Between Ethics and Aesthetics: Photographs of War During the Bush and Obama Administrations

Between Ethics and Aesthetics: Photographs of War during the Bush and Obama Administrations

Katrin Dauenhauer

ABSTRACT

This essay is concerned with photographs of war during the Bush and Obama administrations and particularly explores how the visual representation of war has developed between the two presidencies. Comparing pictures from Guantánamo and the capture of Saddam Hussein during President George W. Bush’s first term in office to photographs from Guantánamo and the killing of Osama bin Laden during President Obama’s first term in office, I argue that a careful reframing of the ‘war on terror’ has taken place during Obama’s presidency. Focusing on the disappearance of the enemy’s body from sight, I ask what ethical consequences this development entails by setting the question in the context of broader debates about the circulation of pictures of war and suffering.

The most political decision you make is where you direct people’s eyes. In other words, what you show people, day in and day out, is political. Wim Wenders, The Act of Seeing1

Visual representations of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York as well as the Pentagon in Washington, DC and continue to carry tremendous affective potential. The two planes flying into the WTC, the towers burning before eventually collapsing, the remains of what had once been a proud display of global trade and commerce, and a city covered in gray ash—these images were burnt into the collective memory of the entire world and for many marked the true beginning of the new millennium.2 Despite the United States’s often-proclaimed position as the only remaining superpower after the fall of the Soviet Union, earlier terrorist attacks on the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, in 2000, or the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998 and an earlier attack on the WTC in 1993 had already pointed to its vulnerability. Yet the attacks on American soil on September 11th concretized the apprehension of a terrorist threat and domestic vulnerability.

1 Qtd. in Strauss 1. 2 I am aware of the complications that the term collective memory entails. In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag observes that “[s]trictly speaking, there is no such thing as collective memory—part of the same family of spurious notions as collective guilt. […] All memory is individual, unreproducible—it dies with each person” (85-86). What is termed collective memory is thus a “stipulating” rather than a “remembering” (86). As Susan Suleiman has argued, “as long as a past event continues to be stipulated as important for the present, collective memory of it will persist and evolve the way all memory evolves” (4). It is in this sense that I employ and understand the term here. 626 Katrin Dauenhauer

The ensuing war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq as part of the ‘war on terror’ can thus not only be understood as interventions meant to punish those responsible for the atrocious acts on 9/11 and the attempt to prevent further attacks by reducing the threat of terrorism but also as a means to restore and reclaim U.S. strength. The initial photographs coming out of the war in Iraq serve as a good example for this strategy to overcome the mourning, hurt, and perceived vulnerability that was caused by the terrorist attacks. The toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad by American soldiers and the veiling of the statue’s face with an American flag, as well as President Bush’s arrival aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln with its banner declaring ‘Mission Accomplished’ in 2003, were meant to portray President Bush as a forceful commander-in-chief. Bush’s so-called ‘war on terror’ and its legal, political, and ethical implications can, I argue, be more fully comprehended through an investigation of the pictures that have emerged from this war.3 In this essay I examine photographs of war published during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations and especially how the aesthetics of these officially released pictures has developed. My particular interest lies in the pictorial repertoire of violence found in the photographic record of the detention center at Guantánamo and the visual representation of the capture of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. My selection of pictures taken during the Bush and Obama administrations emanate the interrelated themes of revelation and concealment or absence; themes, I suggest, that are in fact vital for thinking about images of violence and war. What we see, how we see it, and also what we do not see shapes our view of the world and consequently carries political ramifications. Particu- larly, the representation of the ‘enemy’ carries significant ethical weight. The importance of reflecting on absences in a discussion on the ‘war on terror’ has received attention from many scholars.4 As David Campbell has argued, “the visual culture of the ‘war on terror’ over the last ten years can be understood as both beginning and ending with absence.” Expanding on Campbell, who elabo- rates on the lack of a visible battlefield, this essay explores the lack of visual representation of bodies, both dead and alive. This absence, in turn, poses the question of what effects it entails, both aesthetically and ethically. What is more, investigat- ing the act of looking at photographs of war, particularly of POWs, is complicated by treaties and regulations regarding the treatment of prisoners. Looking at the suffering of others is placed within a field of conflicting interests—interests which oscilliate between the risk of being regarded as voyeuristic and the charge of un- ethically diverting the gaze. Put differently, when are photographs of prisoners regarded as a defiance of the individual’s right to privacy and when does the invis- ibility of the prisoner constitute a perpetuation of the violence of war?

3 This interrelation between images and war-waging is also stressed by W. J. T. Mitchell, who argues that the “legal, ethical, and political understanding of […] the War on Terror will not be complete without a grasp of the images that it spawned, and that spawned it” (Cloning Terror xvii). 4 See, e. g., Callahan et al. on the absence of a straightforward and well-communicated state-of-war narrative in the ‘war on terror,’ Chernus on the ‘war on terror’ as an invisible war, and Record on the lack of strategic clarity, the absence of a clearly defined enemy and the un- availability of a commonly accepted definition of terrorism. Between Ethics and Aesthetics 627

Overall, addressing this question also allows for an examination of the role of visuality in international politics and thus acknowledges the complexities of American foreign policy and how it is packaged for the American public. As Da- vid Hutchinson and Samuel D. Bradley stress, [p]ublic support, especially for war, is necessary to maintain approval for conflicts that are drawn out and costly. An administration looking to create support for an ongoing struggle in foreign policy, such as the “war against terrorism,” will take steps to maxi- mize positive coverage and minimize negative portrayals. Images are at the center of this opinion management effort. (33) Paying attention to how visuality features in international politics and particularly with counterterrorist operations is thus pivotal for understanding the ‘war on terror.’ Exploring selected pictures of the Bush and Obama administrations in order to gain insight into the changes in the visual representation of war, I will first focus on the contexts of their production, circulation, publication, and reception, which will lead me to an investigation of the political, aesthetic, and ethical consequences that this visual development entails.

Pictures from Guantánamo during the Bush Presidency

On January 11, 2002, the first detainees from the ‘war on terror’ arrived at Guantánamo Bay. According to Bush’s press secretary Ari Fleischer, the newly established Camp X-Ray received “the worst of the worst” of Al Qaida and Tali- ban fighters from Afghanistan (qtd. in Greenberg 76). Navy photographer Petty Officer 1st Class Shane T. McCoy was commissioned to document the arrival of the first prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Taking pictures of the incoming detainees, McCoy added short captions and sent them to Washington for Pentagon officials to review. Yet upon their publication these photographs became icons of U.S. extraterritorial and indefinite detention and are to this day repeatedly used by activists to highlight the Bush administration’s contempt for the Geneva Conventions.5 The two photographs (see fig. 1 and 2) show about twenty detainees in orange uniforms, wearing goggles and gloves and kneeling outside a makeshift, open-air holding area. The distinct orange color of their outfits conjures up the image of convicted criminals in the American prison system and thus the prisoners’ clothing presupposes guilt before they have even been tried for a crime. The captured are confined behind barbed wire, separating the photographer, and also the viewer, from its subject. Moreover, the fact that the detainees are kneeling at the same time that the guards are standing, visually signifies the power differential between them: they are disempowered and subjugated, facing guards in a position of unde-

5 See, e. g., the photo gallery accompanying Rosenberg’s “Protesters March” on the 11th anniversary of the establishment of the prison camps at Guantánamo and the pictures in Simp- son’s article on Guantánamo prison’s 10th anniversary. In the vast majority of pictures, activists in black hoods and orange jumpsuits dominate protests in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, the White House, and the U.S. Embassies in London and Berlin. 628 Katrin Dauenhauer

Fig. 1: Shane T. McCoy, “Detainees in orange jumpsuits sit in a holding area under the watch- ful eyes of Military Police at Camp X-Ray at Naval Base Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, during in-processing to the temporary detention facility on Jan. 11, 2002. The detainees will be given a basic physical exam by a doctor, to include a chest x-ray and blood samples drawn to assess their health.” 11 Jan. 2002. Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 30 May 2014. For corresponding color plate, see the supplement.

Fig. 2: Shane T. McCoy, “Guantanamo cap- tives in January 2002.” Jan. 2002. Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 30 May 2014. For corresponding color plate, see the supplement. niable power, legs apart, arms crossed, broad-shouldered. While the pictures have sparked widespread opposition to the detention facility, the photographs—which originally were meant for the eyes of Pentagon officials only—were released about a week after the first detainees had arrived in a public relations move intented to prove to the world that a humane detention strategy was being followed in Guan- tánamo, particularly after the Bush administration had declared earlier that it did not see itself as bound by the Geneva Conventions.6 As then-spokeswoman Torie Clarke wrote in her 2006 memoir Lipstick on a Pig, releasing a series of pictures from within the detention facility, showing detainees while not revealing their faces, seemed like an effective strategy to counter criticism: In January 2002, we started holding detainees from the hostilities in Afghanistan at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba—GITMO, in military parlance. […] The interest from the press was understandable and intense. […] My instinct was to open the place up. […] We had nothing to hide; on the contrary, we had a good story to tell: we were treating detainees well. The challenge was that the Geneva Conventions specifical-

6 One example of this widespread opposition is The Mirror’s January 21, 2002 front page, asking: “What the hell are you doing in OUR name Mister Blair?” Between Ethics and Aesthetics 629

ly prohibit holding detainees up to public ridicule or humiliation. […] With the lawyers pulling me in one direction and my communication instincts tugging in another, I chose the worst possible path: […] I felt that releasing select images could allay some of our critics. Boy, was I wrong. And did I ever misread what was in those photos. […] Instead of showing the care and concern with which we treated the detainees, the photos served as high-octane fuel for our critics and doubters. “Torture” ran across the top of lots of foreign tabloids. “Images Raise Concern over Detainee Treatment,” blasted others. It was an awful and absolute misrepresentation of reality […]. The problem wasn’t that we released too much, but that we explained too little. (79-82) Clarke’s defense of the photographs’ publication and of what they depict serves as a prime example of rhetorical warfare which attempts to strategically employ the polysemous potential of pictures by means of verbal interpretation. And her defense is in line with statements by several other members of the administration who attempted to counter the criticism triggered by the pictures’ publication. While Clarke expresses regret for “misread[ing] what was in those pictures,” she blames opponents’ criticism as “an awful and absolute misrepresentation of reality,” caused by a lack of verbal explanation which would have shown that “we were treating detainees well” and “had nothing to hide.” Similarly, army photographer McCoy defended the pictures’ content by trying to rectify alleged common misinterpreta- tions: “They were wearing gloves because it was cold,” he said. “I mean, they were flying at 30,000 feet in an unheated back part of the plane; they were wearing hats for the same reason. They did say the goggles were blacked out so they couldn’t communicate and plan to attack a guard. It made sense to me” (qtd. in Rosenberg). In addition, government officials used the pictures to point to and justify necessary precautions for dealing with the extraordinary threat apparently posed by the enemy. As U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers explained, the surgical masks and goggles constituted safety measures: “These are people that would gnaw hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down,” he said at a Pentagon briefing the day the first plane arrived in Guantánamo. “These are very, very dangerous people, and that’s how they’re being treated” (Sales 202). In the same vein, Donald Rumsfeld stated: These men are extremely dangerous, particularly when being moved—such as loading or unloading an aircraft, buses, ferries, movements between facilities, movements to and from showers and the like, during such periods the troops properly take extra precautions. […] At least one detainee now in Cuba has been threatening to kill Americans. Another has bitten a guard. This is not wonderful duty. It’s a difficult duty. To stop future terrorist attacks, we have detained these people and we have and will be questioning them together additional intelligence information [sic]. (Rumsfeld, “Pentagon Briefing”) Rumsfeld’s statement complements Clarke’s. While the latter emphasized that the treatment of prisoners was in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, the Sec- retary of Defense points to the viciousness of the enemy in order to account for their treatment. Rumsfeld establishes the danger emanating from detainees by employing vocabulary that refers more to the behavior of out of control animals than human beings, suggesting that the practices used were necessary given the threat they posed. In addition, by depicting the U.S. government’s stern measures against potential terrorists, the initial photographs coming out of Guantánamo attest to U.S. military power in response to the perceived risks. 630 Katrin Dauenhauer

A debate over these pictures is located within an ethical discourse on the treatment of prisoners of war informed by international human rights law. As Clarke argues, the Geneva conventions presented a challenge to telling the “good story” that “we were treating detainees well” by prohibiting the exposure of prisoners’ faces. In fact, U.S. manuals for Guantánamo, which ban the display of the face in photographs of POWs, draw on the Geneva Conventions as the basis for their rul- ing. Specifically, they refer to Article 13 and Article 14 of the Third Geneva Con- vention for a discussion about whether and how detainees may be photographed. The two articles read as follows: Art. 13. Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. […] Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity. […] Art. 14. Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour. […]. (ICRC) The two articles do not focus on photographing the prisoners nor the prisoners’ faces but first and foremost address prisoners’ general treatment. Reading Art. 13 and 14 exclusively as the prohibition of displaying a prisoner’s face thus has to be regarded as a strategic move to narrow the discussion of the rights and proper treatment of POWs to whether and how they can be depicted in photographs. The singular emphasis by U.S. government officials on not showing the face in an attempt to prevent humiliation is therefore noteworthy and has to be seen as problematic. At the same time it attests to the power struggle over determining the meaning of these pictures and thus the role of Guantánamo as one of the few visible sites in the early days of the ‘war on terror.’ Overall, the reactions to these initial photographs from Abu Ghraib exemplify the controversy over what these pictures signify and in turn attest to the difficulty in ultimately controlling their meaning.7 War photography consistently breaks with context (cf. Butler, Frames of War 9), which becomes even more pronounced in the digital media age with its sheer limitless possibilities of reproduction and circulation. And it is particularly true of the photographs from the early days of Guantánamo. More than ten years later, Guantánamo is still considered a symbol of the excesses of the ‘war on terror.’ Knowledge of indefinite detention, of torture, and of the conditions in the prison have reshaped the reading of those initial images, turning them into icons of injustice in the ‘war on terror.’ Given that Guantánamo is still operating, visual changes in the representation of the detention facility under Obama have to be contextualized within the discourse

7 It is an issue that has in fact been thoroughly treated in previous studies. Susan Sontag writes: “The photographer’s intentions do not determine the meaning of the photograph, which will have its own career, blown by the whims and loyalties of the diverse communities that have use for it” (Regarding the Pain of Others 39). Similarly, Matt McDonald argues “images are ambiguous in meaning, making it harder to control the meaning others take away from them. This renders the strategic use of images more difficult” (570). And Carol Rosenberg comments on the contestation over a photograph’s meaning, stating “[f]or those who want to see a captive bowed, it provides a certain satisfaction. For those who believe the policy swept up innocents, it tells another story” (“Photos Echo”). See also Butler, Frames of War 67, 71. Between Ethics and Aesthetics 631 on Guantánamo since January 2002. Moreover, visual changes have to be seen in connection with changes in rhetoric between the Bush and Obama presidencies.

Guantánamo during the Obama Presidency

During his election campaign in 2008, Democratic Senator Barack Obama made the promise to close down the detention facility at Guantánamo: I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantánamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn’t torture. And I’m gonna make sure that we don’t torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world. (Interview) Six years later the detention center remains open, but it has not resurfaced as an issue during the presidential debates in 2012. Meanwhile, Guantánamo has significantly evolved since its earliest use as a detention facility in the ‘war on terror’ in 2002, as has its visual representation. Elspeth Van Veeren distinguishes between several “series” of photographs with regard to the evolvement of the site and links the changes in the visual representations of Guantánamo to the site’s evolution, in particular the construction of new camps. The initial “orange series” depicts orange-clad figures in outside areas, restrained and accompanied by armed military personnel. In the ensuing “white series,” detainees are no longer shown in orange uniforms but are wearing white or beige shirts and pants instead. Finally, an “empty cell series,” concurrently promoted with the “white series,” is characterized by pictures of camp locations void of prisoners (1729-46). Today, Joint Task Force-Guantánamo (JTF-GTMO), a specialized integrated facility for detention and interrogation, consists of multiple camps where up to 2,000 detainees can be held at a time. The original detainee facility, Camp X-Ray, no longer exists. Pictures of the new facilities can be found on the website of JTF-GTMO and the visual language of these photographs markedly differs from the ones taken in 2002. Pictures of detainees in orange uniforms that so prominently feature in protests against Guantánamo until this day are nowhere to be found. Rather, an overall absence of detainees in photographs from Guantánamo is characteristic of the vast majority of pictures on JTF-GTMO’s website today. Changes in the visual representations of Guantánamo are consistent with changes in rhetoric between the two administrations, most notably Obama’s re- placing of the term ‘war on terror’ with ‘Overseas Contingency Operations.’ Yet Obama’s rhetoric, particularly during the 2008 election campaign, has not trans- lated into a major policy shift with regard to antiterrorist operations. Therefore, the visual reframing of the war against international terrorism is not only noteworthy for its change in aesthetics but also as a site of ethical import. This dichot- omy between a softening of the visualization of U.S. military strength on the one hand and a lack of policy changes on the other, in turn, links aesthetic considerations regarding changes in the visual framing of war photographs to ethical questions pertaining to war waging. Taking a look at Joint Task Force Guantánamo’s website in November of 2012, visitors are greeted by the claim “Safe * Humane * 632 Katrin Dauenhauer

Legal * Transparent.” While the website’s photo gallery displays more than 200 photographs from Guantánamo, only a minority of them actually show detainees or the detention facilities. The few photographs from within the detention camps portray, among others, an army specialist standing in front of a closed-door cell, military policemen cleaning the hallway of a camp, an empty cell, as well as media representatives visiting and photographing cells. When detainees are shown, they are either photographed from afar, from the back, or pictures are cropped so that only parts of their bodies are shown. Their faces are covered by hoods or certain parts are blackened out. Also, there are no published pictures that show a prisoner in a cell. Instead there are photographs of prisoners watching TV, playing soccer, praying together, reading, exercising, receiving medical treatment, eating, preparing meals, and attending what one of the captions refers to as a “life skills class,” among others. While there are several pictures of inmates being escorted by military personnel, the majority of photographs displaying detainees depict them either alone or together with others and with no U.S. personnel in sight. No pictures of prisoners in orange clothing exist, even though the outfit is still in use. Instead, they are wearing white or beige pants and T-shirts, and some even sport long hair or beards. As we learn from the captions, “Detainees are provided a wide variety of international satellite TV,” “The JMG [Joint Medical Group] provides care to detainees at JTF Guantánamo,” “Detainees at the JTF are af- forded the opportunity to pray five times each day and are provided prayer rugs and copies of the Quran.” Overall, however, these pictures of detainees are comparatively uncommon. The vast majority of photographs on JTFG’s website show military personnel performing duties unrelated to the detention facility, and the numerous photographs displaying military personnel during leisure time are striking. Military personnel are shown performing administrative work, attending trainings, engaging in firing exercises, treating pets of service members, and raising the flag. In other photographs, troops are shown playing softball, pool, golf, beach volleyball, and video games. Moreover, pictures of poetry readings, concerts, the U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay race of the Guantánamo Bay Yacht Club, Lady Gaga and Ma- donna impersonators at a Halloween party, a visit by the Miami Dolphins cheer- leaders on Super Bowl Sunday in 2011, volunteer activities during a field day of the elementary school at Guantánamo Bay, and the talent competition “GTMO’s Got Talent!” are displayed in the website’s photo gallery. The prevalence of these pictures works to shift the understanding of Guantánamo from a detention facility to a typical U.S. military base, no longer primarily concerned with detainees but with U.S. military personnel. The focus away from detainees is also apparent in the following two photographs (see fig. 3 and 4). Showing an empty cell and an empty recreational area these pictures are symbolic of the general absence of detainees. Both pictures display vital parts of the detention facility, yet no detainees are present. These photographs convey order with ‘comfort items’ neatly laid out and the high standards of the detention facilities spotlighted. Similar to the publication of pictures under the Bush administration, the intention behind these photographs is to show the modern and humane character of Guantánamo. Aesthetically these photographs Between Ethics and Aesthetics 633

Fig. 3: Gino Reyes, “A service member observes some of the items issued to detainees at Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Sept. 29, 2010.” 29 Sept. 2010. Photograph. Joint Task Force Guanta- namo . Web. 30 May 2014. For corresponding color plate, see the supplement.

Fig. 4: David P. Coleman, “The outdoor recreation area of Camp Six at Joint Task Force Guan- tanamo, Mar. 18.” 18 Mar. 2011. Photograph. Joint Task Force Guantanamo. Web. 30 May 2014. For corresponding color plate, see the supplement. 634 Katrin Dauenhauer constitute still lifes from Guantánamo. They are sanitized to such a degree that it becomes difficult for opponents of the detention facility to use them as visual support in their criticism of the detention facility. Moreover, the invisible presence of detainees in these pictures—made apparent through detainees’ clothing and recreational equipment seen in the photographs—facilitates the perception of Guan- tánamo prisoners as a homogenous, anonymous group. While the photographs reaffirm the existence of a threat by showing fences, barbed wire, armed guards and heavy cell doors and thus work in favor of the detention facility, the strategic absence of bodies forecloses any ethical encounter with the enemy. Paradoxically then, the case for the humaneness of the facility is made without an actual human being present in the pictures. These shifting frames—understood as a political consciousness determining our understanding of what constitutes a life—are strategically employed, I suggest, in an attempt to reduce the grounds for opposition by limiting the field of ‘representability.’ This not only plays out on the level of the picture but extends to more stringent censorship policies under Obama (cf. Pellegrin 26).8 In line with this restricted view of the site, the Pentagon, to this day, follows the strategy of protecting a detainee’s privacy by not exposing their faces to plain view. As the De- partment of Defense Media Ground Rules for Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, (GTMO) from September 10, 2010, states “[p]hotographs or video shall not be taken of the following: a. Frontal facial views, profiles, 3⁄4 views, or any view revealing a detainee’s identity” (United States Department of Defense 4; emphasis in orig.). This policy raises questions as ethical considerations and strategies of dehumanization converge. Moreover, much in contrast to the claim of transparency promoted on JTF-GTMO’s website, the specific regulations determining whether a picture is released shapes our understanding of Guantánamo. As Van Veeren writes: The result is that […] every photograph that is produced according to these regulations contributes to building an interpretation, to building a frame that helps to generate meaning for the site. So aside from providing insights into the practices at work in the enactment of military detention policies, these images have come to represent Guan- tánamo, to frame it, to delineate the inside from the outside, and consequently, to help constitute a terrorist as well as a US State identity for those watching from ‘outside the wire’. It is through this control of production of photographs that the US administration has attempted to frame an understanding of Guantánamo and by extension of the GWoT [Global war on Terror]. (1729) The strict censorship highlights the importance of visual material and its political consequences. In this regard, visual representations of the U.S. detention facility under Obama might be less controversial, yet I claim, they also entail higher ethical stakes in that they more strongly preclude forming an ethical claim altogether. Looking at recent protests to close down the site supports this point. Until today protests almost unanimously draw on the iconic orange-clad pictures in order to

8 While the detention facility maintains a visitation program, family members of detainees are not allowed to visit. Lawyers, journalists, and representatives of the International Commit- tee of the Red Cross (ICRC) may be granted access after an extensive application and screening process. If granted clearance to enter the site, visitors are escorted by military personnel at all times and are restricted in their movements, including the use of cameras within the facility. Between Ethics and Aesthetics 635 denounce Guantánamo.9 Conversely, the more recent photographs, void of detainees, works “to contest the anti-Guantánamo discourse that circulates and (re) presents a new reality for the site, one that (re)inscribes the identities of detainees as terrorist and US as humane” (Van Veeren 1748). Contextualized within a government discourse that highlights Guantanamo as “Safe * Humane * Legal * Transparent,” these photographs contribute to the overall legitimization of the facility and at the same time impede political momentum for tackling issues such as indefinite detention. Similarly, never showing prisoners’ faces in an attempt to protect them from humiliation simultaneously poses the threat of dehumanizing them, which in turn facilitates their abuse.

Saddam Hussein’s Dental Examination

Saddam Hussein, who had been on the run for eight months since Baghdad fell to U.S. forces in April 2003, was captured by American soldiers in the Iraqi town of ad-Dawr, south of his hometown Tikrit on December 12, 2003. In the earliest video footage showing the former dictator after capture, a bewildered old man with long hair and unshaven face strokes his beard and looks to the ground. Fur- ther video material shows how Saddam Hussein’s hair is searched for lice, how his beard is shaved as well as how his teeth are examined. Saddam Hussein’s dental examination can also be seen in a photograph that was presented at a press conference in Baghdad the following day (see fig. 5). On the occasion, Paul Bremer, civilian head of the U.S.-led administration, famously announced: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him” (qtd. in “Reaction to the Capture”). In the picture Bremer presents a video of Saddam Hussein’s dental examination. The former dictator’s mouth is wide open and a medical examiner, wearing gloves, shines a flashlight in it. The video still that is displayed in the photograph, read together with the removal of his beard and the examination of his hair is reminiscent of a colonialist gaze and conjures up photographs by Lewis Hine, for instance, who documented the medical examinations on Ellis Island. The photograph demonstrates an “obsession with the head,” further highlighted by “the dentist’s light illuminating the interior of the nefarious head of state. If torture is meant to ‘get inside the head’ of the victim to extract secrets, it seems only logical that the dental examination would become an image of this process” (Mitchell, “Unspeakable” 302). As much as every photograph offers an invitation to look, the press conference photograph reaffirms this invitation by including within its frame an onlooker in the figure of Paul Bremer: Bremer is captured turning toward the screen, looking at the Sadam Hussein. In the pictures of the capture of Saddam Hussein and photographs from his staged medical examination, the use of the camera heightens the subject’s sense of shame. Similar to the Abu Ghraib photographs, the violence

9 Most recently, Amnesty International USA asked to “stand in orange and stand for justice” to commemorate the eleventh anniversary of the arrival of detainees at Guantánamo Bay (“January 11”). 636 Katrin Dauenhauer

Fig. 5: Steven Pearsall, “Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, Coalition Provisional Authority Admin- istrator, presents a video of Saddam Hussein going through a medical examination shortly after his capture in Tikrit, Iraq, during a press conference.” 14 Dec. 2003. Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 30 May 2014. For corresponding color plate, see the supplement. of war is conflated with the violence of representation. In fact, what seems to be a characteristic of a number of iconic war photographs from the time of the Bush administration is their particular theatricality. This theatricality is inherent in the torture photographs from Abu Ghraib as well as in the medical examination of a captured Saddam Hussein and in Bush’s landing aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. As Hesford notices with regard to Abu Ghraib, “the torture portraits, particularly the trophy shots, make a spectacle of violence and the process of dehumanization, and exalt the technical instrumentality of staging terror” (33). The same evaluation applies to the photograph of the capture of Saddam Hussein. What is particularly noteworthy about the photographs of Saddam Hussein’s capture is that the former dictator was granted POW status on the ground that he was the leader of the old Iraqi regime’s military forces. His POW status, in turn, granted him rights under the Third Geneva Convention. Yet for all the explana- tions and justifications for the prisoners’ hoods, blindfolds, and blackened goggles surrounding the initial photographs from Guantánamo, Saddam Hussein’s face is clearly visible. Not surprisingly then, controversy erupted over the publication of these pictures, which many regarded as a violation of the Geneva Convention. Renato Martino, for instance, an Italian Cardinal Deacon and President Emeri- Between Ethics and Aesthetics 637 tus of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and a leading critic of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, said that he had felt compassion watching the video of “this man destroyed, [the military] looking at his teeth as if he were a beast” (qtd. in “Vatican”). The Bush administration, however, maintained that the purpose of showing the pictures of a captured Saddam Hussein was to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that they no longer had anything to fear (“Vatican”). The conflicting discourses surrounding the photographs not only point to the power struggles over determining a photograph’s meaning but also highlight the unpredictability of a photograph’s reception. What particular reaction a picture might arouse can never be fully controlled by the photographer or the publisher— despite efforts to exert influence. The attempt to trigger a specific reaction with a photograph is fraught with error: “Every image of barbarism—of immiseration, humiliation, terror, extermination—embraces its opposite, though sometimes un- knowingly. Every image of suffering says not only ‘This is so,’ but also, by implica- tion: ‘This must not be’” (Linfield 33). Looking at pictures of anguish, misery, and degradation thus does not necessarily perpetuate nor sustain the original motives for publication but might engender unintended reactions. The visual representation of the killing of Osama bin Laden, on the contrary, forecloses such controversy by refraining from showing the Al-Qaida leader altogether.

The Killing of Osama bin Laden

The picture that has come to signify the killing of Osama bin Laden shows President Obama and Vice President Biden, along with members of the national security team, in a conference room in the White House (see fig. 6). The pho- to was taken by official White House photographer Pete Souza shortly after 4 pm Eastern Standard Time on May 1, 2011, and uploaded to the White House’s Flickr page the following day. The picture accrued iconic status almost imme- diately and headlined the front pages of many influential U.S. and international newspapers. Whereas the capture of Saddam Hussein took less than a year, the Situation Room photo marks the culmination of a ten-year hunt for Osama bin Laden, whose death carries as much or more symbolic weight than strategic importance in the ‘war on terror.’ A considerable amount of speculation about the photograph still exists. Initial reporting suggested that President Obama and his team watched live coverage of the mission. This view is corroborated by Souza who stated that the photograph “shows the President and Vice President and the national security team monitoring in real time the mission against Osama bin Laden.” Later investigations revealed, however, that only a small portion of what Obama and his national security team viewed was live footage from the operation. Rather, for most of the time the screen showed CIA chief Leon Panetta providing the team with updates in real time (Winter). The photograph can best be described as an indirect testimony of the assas- sination of the United States’ ‘public enemy number one’: the image neither shows the dead body of bin Laden nor any other casualties. Jason Horowitz remarks that rather than being an action shot it is a “watching-the-action shot.” In fact, the level 638 Katrin Dauenhauer

Fig. 6: Pete Souza, “U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with members of the national security team, receive an update on Operation Neptune’s Spear, a mission against Osama bin Laden, in one of the conference rooms of the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011.” 1 May 2011. Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 30 May 2014. For corresponding color plate, see the supplement. of displacement is even greater so that the picture indeed represents more like a ‘watching-the-being-told-about-the-action-shot.’ The subjects of the picture are themselves spectators of video footage playing on a screen invisible to the viewer of the Situation Room photograph. The body of ‘the enemy’ is once again con- spicuously absent in the war photographs from the Obama administration. The enemy remains a phantom, as does the violence enacted against it. In this way, the photograph constitutes a surrogate picture. Contrasted with the visual material of the capture of Saddam Hussein, the difference could not be more marked. While the former engages in the humiliation of its subject through the act of representation, the latter forecloses representation of the dead enemy altogether, preventing viewers from seeing a potentially gruesome battle scene and thus creating a sense of incompletion. This incompletion is mirrored in the formal construction of the picture: three of the people in the photograph are cropped and thus only partially visible. Overall, the tight frame of the photograph itself enhances the tension depicted in the faces of the subjects. Standing out among the spectators portrayed in the photograph, Hillary Clin- ton has been described as the central figure of pathos (see Kaufman; Johnson). Holding her right hand to her mouth, Clinton’s gesture has been read as symbol- izing a state of shock, attesting to the violence visible to senior administration of- Between Ethics and Aesthetics 639 ficials in the Situation Room. The viewers of the photograph, in contrast, can only imagine the violence. In fact, the primary scene of violence is displaced within the picture itself, being mediated through video. There is thus a discrepancy between what the picture is said to capture and what the photograph actually shows. This discrepancy builds on and is reinforced by the absence of the dead body. This absence is symptomatic of a broader theme of absence in the ‘war on terror’ in general, which plays out through, but is not limited to, the absence of a clear enemy and a clear frontline in general.10 In this regard the picture is also a symbol of the lack of contextualization that characterizes much reporting in the ‘war on terror’ which oftentimes does not address questions pertaining to the origins of international terrorism or to the kinds of intelligence measures that proved successful in tracking down Osama bin Laden. Referencing the Osama (non-)picture, David Campbell writes: Much photojournalism exists within and reproduces an ‘eternal present’, obscuring the frames that narrow its perspective, rendering casualties and context as absent. Nowhere was this clearer than in the official White House photo of Osama bin Laden’s killing. Instead of releasing an image of Bin Laden, what we saw was the Obama national security team in the Situation Room watching a monitor on which the event might have been unfolding. The centrality of absence to the visualization of the war on terror could not have been more obvious. Campbell’s deliberations on the economy of photojournalism and news reporting, I want to suggest, can also be connected to the concept of ‘embedded reporting,’ which is itself marked by omission.11 Photographer Souza has access to an operation that is part of the ‘war on terror’ under the condition that he reports on the event from the perspective of governmental authorities. Consequently, while the Situation Room photograph might suggest that the viewer gains access to an otherwise secret operation, it in fact constitutes a confinement of view: “[I]t is a way of interpreting in advance what will and will not be included in the field of perception” (Butler, “Photography” 823). In a comparative analysis of Ameri- can news magazine photo coverage on recent wars, Michael Griffin confirms that news magazine photographs mainly support established narratives within the official discourse: [P]ictures in these news-magazines are most often employed as uncomplicated symbolic markers of pre-established classes of content, and serve to prime viewers towards certain dominant discourse paradigms and frames of interpretation. As conventionalized motifs, news photographs more often reinforce preconceived notions and stereotypes than reveal new information or provide new perspectives. Counter to continuing popular per- ceptions of photographic media, photographs do not simply reflect events occurring before the camera but are inextricably implicated in the constructive process of discourse formation and maintenance. (399)

10 See Kennedy for a reading of the Situation Room photograph as part of a pictorial repertoire of perpetual war. 11 Embedded reporting refers to a form of war correspondence where journalists accom- pany troops for an extended period of time. While embedded reporting provides them with privileged access to military operations, critics have noted the limitations of perspective and objectivity. 640 Katrin Dauenhauer

Embedded reporting, instead of providing a more immediate and encompassing look at war, constitutes a confinement of view, which is accompanied by main- stream media’s favoring of war photographs that support already established positions. The Situation Room photograph works in support of this tendency, providing a supposedly authoritative account of what happened due to a lack of additional photographs. Absence in the ‘war on terror’ therefore not only extends to the picture’s framing but to issues of selectivity and circulation.

Framing War

As Judith Butler has argued, by controlling representations of war through officially released photographs, for instance, a state establishes visual as well as verbal frames for viewing and talking about and consequently understanding war. In this sense, framing is more than the concrete inclusion and exclusion of certain motifs in a particular photograph, but also points to a political consciousness. Framing is a tool of power meant to exert control over the public’s view on war, irrespective of whether the intention is successful. By controlling the visual field, meaning that which can and cannot be seen, the state is also able to influence support for and opposition to the war: “In this sense, the frame takes part in the active interpretation of the war compelled by the state; it is not just a visual image awaiting its interpretation, it is itself interpreting, actively, even forcibly” (“Torture” 952). The frame does not provide the viewer with a way of interpreting but restricts and regulates our interpretation. Rules established by the military regarding war photography, in particular as they play out in embedded reporting, determine the frame, which in turn heavily influences our interpretation of a picture. This is especially true in the case of the photographs from Guantánamo, the capture of Saddam Hussein, and the killing of Osama bin Laden: in all these instances only a very limited number of pictures has been made available to the public. Yet, while the frame sets the boundary of what gets included in the picture, at the same time it excludes that which remains outside. To understand the power of the process of framing we therefore also have to understand what is left out: “[W]e cannot understand this field of representability simply by examining its explicit contents, since it is constituted fundamentally by what is cast out and maintained outside the frame within which representations appear” (Butler, “Torture” 952). An image that is allowed “into the domain of representability” also “signifies the delimiting function of the frame even as, or precisely because, it does not represent it” (953). Examining the boundary between what is included and what is left outside becomes vital, as it is a site of contention and a site that is constantly subject to change. Moreover, it is also in the distinction between inside and outside that the power over the visual field plays out. As Butler writes, determining the boundary is “a nonfigurable operation of power that works to delimit the domain of representability itself” (“Torture” 953). Finally, it is also in the establishment of frames that subjectivities are constructed and demarcations between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are reenacted. Establishing the frame also establishes ways of pos- Between Ethics and Aesthetics 641 sible interpretations that constitute reality. Framing then signifies the power “to orchestrate and ratify what will be called reality or, more philosophically, the reach and extent of the ontological field” (952). The framing of war fundamentally influences how we understand it. Through visual framing, war photography shapes political life: suffering and death become visible to us. More importantly, however, far from being a mere means to document and record the suffering of others and thus being separate and removed from the pain and suffering of the subject photographed, photography becomes a tool in shaping our perception of the pain and suffering depicted. The mediation of a scene of suffering through photography shapes our response to the suffering and thus plays a formative role in the unfolding of events. W. J. T. Mitchell remarked in his influential essay “Showing Seeing: A Cri- tique of Visual Culture,” that “a dialectical concept of visual culture cannot rest content with a definition of its object as the social construction of the visual field, but must insist on exploring the chiastic reversal of this proposition, the visual construction of the social field” (171). As much as the visual field is constructed by politics, the political arena is constructed through the visual field. In fact, the dialectic between these two modes of construction substantially characterizes political life and the public sphere: public political life is substantially constituted by the flow of images. In our always at least partially visual public spheres, photographs and photography have repeatedly become the basis for significant ‘civic negotiations’ over resources and mem- bership, rights and obligations – negotiations that affect not only the contours of policy and the fortunes of politicians but more quotidian configurations of power, identity, agency, desire, hope, and fear. (Reinhardt 34) War photographs, rather than portraying the ‘enemy,’ ‘the terrorist,’ or the ‘enemy combatant’ help structure these categories. A debate on the role of photography in the Bush and Obama administration’s ‘war on terror’ should move beyond a debate about and comparison of the style of released images by both administrations and consider the ways in which the images released shape our perception of that war and with which consequences. As a result, thinking about the ethics of picturing pain turns us to, rather than away from, the question of aesthetics (cf. Reinhardt 47). The frame is where ethics and aesthetics converge and questions of ethics and aesthetics—when thinking about images of war—necessarily have to be thought in accordance with each other. A focus on the ethical and political implications of a photograph cannot neglect aesthetic considerations. Composi- tion and form matter, and they matter because they are a vital part of the visual construction of the political.

Effacing the Enemy

Addressing the absence of the body in war photography and the effects of this absence, debates about how suffering and war are presented to us tied in with questions regarding our moral responsiveness to photographs of war and suffering. These kinds of debates attempt to increase our understanding of the ethical 642 Katrin Dauenhauer and political consequences of such an absence, which also implies the selection of certain pictures at the cost of excluding others. After all, to withhold pictures is particularly noteworthy as it occurs in a culture that fundamentally relies on the visual. While much has been written about the dehumanization of prisoners through visual framing (cf. Butler, Frames; Van Veeren), the absence of bodies from sight extends and complicates the relationship between representation and dehumanization. The depiction of bodies in war photography does not elicit “crit- ical outrage” per se (cf. Butler, Frames of War xxx). At the same time, through her analysis of Emmanuel Levinas’s work on the encounter with the face, Judith Butler has shown that norms, which allocate who is regarded human, arrive in visual form: These norms work to give face and to efface. Accordingly, our capacity to respond with outrage, opposition, and critique will depend in part on how the differential norm of the human is communicated through visual and discursive frames. There are ways of framing that will bring the human into view in its frailty and precariousness that will allow us to stand for the value and dignity of human life, to react with outrage when lives are degraded or eviscerated without regard for their value as lives. And then there are frames that foreclose responsiveness, where this activity of foreclosure is effectively and repeatedly performed by the frame itself – its own negative action, as it were, toward what will not be explicitly represented. (Frames of War 77) Censorship of war photographs has at the same time repeatedly been justified on the basis of morals. Criticizing that showing pictures of violence merely constitutes a form of voyeurism unable to trigger a moral reaction to increasing amounts of images of violence, proponents of visual censorship call on standards of de- cency, propriety, and taste for justification. “This novel insistence on good taste in a culture saturated with commercial incentives to lower standards of taste may be puzzling,” Susan Sontag briskly remarks, “[b]ut it makes sense if understood as obscuring a host of concerns and anxieties about public order and public morale that cannot be named […]. What can be shown, what should not be shown—few issues arouse more public clamor” (Regarding the Pain of Others 68-69). Debates about whether to show the dead body of Osama bin Laden thus also highlight that these notions are inextricable from what are fundamentally political determina- tions and motivations. Effacing the enemy in war photography raises ethical quandaries; yet the publication of graphic pictures of war also poses ethical conundrums, suggesting that an ‘ethically pure’ manner of circulating these photographs might be all but impossible. For one, critics often note the aesthetic potential of professional photography, which fosters a lack of ethical response in that the aesthetic appeal of a photograph results in the viewer’s depoliticized reaction to the photograph. Moreover, the exclusive reliance on photography to arouse empathy necessitates the visibility of pain which, in turn, must be visualized for its acknowledgement. This in turn delimits the experience of pain: “[T]he visual expression of pain and trauma translates into a politics of representation that flattens the experience of pain by being able to capture only the visible causes or expressions of pain” (Dau- phinée 142). Furthermore, exposing the bodies of prisoners to the viewers’ gaze always carries the risk of rendering them abject even though showing the photo- Between Ethics and Aesthetics 643 graphs might be done to protest what is shown. While visual representations of violence possess the capacity to trigger significant forms of political resistance, their ambiguousness precludes the formation of a singular meaning of the photograph. This ambiguity further decreases chances to control the meaning others take away, particularly considering its reading and re-reading in different socio- political contexts as well as for different (political) purposes. Circulating images of violence bears the risk of becoming an accomplice to the same violence by partaking in its logic and economy. The torture scandal at Abu Ghraib serves as a prime example here. Taking photographs and circulating them widely constituted part of the transgressions in the Iraqi prison. For those wanting to increase awareness and protest violence, this raises the fundamental question of whether resisting violence demands violent expression (cf. Hesford 34). If anything, this dilemma attests to the importance of a political approach to photographs of war that encompasses questions of circulation and questions pertaining to the wide discursive ecologies in which these pictures occur. In other words, the contexts in which these photographs are seen must be broadened to include more ‘factors’ than the photograph, the photographer, and the viewer. As Mark Reinhardt emphasizes, both “the in- tentionality and the political effects of showing and not showing—hence, too, looking and not looking—vary substantially depending on complex matters of context” (46). Similarly, Sontag emphasizes that photographs are not an in- strument for political change per se: “A photograph that brings news of some unsuspected zone of misery cannot make a dent in public opinion unless there is an appropriate context of feeling and attitude” (On Photography 17). The picture can, however, help form an attitude. While it “cannot create a moral position,” it can “reinforce one—and can help build a nascent one” (17). Being morally affected by a photograph is thus determined by “the existence of a relevant political consciousness” (19). The pictures from Guantánamo and the capture of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are set and perceived in a broader field of powers and struggles in which their circulation and display are on par with the framing of the photograph itself. The selection of these photographs by the U.S. government to present a site or an event also points to their performative function. They fashion a way of seeing and by doing so impact—although never within the full control of the photographer and distributor—political and affective reactions to the image. The unfiltered distribution of photographs of war and in particular prisoners of war raise ethical questions that those distributing them, including scholars, have to grapple with. The examples analyzed heretofore are helpful for highlighting the ethical complexities of questions that picturing and viewing images of war entail. Particularly, the photographs are exem- plary of the ethical perplexity viewers are confronted with when addressing pictures of war. Located ‘between ethics and aesthetics,’ pictures of war point to the limits of both the framework of ethics and of aesthetics in assessing photography of violence. Yet reflecting on the interplay of ethical and aesthetic considerations is generative for highlighting the importance of locating and contextualizing individual pictures of war within broader fields of power 644 Katrin Dauenhauer and political analyses.12 With photographs of war being increasingly sanitized and emptied of bodies and the dead, the question of who is responsible for what the picture shows becomes harder to determine. Ignorance and amnesia are already built into war photographs, effacing what lies at their center. The question to be asked then is no longer whether to look or to look away but what is gained by looking.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? New York: Verso, 2010. Print. ---. “Torture and the Ethics of Photography.” Environment and Planning D: So- ciety and Space 25 (2007): 951-66. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. ---. “Photography, War, Outrage.” PMLA 120.3 (2005): 822-27. Print. Callahan, Kathe, Melvin J. Dubnick, and Dorothy Olshfski. “War Narratives: Framing Our Understanding of the War on Terror.” Public Administration Review 66.4 (2006): 554-68. Print. Campbell, David. “From Absence to Absence: The Visual Culture of the ‘War on Terror.’ e-International Relations. E-International Relations, 9 Nov. 2011. Web. 27 May 2014. Chernus, Ira. “The Invisible War.” Commondreams.org. Common Dreams, 10 Sept. 2003. Web. 27 May 2014. Clarke, Torie. Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game. New York: Free P, 2006. Print. Dauphinée, Elizabeth. “The Politics of the Body in Pain: Reading the Ethics of Imagery.” Security Dialogue 38.2 (2007): 139-55. Print. Greenberg, Karen. The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print. Griffin, Michael. “Picturing America’s ‘War on Terrorism’ in Afghanistan and Iraq: Photographic Motifs as News Frames.” Journalism 5.4 (2004): 381-402. Print. Hesford, Wendy S. “Staging Terror.” The Drama Review 50.3 (2006): 29-41. Print. Horowitz, Jason. “Breaking Down the Situation Room.” Washington Post. Wash- ington Post, 5 May 2011. Web. 27 May 2014. Hutchinson, David, and Samuel D. Bradley. “Memory for Images Intense Enough to Draw an Administration’s Attention: Television and the ‘War on Terror.’” Politics and the Life Sciences 28.1 (2009): 31-47. Print. International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC). “Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.” Icrc.org. In- ternational Committee of the Red Cross, n. d. Web. 27 May 2014. “January 11: Stand in Orange.” AmnestyUSA.org. Amnesty International USA, 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 27 May 2014.

12 See Shapiro for an argument on the importance of reading photographs politically. Between Ethics and Aesthetics 645

Johnson, Ken. “Situation: Ambiguous.” New York Times. New York Times, 7 May 2011. Web. 27 May 2014. Kaufman, Sarah. “Breaking Down the Situation Room. Body Language.” Wash- ington Post. Washington Post, 5 May 2011. Web. 27 May 2014. Kennedy, Liam. “Seeing and Believing: On Photography and the War on Terror.” Public Culture 24.2 (2012): 261-81. Linfield, Susie. The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. Chi- cago: U of Chicago P, 2010. Print. McDonald, Matt. “Securitization and the Construction of Security.” European Journal of International Relations 14.4 (2008): 563-87. Print. Mitchell, W. J. T. Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2011. Print. ---. “The Unspeakable and the Unimaginable: Word and Image in a Time of Ter- ror.” English Literary History 72.2 (2005): 291-308. Print. ---. “Showing Seeing: A Critique of Visual Culture.” Journal of Visual Culture 1.2 (2002): 165-81. Print. Obama, Barack. Interview by Steve Kroft. Sixty Minutes. CBS. CBS, 11 Feb. 2009. Web. 27 May 2014. Pellegrin, Paolo. “Ein Drittel meiner Bilder wurde gelöscht.” Interview with Christoph Amend. Zeit Magazin. 4 Oct. 2012: 26. Print. “Reaction to the Capture of Saddam Hussein.” Guardian.co.uk. Guardian News and Media, 14 Dec. 2003. Web. 27 May 2014. Record, Jeffrey. Bounding the Global War on Terror. Carlisle Barracks: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2003. Web. 27 May 2014. Reinhardt, Mark. “Painful Photographs: From the Ethics of Spectatorship to Vi- sual Politics.” Ethics and Images of Pain. Ed. Asbjørn Grønstad and Henrik Gustafsson. New York: Routledge, 2012. 33-56. Print. Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies. Rosenberg, Carol. “Photos Echo Years Later.” MiamiHerald.com. Miami Herald Media, 1 Oct. 2008. Web. 27 May 2014. ---. “Protestors March as Guantánamo Camps Start 12th Year.” MiamiHerald. com. Miami Herald Media, 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 27 May 2014. Rumsfeld, Donald. “Pentagon Briefing: Good Conditions for Detainees.” CNN. com./Transcripts. Cable News Network, 22 Jan. 2002. Web. 27 May 2014. Sales, Leigh. “Inside the Hicks Deal: The Weekly Australian, 28 April 2007.” The Best Australian Political Writing 2008. Ed. Tony Jones. Carlton: Melbourne UP, 2008. 201-8. Print. Shapiro, Michael J. The Politics of Representation: Writing Practices in Biogra- phy, Photography, and Political Analysis. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1988. Print. Simpson, Ian. “Protesters Mark Guantanamo Prison’s 10th Anniversary.” Re- uters.com. Thomson Reuters, 11 Jan. 2012. Web. 27 May 2014. Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2003. Print. ---. On Photography. New York: Picador, 1973. Print. Strauss, David Levi. Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics. New York: Aperture, 2003. Print. 646 Katrin Dauenhauer

Souza, Pete. Untitled. Flickr. 2 May 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2013. Suleiman, Susan Rubin. Crises of Memory and the Second World War. Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2006. Print. United States Department of Defense. “Media Ground Rules for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO).” Defense.gov. United States Department of Defense, 10 Sept. 2010. Web. 27 May 2014. Van Veeren, Elspeth. “Captured by the Camera’s Eye: Guantánamo and the Shifting Frame of the Global War on Terror.” Review of International Studies 37.4 (2011): 1721-49. Print. “Vatican Slams Handling of Saddam.” BBC.co.uk. BBC, 16 Dec. 2003. Web. 27 May 2014. “What the hell are you doing in OUR name Mister Blair?” The Mirror 21 Jan. 2002. Print. Winter, Michael. “Panetta: Obama Did Not See Bin Laden Being Killed.” USA Today. USA Today, 3 May 2011. Web. 27 May 2014.