“I Killed The General With My Camera.”
"The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?'"
I've written before about those words that Eddie Adams wrote in Time Magazine describing the photograph he took of General Nguyan Ngoc Loan summarily executing a captured Viet Cong. Eddie Adams, who died in 2004, regretted taking that picture and the damage he had done to a good man's reputation.
Daniel Finkelstein at The Times Online Comment Central writes today about a revisionist myth again propagated by British televison.
Sadly Adams is dead, so the programme featured a different, but also distinguished, war photographer Philip Jones Griffiths. And Jones Griffiths described his feelings about the photo and his own decision to track down and photograph the executed man's widow.
Jones Griffiths had strong views on the photo and gave them to us.
He dismissed the idea that the executed man had been a killer saying both that the idea that the man had just killed others was "kind of propaganda" and that "he wouldn't have been much of a Vietcong soldier" if he hadn't tried to kill people. He clearly viewed the photo's power as being its revelation of the evil of the war and America's involvement.
These were interesting, legitimate, opinions. But it is a shame that it wasn't mentioned that they were not remotely the views held by Eddie Adams of his own photo.
No, what Adams thought is what I opened this post with.
War, World news | Gaius Saturday, 2 February , 2008
By Maggie, Saturday, 2 February , 2008 @ 4:04 pm
We “comfortable” people who can sit safely and cleanly at home who so willingly, and at time some spitefully, criticize all too often forget just how ugly war really is … always has been … ALWAYS will be. You can arm-chair-quarterback sports, even politics … but that cannot be said for war (IMHO).
Rob Reiner’s and Aaron Sorkin’s attempt to [brutalize] and criticize military effort and duty in our daily lives was put on display in the scene in “A Few Good Men” where Col. Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson) is testifying under oath:
“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? … I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for [Santiago], and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know … And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.”
I believe the director’s and writer’s intent was to repulse the viewer to this mindless, heartless cog in our killing machine …
Actually, it always had the opposite effect on me … and in discussing the movie and scene with many others over the years, they felt the same as I did about the fictional Colonel’s frank speech.
By Mark Tanberg, Saturday, 2 February , 2008 @ 5:27 pm
Maggie
Ditto x 2