When looking at the photographs of real human beings being tortured - gagged and laid naked on top of one another - it is hard for me to keep my eyes on the picture. The inexplicable treatment of these other people is too much to see. Especially coming from American soldiers, who we pray for every day for a safe return home. It is so gruesome that I need to look away. It literally appalls me. However, I feel like with the cartoons, I wasn't compelled to avert my eyes so quickly. I guess because I know that the images are not "real" people, I am able to look at them more closely. I can study the positions, the expressions, the shame - but be able to distance myself from it ever-so-slightly.
The cartoonish men depicted in the images are soft and full figured. Besides the variations in skin tone, their features are very similar. Perhaps this is symbolic of how the American soldiers viewed these men. I read that some of the prisoners weren't even terrorists or threats, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But to the soldiers that detained these men, their religion and skin color made them "the enemy".
In these pictures, the color is used strikingly well. The blood jumps out in every picture, vibrant and saturated. Especially in the second image, where the only color in the picture are the blood stains in the adjacent cell, a lot of emphasis is put on the blood using color. The cloths covering the prisoners faces, as well as the lingerie featured in many photos, are all very bright colors as well. Botero probably wanted to draw attention to these items and the amount of shame they gave to their wearers. The expressions on the faces of the prisoners was also striking. The mouths are often open, as if they are howling in pain or despair. When their mouths are shut, they look like they are going to be sick, or they are going to break down and cry at any moment. Again, because this is an illustration and not a photograph, I am able to analyze the faces of the individuals without feeling immediately repulsed. It allows me to look deeper into the image and not feel nauseated or scarred. The illustrations, although moving and truthful, do not have the same shock factor that a real life photograph of prisoners would have. Botero's pictures allow me to take in the atrocity of the situation without feeling like I am going to be sick.
While I look at these pictures, I can't help but have a swirl of emotions: anger, sadness, empathy, and mostly disbelief. I just can't even wrap my mind around it. I always knew that there was torture involved with war, but I had always kept it at an arms length. When I heard that word, I always connoted it with the "enemy", the "bad guy". I guess I have been trained to pray for the soldiers and admire the soldiers and be thankful for the soldiers, so that this image has become one of an infallible savior in the desert sporting camouflage and a machine gun (which is kind of ironic now that I'm actually thinking about it).
On one hand, I am so angry that these sorts of things are happening by American soldiers - the ones we are all praying for! But on the other hand, there is always that voice in the back of my head reminding me of the hardships of war. I could never even begin to imagine living through anything like that. Being shipped to this remote region of the world where people are literally trying to kill you. Actually, I can't even imagine basic training, or boot camp for that matter. The whole idea is just beyond the grips of my imagination (I mean..really, I'm afraid of the dark). So who's to say what I would do if I were under those pressures? How would I be able to handle it? Would I go crazy? Would I torture? It is easy for me, at this moment, to say that I never would ever do anything like that. But really. Maybe these people just went crazy. Maybe they cracked. Or maybe they are just psychotic individuals with twisted minds. Who can really say?
Its true: we never can know what these American soldiers went through on a daily basis overseas. However, it doesn't give them the right to mistreat shackled, helpless prisoners in this way. And the court-martial didn't see it that way either. Lynndie England, the woman we see in a lot of these photos, was given three years of jail time. I've read up on her a little bit and she has a history of mental issues from mutism to depression and PTSD. Its not to say she should be excused, but there is a lot more going on with her than just the "outright evilness" I think as she has been stigmatized with.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that bothered me in class was the way people kept saying "the military" this and "the military" that, making sweeping generalizations about our men and women in uniform. I come from a military family. I know that not everyone in the military tortures prisoners. It is an awful reality of war, but it doesn't apply to everyone. A lot of them do good: many are involved in rescue and medical assistance (my father was a medic as a commander in the Navy during the Gulf War). It bothers me when people see these images and are made to believe that this is the norm of the military. Its not, and the people who suffer are the ones trying to serve their country as best they can in this unfortunate war.
I totally agree on both points, but I was thinking about the second one especially. I need to work on it, but I usually say "the military" when talking about this issue.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when I say that, it is basically equivelant to the problem with saying that all Muslim's are terrorists. It's like if I were to say "the Muslims" instead of "the terrorists" (ie: the Muslims crashed the planes into the World Trade Center). I feel like by generalizing and calling them "soldiers", we are connotating torture will all soldiers (which I'm sure we all know is not the case).
What I was trying to say was that we all are praying and wishing these men and women well, but when something as atrocious as this happens, it twists the way I view the military and wars in general.
I hope that made sense. What I'm trying to say is: I totally agree and I will definately work on that :)
I like your discussion of whether or not you could torture or whether or not the soldiers who did are crazy. This question of individual responsibility is an important one because it is the difference between seeing the soldiers who tortured as "bad apples" in an otherwise peaceful unit, evidence of a larger problem regarding violence in the armed forces, or scapegoats whom we discuss in order to avoid talking about other parts of the war. If, as Allie said, war has "awful realities," why were these pictures so polarizing?
ReplyDeleteTo Allie's point, I think that it's a fair point to remind your classmates that not all people in the armed forces torture detainees. We need to make a clearer distinction between the military as an institution and individual service members as participants within it. I like the way the two of you discussed the topic of language!