BS: War photo that changed our world

Subject: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:32 PM

I listened to NPR's fresh air yesterday and learned from a purlitzer winning war photographer how a single photo of dead US Marines in Somalia right after "Black Hawk down" gave inertia to Al Qaeda that has gathered momentum ever since.

The standard military dis information procedure in the form of a cynical lie that no public desecration of the bodies of Marines had taken place.

In response bin Laden's gunmen took the bodies and body parts on a second parade through Somalia streets.

The AP photo was taken.

The photographer did not even think it would be carried in the press when he learned that it was now at the heart of White House decisions to avoid any more "embarassments" from Africa following the Hutu genocide.

The US disengaged and FBI agents on bin Laden's heels were pulled out of Somalia.

Ossama bin Laden could now prove the US lied and further brag to the radical Islamic world that several small defeats (Embassy and Cole bombings) would in fact defeat the great Satan of America.
-------------------

It was a great interview full of powerful emotions and personal pathos.
I highly recommend giving it a listen on npr 'fresh air' archives.






Of course the world would also be changed if Mohhamed did not have stomach cramps the day he wrote the jihad and infidel verses of the Koran, but thats another story.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:37 PM

Really? I didn't know it changed our world.

What about such photos as those taken of the dead during the US Civil War? Or the one of dead American bodies washing ashore in the Pacific? Or the one of the execution of Vietcong leader during Tet 68? Or the one of the young girl, naked and napalmed, running down the road in Vietnam?

What "changed the world" was not the picture, but the reaction to it by the US government.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:39 PM

Hiroshima etc.

all the same it was an unusually provocative interview.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 02:07 PM

Or what we still see of Katrina's aftermath?

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 02:32 PM

It was a good interview. I love Fresh Air, but as he spoke I finally turned it off. It was quite grim.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 02:55 PM

The hooded prisoner connected to electric wires does it for me - a close runner up was Linndy England with another prisoner on a lead.
"What "changed the world" was not the picture, but the reaction to it by the US government".
Don't hold out much hope of either of these changing the US government's mind - especially after hearing a CIA man tell us last week that democracy runs a poor second to US domestic interests and the mass murders that took place in Nicaragua, Viet Nam, Chile........ you name it - didn't happen!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 06:58 PM

Some more, some less, but photos have had an effect on governments, world leaders, and the common man, as long as their have been cameras. If you'er not familiar with the story, go and read about the inflence of the shot of the Iwo Jima flag raising in WWII. How about the little Vietnamese girl running down the road after having her clothes burned off in a US napalm attack on her village?

We could make a long list and still not think of them all.......and in some way, they all changed the course of events.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 08:05 PM

one of the photos that have always stayed with me is of a little boy, maybe 8 years old, looking into the camera as the crowd around him is waiting to be hustled into the boxcars.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 10:57 PM

Or, the human 'shadows' on the walls after Hiroshima...that one really stuck with me.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Peace
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 11:02 PM

And this !!

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Peace
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 11:08 PM

Halabja. Sarin gas.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Peace
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 11:12 PM

Auschwitz.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Peace
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 11:22 PM

And this . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 11:27 PM

first and last don't work.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Peace
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 12:14 AM

First is of burning Twin Towers; last is THE Kent State photograph.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Pauline L
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 01:07 AM

I've tried, but I can't bear to look at Margaret Bourke-White's photos of the dead bodies from a gas chamber.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: Sorcha
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 09:00 AM

When our daughter at age 15 visited the Holocaust Museum she said it was the pile of shoes that got to her. Bought a postcard/photo of it. It IS very powerful.

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: GUEST,Stewart
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 06:07 PM

The photo of the South Vietnamese policeman/officer executing a suspected Viet Cong right in the middle of the street sure made my blood run cold. I believe there was a film sequence but the photo said it all.
Stewart

Subject: RE: BS: War photo that changed our world
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 09:32 PM

OrThe Picture from Kent State . Also a war photo--