Torture images and the Media's Responsibilities during Wartime

Alistair Costelloe 0403132

Torture images and the Media’s Responsibilities during Wartime

The Daily Mirror has traditionally been controversial.

In 1934, it backed up Oswald Mosley’s plans for a National Socialist Britain. 30 years later, it demanded the resignation of Harold Wilson.

In 2003, when the UK joined the US at war with Iraq, the Mirror was the only tabloid newspaper to campaign against the war.

During the Iraqi war, the Daily Mirror bought and published images of torture from the Queens Lancashire regiment (QLR), which were almost immediately declared to be false by army personnel.

The images displayed Iraqi soldiers suffering torture at the hands of the allied forces, but Simon Treselyan, a retired military intelligence officer claimed that they were false. He raised 15 points about 5 images, all of which suggested that the images had been recorded in Britain. This was supposed to have been done in order to both dupe the Daily mirror and make them look foolish, possibly with a view to ending Piers Morgan’s rein as editor at the tabloid, or even just simply to make a bit of money with a sensationalist story. False or not, the images had been published to question the behaviour of Allied soldiers in Iraq.

What arose was a huge controversy about whether the images were false or not, and if they were, then what were conditions really like for Iraqi captives? The Army were infuriated by the images; If Iraqi’s saw the images, conditions would become a lot harsher for the captives that the Iraqis had taken; even if they were to be proved to be fake, the Iraqis would surely presume that this was a cover up by the government.

Following persistent allegations of abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, the US Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez ordered Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba to produce a report on the prison, which concluded that there was regular abuse taking place, including 8 separate examples of abuse given by prisoners, and 13 examples recorded by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. In April last month, Sanchez himself was cleared of allowing abuse to happen.

Piers Morgan would not have published the images in the Daily Mirror if he thought that they were false – The Daily Mirrors staff allegedly made ...

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Piers Morgan would not have published the images in the Daily Mirror if he thought that they were false – The Daily Mirrors staff allegedly made strenuous checks on the men from the QLR who sold the images, and were so convinced of their authenticity that they published them in good faith; The Mirror had conducted an investigation in Basra, and had discovered that it was common knowledge that there had been occasional torture by the Corporals in the QLR. They based their judgement on whether the images should be published on their findings from their report, and on what the men from the QLR had told them.

“We absolutely believed they were what we were told they were, otherwise we would never have printed them”

Surely Morgan would have considered the implications of allowing the information about torture to be widespread knowledge – presenting such a bad portrayal of the conduct of soldiers in Iraq would only have strengthened the general publics’ animosity towards the war, and made matters even more difficult for the soldiers already out there?

Images of torture are nothing new. John Pilger reported that during the Vietnam War, American soldiers took to keeping human parts in their wallets, and systematic abuse of civilians took place on a regular basis.

“The question came up whenever visitors caught sight of these pictures [of dismembered bodies, and moments of torture, displayed in barracks]: why had they not been published? A standard response was that newspapers would not publish them, because their readers would not accept them. And to publish them, without an explanation of the wider circumstances of the war, was to "sensationalise".

War turns soldiers’ minds funny. People minds cannot operate in a usual way whilst bearing witness to shocking deaths on a daily basis. If one of their comrades is killed, soldiers will want the enemy’s blood. Are the general public just not working in the same mindset as the soldiers? In any case, torture is inhumane, and cannot be justified.

The Media has the responsibility during wartime as it does at any other time: to tell it like it is. It is dangerous to sensationalise incidents in war, as it will warp the opinions of the public towards the forces, and also give the enemy a clouded view of how things really are – Therefore the Media’s general responsibilities are heightened further during wartime. Al Jazeera, the Islamic Television station, is well known for sensationalist reporting, as well as regularly broadcasting Islamic Propaganda. In peacetime, a hoax story may cause offence, or damage reputations, but in wartime, publishing false information or allegations that will end up in enemy’s hands can lead to loss of life.

During the Vietnam War, the Media covered every little aspect intensely; this benefited nobody but the media themselves.

“"Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam." ”

In Iraq a similar thing happened with the torture images. When the general public saw what was going on they were horrified: not that they were in support of the war anyway. Many were disgusted with what they perceived the behaviour of allied soldiers to be, and in turn, Tony Blair lost a lot of his support, because he went to war with Iraq in contentious circumstances.

The whole episode succeeded in two things – It raised awareness of the issue of abuse in prison camps, and it highlighted the fact that the media have huge responsibilities to be honest during wartime, and to check sources thoroughly.

Bibliography

Daily mirror, May 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3717669.stm
TORTURE IS NEWS BUT IT'S NOT NEW, Pilger, 07/05/04,
Vietnam War Technologies, Marshall McLuhan, 1975
The Daily mirror Website: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14840734&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=ignited-states-name_page.html
The Guardian Website
BBC Website
The Voice of Reason :
Trinity mirror website
Brainy History :
answers.com
The Independent :
pop matters :