The Iraq war and the electronic trenches

Videos posted on the internet by U.S. soldiers in Iran include the now typical array of cellphone images of explosions and shouting, of young men, fuelled by adrenalin, swearing and laughing in almost every excerpt, reports cbc.ca. There are also images of animal abuse by soldiers.

And coming from the other side, U.S. troops are watching Juba videos on the Internet from their Iraqi bases. Some are even posting video replies — images of helmets with bullet holes in them, a retaliatory "You didn't get me, I'm still here"taunt. Juba might be called the Bogeyman of Baghdad. He's a star of the insurgent videos, a sniper who likes to boast electronically of his accomplishments.

According to ifilm, Juba is probably a compilation of many snipers. His targeting and shooting of U.S. soldiers is meticulously and melodramatically recorded on camera. Each propaganda posting is accompanied by swelling music, elaborate graphics and enough footage of soldiers crumpling to the ground to send the signal that Juba is watching and waiting.

This is the modern equivalent of First World War soldiers barking threats at each other across the trenches.

Chechnya: video evidence of torture

The Times Online obtained three videos recorded by mobile phone of two men and one woman being tortured in Chechnya.

In one of the videos, a shock treatment was delivered to a soldier, in apparent retribution for the theft of some oil that the victim is accused of having sold illegally.

“We’ll show you what happens to those caught stealing oil,” yells the man administering the shocks. “We’re not going to kill you or let you live. We’ll keep you in this state for two months until you’re neither a man nor a woman.”

"The video and two others, featuring a man being beaten with a stick as he sits on a bed and a woman being kicked on the ground where she is lying tied to a flagpole, are believed to show forces controlled by Kadyrov, who was rewarded for his loyalty to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in April when he was made leader of war-torn Chechnya.

Now that mobile phones with tiny video cameras have become common in Chechnya, the perpetrators of abuses often record them and use the footage to boast about their exploits to their fellow militia men. The videos are passed on to ordinary citizens in what human rights campaigners claim is a deliberate tactic to intimidate the population."

Elsewhere:

-- Egypt's Torture Video Sparks Outrage

-- Egyptian Prisoner's torture sent to his friend's cell phones by police

-- Video phones expose torture in Egypt

Uncensored Iraq Footage On History.com

According to TechWeb, History Channel plans to deliver military footage from Iraq and Afghanistan on its Web site, History.com.

"Band of Bloggers is one of several original digital brands that History.com announced Monday, signaling a reliance on user-generated content and focus on current events as history in the making.

The History Channel promises that soldiers with handheld video cameras will provide the site with "uncensored news" and a "perspective on war never before seen in history." An expanding pool of military bloggers will deliver content from the battlefield via cell phones and the Internet, according to a news release from History.com.

It is not clear yet whether the company will gain military approval or how it may develop policies to ensure that the content does not violate U.S. or international policies."

Mobile Phones in Iraq's Mission To Be Banned

Bulgarian troops could be prohibited to use mobile phones, announced the Defence Minister Veselin Bliznakov as he welcomed back home the second unit, which was providing security at Iraq's Ashraf camp. news.bg reports.

"The veto concerns the scandalous amateur video clip, that exposes how soldiers humiliate Iraqis. The videowas posted online at the end of last week.

It was shot with a mobile phone during the mission of the country's second unit in Kerbala in 2004.

In the video, the soldiers are calling little local citizens with a Bulgarian offensive word, thatmeans 'dirty Gipsy'.

In most of the allied armies using mobile phones is prohibited."

Egypt's Torture Video Sparks Outrage

Egyptian human rights activists have spent years searching for evidence of the torture of detainees in police stations, detention centers and prisons reports Time, but few were prepared for such evidence to begin arriving in the form of a graphic cell-phone video, where a man lies screaming on the floor of a police station as officers sodomize him with a wooden pole.

"The images, relayed via the Internet, shocked even human rights activists well aware of such abuses.

Human rights activists say that systematic police brutality is part of the Egyptian security apparatus, and has been on the rise. Torture became widespread in the early 1990s, but was focused on Islamist militants and their families. More recently, though, non-political detainees have also begun to report being tortured as police seek to extract confessions in criminal cases.

... Abu Saeda and other human rights campaigners are hoping that the publicity generated by the El Kabir case will encourage other victims to come forward, and that public prosecutors can be pressed to monitor police detention centers. They are also pressing for changes in Egypt's criminal law in order to hold the police hierarchy, and not only those who carry out torture orders, to be held accountable.

Related:

-- Egyptian Prisoner's torture sent to his friend's cell phones by police

-- Video phones expose torture in Egyp

Egyptian Prisoner's torture sent to his friend's cell phones by police

The AP reports on other shocking video footage coming out of Egypt and posted on YouTube. "This time a man lies screaming on the floor of a police station as officers sodomize him with a wooden pole.

Compounding the shock, it turns out that it was the police who made the film, and that they then transmitted it to the cell phones of the victim's friends in order to humiliate him.

...Unlike the tape of the Los Angeles police beating up King in 1991, which was aired almost immediately, the attack on el-Kabir happened a year ago, and has only became public months later after an Egyptian blogger posted it on his site and it reached YouTube.

... Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a key U.S. ally, is under mounting pressure for democratic freedoms and human rights, and the el-Kabir video, along with other less widely publicized videos of recent months, appear to have embarrassed authorities into action."

Previously: - Video phones expose torture in Egypt

Video phones expose torture in Egypt

This week a scandal has erupted in Cairo over the use of cell phone/video cam, used film a torture scene. The World of Peace Herald reports.

"Somehow, someone managed to sneak a cell phone camera into an Egyptian police station and document a disturbing scene showing a woman hanging from a lateral pole that was balanced between the backs of two chairs. The woman's hands and feet are tied and she is swinging upside-down with the wooden pole placed under her knees."

To view this video, you must register. This is is the first time I've encountered this on YouTube.

YouTube displayed this clip as well as several others showing Egyptian policemen hitting, kicking, shouting and abusing detainees.

"The Egyptian government has consistently denied the use of torture by its military, police and security forces. But the sudden appearance on youtube.com of dozens of clips taken by cell phone cams has brought much embarrassment to the government of President Mubarak".

LiveLink.org. A video sharing site that shows true face of war

The The Gulf Times has an interesting article on video sharing site LiveLink, which describes itself as "redefining the media". But what is most surprising about this website, is that it is the website of choice of American soldiers who are posting videos from Afghanistan and Iraq. Their reporting first hand is affecting our knowledge about the war and just underscores once more, how the US army has become powerless to sensor information.

"Members of the public, including troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, post video clips onto the website for viewers to watch and comment on. It is among the websites that showed the execution of Saddam Hussain. Another 27-second clip — accompanied by a graphic content warning – also appeared on the website to show Saddamís body in a morgue.

Other recent ‘leaks’ include a clip that appears to show US soldiers searching for insurgents on the Euphrates river in Iraq.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week contrasted "restricted access" media coverage of the first Gulf War to the website , during his speech on the role of the UK’s armed forces in the 21st Century.

He said: "Take a website like Live Leak which has become popular with soldiers from both sides of the divide in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Operational documentary material, from their mobile phones or laptops, is posted on the site.

"These sometimes gruesome images are the unmediated reality of war. They provide a new source of evidence for journalists and commentators, by-passing the official accounts and records."

Germany outraged by Afghan Skull photos

German best selling daily newspaper BILD has published photographs of soldiers posing with human skulls and bones in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, reports Al Jazeera.

According to RXPG News, the photographs were taken with camera-phones.

"The German army is to bring seven of the soldiers before a disciplinary tribunal over allegations that they played mocking and obscene games with skulls found on an Afghan roadside."

Iraqi insurgent attacks on YouTube

Videos showing insurgent attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq, long available in shops in Baghdad and on Jihadist Web sites, have steadily migrated in recent months to popular Internet video-sharing sites, including YouTube and Google Video. The New York Times reports.

"...With The Bush administration restricting images of coffins of military personnel and the Pentagon keeping close control over coverage of combat operations, the videos give Americans an exposure to combat scenes rarely available before.

Their availability has also produced some reaction. In recent weeks, YouTube has removed dozens of the videos from its archives and suspended accounts of some users who have posted them - in response, it said, to complaints from other users

The Web sites also contain a growing number of video clips taken by U.S. soldiers.

A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which oversees troops in Iraq, said the military was aware of the use of common Internet sites by both insurgent groups and U.S. soldiers.

"Centcom is aware we are facing an adaptive enemy that uses the Internet as a force multiplier and as a means of connectivity," Major Matt McLaughlin, the spokesman, said by e-mail."

Britain‘s Defense Secretary Says Troops Face Brutal Foe

Britain‘s defense secretary defended his troops Monday, days after the emergence of video images that appeared to show British soldiers beating Iraqi civilians. News Leader reports.

... "British military police have arrested three people in connection with the images, which have soured relations between Iraqi officials and the 8,000 British troops based in the south of the country.

The media and even individuals with cell phones or digital cameras were ready to capture footage of any misbehavior, he said. ...

Civilians should try to imagine what it is like to serve on a battlefield "so we may all be a little slower to condemn and a lot quicker to understand," he said.

"In our history ... we have faced enemies before which have embraced some of these methods," he said. "Never, though, have we faced an enemy that had the will and the technological means to embrace them all on such a comprehensive scale."

US War Photos

Following yesterday's post on US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan having posted on the Internet "several hundred" photographs of mutilated corpses from "the real war," in exchange for free online pornography, Stay Free! Daily quotes journalist Richard Ehrlich e-mail interview with the site owner:

"This is an uncensored view of the conflict going on in Iraq and Afghanistan," 27-year-old Christopher Wilson, owner of nowthatsfuckedup.com, said in an e-mail interview. "These pictures are taken directly from the cameras of the soldiers and uploaded to my site.

The website in question - nowthatsfuckedup.com - remains online, where nestled between "Amateur Wives and Girlfriends" and the "Foot Fetish Forum" are some of the most disturbing images of the war imaginable. All of them appear to have indeed come from soldiers' digital cameras, and come complete with bloodthirsty comments from the troops.

... An Army spokesman, Col. Joseph Curtin, said the military's Criminal Investigation Division recently began investigating the matter, according to A.P."

[via unmediated]

Army Investigates Photos of Iraqi War Dead on Web

The Army has opened an investigation into whether American troops have sent gruesome photographs of Iraqi war dead to an Internet site where the soldiers were given free access to online pornography, Army officials said Tuesday, reports The New York Times.

"Some photographs on the Internet site show people in American military uniforms standing around what appear to be dead bodies. Other photos include graphic images of severed body parts and what appear to be internal organs spilling from bodies onto the ground.

The images are said to come from Afghanistan as well as Iraq. Their authenticity has not been determined.

... Digital cameras have been ubiquitous in the modern combat zone, and it was digital pictures and videos that provided the first public evidence of the extreme degree to which military police soldiers had abused Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.

In the aftermath of Abu Ghraib and reports of other abuses by American troops, Pentagon and military officials acknowledged that such behavior could severely damage the American war effort in Iraq.

"I think it's really a disturbing phenomenon to see that our military personnel would be engaging in such inappropriate behavior, behavior that brings dishonor to the military," Ibrahim Hooper, the spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a telephone interview."

Allegations of abuse levelled at military over nude photos

Shades of AbuGraid in South Korea... and how new technologies allow military mis treatment to be revealed to the world.

A bad week for Korea's security forces has been made worse by the publication online of humiliating pictures of young personnel, this time of what appear to be conscripts in the Marines, reports Digital Chosunilbo.

"The images follow a killing spree at a DMZ guard post apparently triggered by incessant bullying from senior soldiers, revelations about primitive living conditions of enlisted men and nude photographs from a riot police unit (picture left).

"Of the four Marine Corps pictures circulating in cyberspace, two appear to be souvenir photographs showing about 10 naked soldiers facing front. One shows a senior soldier looking in the underpants of a junior. The last shows a group of naked soldiers outside in the winter.

The Marine Corps said the caps in the pictures suggest the subjects are marines but estimated they were taken some years ago".

With the allegations of abuse levelled at the military over the nude photos, Defence Minister Yoon Kwang-Ung ordered an investigation, reports the AFP.

"Since the pictures of naked policemen have spread out through the Internet, we have been looking into any possible human rights violations or rigor actions (bullying by seniors) in police barracks," said a police spokesman in Wonju.

A Marine Corps official said the nude photos of soldiers had reportedly been posted on the Internet by a discharged marine.

In one photographs raw recruits trying to covering their genitals with their hands were foced to stand naked on a snow-covered drill ground as a senior stood by holding a stick.

Two-year national service is mandatory for men over the age of 18 in South Korea. Some choose to serve outside the military, as riot police".

Shocking Photos Show Nurses Abusing Infants

There is no mention in this article from South Korean Digital Chosunilbo that these pictures were taken with a cameraphone before they were posted online, but it doesn't matter, because they could have been. Worse than off humour, worse than having terrible judgement and showing disrespect, these shocking pictures of infants sadly conjure up images of Abu Graib .

Excerpts from Digital Chosunilbo:

"Korea's active netizens are outraged about shocking pictures posted on a website that show nurses treating newborn children like toys in an obstetrics and gynecology hospital.

A nurse identifying herself as Lee, 24, posted on her homepage on Cyworld about 20 photos of women who look like nurses appearing to treat newborn children like objects.

Pictures show a nurse squeezing a newborn's face with her fingers, putting heart-shaped paper on a newborn's cheeks, and apparently placing a newborn in a plastic bag.

They also include off-color images of two newborns posed as if they were kissing, holding wooden chopsticks in their mouth and cups of instant noodles on their chest, or newborns wearing doctors' caps and holding needles.

Word of the photos spread as Internet users discovered the pictures on Lee's homepage and then uploaded them to other websites.

Lee's Cyworld homepage is currently shut down. Lee said she worked in an obstetrics and gynecology hospital in Daegu but quit last month and has since gone underground.

"It seems my photos have caused some misunderstanding, so I'm quite frightened and scared. I didn't upload those photos with the intention you believe I had," she wrote on her homepage. "I'm sorry. I bow my head and ask forgiveness."

Army wary about loose lips

Brian at FutureWire - via Clippings - picks up on a well thought piece by USA Today on how technology and the Internet is affecting our knowledge about the war in Iraq: “With cell phones and the Internet, the military's ability to censor what is reported home (by our troops) has sharply diminished.”

"During World War II, a letter that took months to arrive was the only form of communication from the front lines. Today, American men and women fighting in Iraq often have instant communications with friends and families in the USA.

And while cellphones and e-mails have helped boost morale for those serving in the military, they have also caused new challenges for commanders in the field, who can face second-guessing of their decisions almost immediately by friends and relatives of service personnel. The instant communication can also cause problems for Defense officials in Washington, who would prefer a tighter grip on reports from the battlefield."

From prison camps to the front lines, pocket cameras and cellphones — many capable of whizzing uncensored digital images home — are nearly as standard among soldiers' gear as rifles, dog tags and ammunition.

The latest example of how this is changing the dynamics of war came last week, when 18 members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company in Iraq refused to carry out a supply mission they thought would be too dangerous. One member of the unit called her mother to tell her of the decision and how she and others “are now prisoners.” Other soldiers who were friends of the 18 made similar calls.

Those calls resulted in widespread publicity, in turn triggering calls by a congressman to investigate the incident. The military has launched a review of the incident."

Looking at You Looking at Me

Since the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq began, the nature and meaning of war photography have dramatically changed. With so many soldiers disseminating digital images, the major news media outlets are no longer necessarily the most useful source for visual information. [ via rhizome.org/ ]

"Camera/Iraq, is a project by Carleton College's Cinema & Media Studies Department to gather news and commentary about public and personal photographic image practices associated with the War of Images in the Middle East.

"Addressing everything from the depictions of the Abu Ghraib torture to the televised U.S. congressional hearings to the censored videos of American soldiers' coffins to photographic technique, it's a forum for posting links, essays, thoughts, and pictures."

Department of Defense rules on wireless security

The new Department of Defense rules on wireless security should help clear the way for the spread of these increasingly popular communications technologies throughout the military. Read more in today's post in Textually "Spelling Out Wireless Security", according to a report by Military Information Technology.

"The icons of this war..."

Pedro Meyer, for Zone Zero, has written an interesting editorial on the Iraqui abuse photos taken by soldier-amator photographers at Abu Ghraib.

Excerpts:

"I don't think it's too far fetched to assume that the main icons of this second US war in Iraq in 2004, still in process, will be the amateur digital pictures of the tortures performed on Iraqui detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

In spite of the tens of thousands of pictures produced by professional photographers during this war, these amateur images are the ones that I believe will mark this period in history".

And Meyer makes an interesting comparison:

"It will then have turned out to be that digital cameras became for the Bush administration what the tape recorder was for the Nixon White House".

Pictures, more than ever, tell Iraq story

A wonderfully written article by Geoff Pevere for The Star on Michael Moore's amazing footage of Iraq provided by "anyone with a camera and a conscience".

To Pevere, the power of these images lies in their unofficial status and in comparing Irak to Vietnam, he makes an interesting point:

"It's been widely said that pictures were the undoing of the Vietnam war, but that was a different war and those were different pictures. Journalists weren't "embedded" in that conflict, and the pictures they took only tended to contradict the official story when the general tide of public opinion began to swing against the war. Most significantly, the pictures that we watched during "the living room war" were taken by journalists. The most explosive images of the war in Iraq — those of prisoners being abused and humiliated — were taken by soldiers themselves".

The Accidental Journalist

Eric Lin for the TheFeature.com has written an insightful article on how everyone today has become an instant journalist... whether they intend to be or not.

"[...] The soldiers in Iraq weren't trying to make a political statement or make the news when they posted pictures of Abu Ghraib. Pretty much every soldier has a digital camera and internet access they use to share their experience with people back home. Not only does this make every soldier a reporter, it also makes him a one man oversight committee.

Just as the soldiers didn't intend to be reporters, they were (even still are) also an unwitting sousveillance machine. Only instead of civilians watching the government from below, they are participants watching from within.

The Pentagon is concerned enough that they don't want any digital transmissions leaking from the field without their approval - though rumor of a ban on all digital cameras is highly exaggerated". Read full article.

Wartime Wireless Worries Pentagon

The rapid proliferation of digital cameras, phonecams and wireless gadgets among soldiers and military contractors is giving senior military officials concern, in the wake of images that showed abuse in an Iraqi prison and snapshots that showed rows of coffins of American soldiers, reports Xeni Jardin in Wired.

Excerpts

"The Defense Department said it hasn't banned the devices and doesn't plan to. But the Pentagon is telling commanders in the field to strictly monitor the use of consumer wireless technology through Directive 8100.2 -- Use of Commercial Wireless Devices, Services and Technologies in the Department of Defense Global Information Grid -- issued last month.

"In a nutshell, the directive tells all soldiers, contractors and visitors to Defense Department facilities that they can only carry wireless devices that conform to the military's security standards. These specify that the devices use strong authentication and encryption technologies whenever possible. In addition, the devices cannot be used for storing or transmitting classified information. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz signed it in April after two years of internal debate."

Related articles on this issue:

-- DoD denies ban on camera phones

-- Xeni Tech: Phonecams on the Front Lines

-- Did Rumsfeld ban Iraq camera phones?

-- Camera phones in Iraq; digicams and truth in wartime

-- Rumsfeld bans camera phones in Iraq: report

Xeni Tech: Phonecams on the Front Lines

Technology expert Xeni Jardin reports about the impact that digital camera technology has had on the war in Iraq on NPR, via boing boing.

"Today on the National Public Radio program "Day to Day," I talk with host Alex Chadwick about discredited news reports that US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld issued an edict banning phonecams in Iraq -- as well as the confirmed release of a new Pentagon directive (PDF) outlining new restrictions on consumer wireless tech at DoD installations worldwide. While there may not be a Pentagon-issued ban on phonecams or connected digital cameras per se, there do appear to be new efforts under way to address the proliferation of those technologies in the military theater and throughout the DoD's "information grid." Alex says,

The images of abuse at Abu Ghraib, the photos of returning soldiers' coffins -- we see them because of this technology. And it's caught defense officials off-guard.

Related articles on this issue:

-- Did Rumsfeld ban Iraq camera phones?

-- Camera phones in Iraq; digicams and truth in wartime

-- Rumsfeld bans camera phones in Iraq: report

Did Rumsfeld ban Iraq camera phones?

The Register's take on whether or not Rumsfeld issued a ban on camera phones for soldiers in Iraq.

"Some reporters have been fooled into picking up the Farce story as news. But here's the thing: it seems pretty likely that Rumsfeld will be pushed into making the satire come true - or at least, into trying.

In a thoughtful piece for the Miami Herald, Carol Rosenberg quotes soldiers in Iraq as saying that they are taking digital images. Further - they're shooting digital video, too. And no, there's no censorship.

"From prison camps to the front lines, pocket cameras, many capable of whizzing uncensored digital images home, are nearly as standard among soldiers' gear as rifles and dog tags."

The "Business" story looks like a boozle. But good money could be spent betting that if Rumsfeld has not yet banned camera phones and cameras from kit bags, he probably will, even if this isn't announced as a measure "to protect Iraqi prisoners". Whether it will succeed in stopping soldiers from taking pictures, is another question entirely."

Camera phones in Iraq; digicams and truth in wartime

Xeni Jardin for boing boing has an interesting update on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's order for a ban of cell phones equipped with cameras in US army installations in Iraq.

Xeni Writes

"The story was subsequently cited in numerous online news reports, including UPI and AFP, and blogged abundantly.

Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones. "Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said, adding that a "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works.

This morning, I asked a Defense Department spokesperson whether or not the reports of a phonecam ban were true. This spokesperson said that these reports were technically inaccurate -- that the Pentagon is not issuing a new ban on camera phones per se, but that a Directive 8100.2 was issued on April 14 establishing new restrictions on wireless telecommunications equipment in general. The text of this directive is available online here in PDF format.

The intent of this April 14 directive, and how commanders in the field will be expected to enforce it, are matters I'll be reporting on in more detail for the NPR Program "Day to Day," later this week.

Link to cameraphone ban report, Link to full Rumsfeld "running around with digital cameras" quote. See also this Chicago Tribune Editorial by Clarence Page, "Weapons of Mass Photography."

Micke Grenville for 160 charcters.org comments:

"Rather than root out behaviour that many believe is not the actions of a few rogue soldiers but is widely practiced in the US army, it seems Rumsfeld has decided to brazen the scandal out and shoot the messenger to prevent any future embarrassing picture leaks.

A satirical article in TheDailyFarce wonders whether a total ban in Iraq will follow so that videos of wedding parties for example will not contradict US military versions of incidents".

Rumsfeld bans camera phones in Iraq: report

This is wild. The AFP is running a story on orders from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, banning camera phones in army installations in Iraq.

"Quoting a Pentagon source, The Business newspaper said the USDefense Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.

"Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said, adding that a "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works.

Disturbing new photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse, which the US government had reportedly tried to keep hidden, were published Friday in the Washington Post
newspaper".

The photos emerged along with details of testimony from inmates at Abu Ghraib who said they were sexually molested by female soldiers, beaten, sodomized and forced to eat food from toilets.

Via Unwired.cc and Michael ONeil

Pictures and Blogs from US Soldiers in Irak

BlueHereNow has a special section that showcases some of the more interesting pictures taken by US soldiers in Iraq as well as links to official news articles and blogs about Iraq.

Creating a New Picture of War, Pixel by Pixel

A very interesting commentary by Robert Wright for the LA Times on how America may not have brought democracy to Iraq yet, but it has already democratized Iraq's technology.

Excerpts:

[...] The revolution that is happening now — a grass-roots digital empowerment — will change the nature of war and the place of war in American foreign policy.

[...] Imagine civilians whose neighborhoods are bombed uploading pictures of wounded, crying children directly to the Web. And digital technologies more broadly will boost any postwar insurgencies.

[...] Right now, the digital revolution is complicating life for the very authoritarians who need toppling. The technologies that decentralize political power — computers, modems, mobile picture-phones — are the infrastructure of a modern economy.

[...] To restrict them tightly is to condemn your nation to a poverty that, in the long run, is politically unsustainable.

[...] The good news from Abu Ghraib is that technological evolution is on our side — on the side of democracy and transparency, and against barbarism, whether the barbarism comes from a dictator or a prison guard. In trying to create a world of open societies, Bush is going with the flow of history. The sooner he realizes that, the better.

Visualizing War & Disaster

The Poynter Insitute's - a school for journalists - special report on how in Virginia, Iraq, and Poland, photojournalists and editors struggle with the power of images and how they should be used.

"When do images change public perception? What images are journalists reluctant to publish or broadcast? What standards do we apply to images captured by non-journalists, like Tami Silicio or a Virginia woman who was the first person to transmit pictures from a plane crash site?

A series of articles addresses these questions and raises additional questions for reader response as Poynter explores the role of visual journalism in documenting war and disaster":

Death of a War Correspondent / Images as Eyewitness / The Accidental Photojournalist.

War images and digital technology

The acceleration of brutal images from Irak - fueled by technological advances in digital photography and video streaming - seems to be having a direct, immediate impact on public opinion, writes Jonathan Curiel, staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle.

"The scenes of abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison (images that the Pentagon tried to keep out of public view) prompted immediate congressional hearings and reassessment of U.S. policies, and the overall flurry of images from Iraq has quickly and profoundly affected millions of people around the world.

In Vietnam, the images served as confirmation for people rather than as a revelation," says photographer Peter Howe, editor of the book "Shooting Under Fire: The World of the War Photographer."

The images "confirmed what they had heard (as rumor or from another source). In Iraq, we're getting everything in the same package. The images we're seeing are (revelations) and are the instruments of change. They both confirm and change at the same time."

And the images do it in ways that previous generations could never have imagined. The Internet lets just about anyone put photos and videos into the public domain.

Now, a militant group in Iraq can videotape a beheading of an American, put the video on a Web site and reach a global audience within minutes.

Now, photos of abuse in a Baghdad prison -- some of them apparently taken by soldiers for their private use -- can be e-mailed, put on computer discs and be otherwise available at the click of a computer button.

"We're in the middle of an information revolution," says Howe, a former combat photographer who covered wars in Northern Ireland and El Salvador.

We live in an age when people can download scenes of war on their cell phones as they ride a bus or stand on a street corner.

For more related articles, cf Picturephoning's special category on this issue.

Soldiers' cameras share snapshot of life in Iraq

There have been so many interesting articles in the last few days with regard to the role technology has played in Iraq, that I've opened a special category called The military as citizen reporters.

This latest entry is from an article in The Miami Herald on how in Iraq, seemingly every soldier carries a camera and how "the photos have underscored the benefits and problems of technologies ubiquitous in Iraq, including cell and satellite phones, Internet cafes and digital cameras.

"From the prisons to the front lines, pocket cameras, many digital ones capable of whizzing uncensored images home, are nearly as standard among American soldiers' gear as rifles and dog tags.

Mostly they're used to take innocuous ''Hi Mom'' souvenir shots -- a smiling soldier in a faraway place.

But, as the Abu Ghraib prison case illustrates, the phenomenon can have unintended consequences -- as happened when shots of gleeful guards abusing naked prisoners became public months after the abuse occurred, and even as the Pentagon was trying to deal with the problem quietly, behind the scenes.

You can't make all the cellphones go away. You can't make all the digital cameras go away. The genie's out of the bottle,'' an officer said.

More than a year after the invasion, no official rules have been released governing the use of cameras, or restricting specifically what soldiers may photograph. Nobody reviews the photos before they are filed on the Internet-

And no one anticipates any rules soon -- beyond the admonition that mishandling classified information, even by accident in an otherwise innocent photo, is a crime, said a senior military officer, speaking on the condition that he not be identified."

For more related articles, cf Picturephoning's special category.

U.S. must release all prison-abuse photos

The Statesman Journal takes a strong stand on the US releasing the remainder of the Iraqi prisoner abuse photos:

"In an era when soldiers bring digital cameras and picture phones to the battlefront, there's no way to stamp this X-rated slide show “top secret.” The damning pictures will get out one way or another, at the speed of e-mail.

Better to release them at once than to let them leak out a few at a time. Better to face the music now than prolong our disgrace before the world."

For more related articles, cf Picturephoning's The military as citizen reporters category

Napster generation goes to war

Another very interesting article, written by Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent for Reuters, comparing how the Napster generation has forced the music industry to rethink its business, and now, how military officials had better apply their minds to the flow of information from today's front lines that has potentially disastrous consequences.

"Photos sent by U.S. soldiers in Iraq beyond the control of their chiefs show how the latest technology can undermine the carefully crafted public relations of the modern military machine.

"The military needs to review how emerging technologies will forever alter their public relations efforts - and powerful technologies are already in the hands of 18- and 19-year servicemen, way before they are implemented by the army..

The advent of 3G camera-equipped phones would enable soldiers in the heat of battle, to show war scenes to the wider world instantaneously".

For more related articles, cf Picturephoning's The military as citizen reporters category

Toppling tyrants with IT power

Technology Editor Francis Chin for Today Online in an interesting essay (posted at length in Textually) on the IT revolution and referring to the Iraqi prisonner abuse, wonders how politicians have "not yet wised up to the fact that it is not their million-dollar high-tech missiles that are capable of inflicting civilian damage only.

Chin writes, "The latest cellphones with embedded high-resolution digital cameras, in the hands of courageous individuals, can inflict far greater damage on those in power. Technology in the form of cheap, hand-held devices capable of recording and transmitting raw, unvarnished information, is a powerful weapon for any man on the street to create awareness, fight untruths and persuade enough of people to change sides.

This is what revolution is all about, the information revolution, that is."

For more related articles, cf Picturephoning's The military as citizen reporters category on this issue.