning on cnn

they had some former MI guy on and he said sometimes they actually use the photos taken to show to prisoners, you know, if you dont tell us we want to know this is going to happen to you as well.