Wednesday, May 19, 2004
I can understand a mainstream news magazine not wanting to put too graphic of an image on their cover, but the US News and World Report probably picked the worst available photograph for their Abu Ghraib cover story. If you haven’t seen it, it’s the one where a prisoner has a pair of panties on his head. Above that, in huge letters, are the words “shocking and disgusting”, or something like that. What’s been happening in Abu Ghraib is definitely disgusting, but the photograph they use is less shocking than it is ridiculous and stupid. Sure, I wouldn’t ever want to be forcibly tied up and blindfolded with some military broad’s drawers, but this picture is a whole hell of a lot less offensive and depressing than any of the other hot pics they’ve released thus far. The immaturity and pettiness of this particular act actually make the picture sort of funny, in an amazingly bleak way. The strong language used in the headline certainly describes the full range of mistreatment that has been revealed, but it certainly looks overblown and exaggerated when contrasted with the relatively tame photograph with which it shares the cover. Ah, but who reads the US News and World Report, anyway?
