Images We Choose (To Ignore)

It was the picture of the day -- the toppling of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad -- and may end up beingthe picture of the war, the single image that comes to define the conflict. The message will be clear The U.S.liberated the Iraqi people; the U.S. invasion of Iraq was just.

On Wednesday (April 9) morning television networks kept cameras trained on the statue near the PalestineHotel. Iraqis threw ropes over the head and tried to pull it down before attacking the base with asledgehammer. Finally a U.S. armored vehicle pulled it down, to the cheers of the crowd.

It was an inspiring moment of celebration at the apparent end of a brutal dictator's reign. But asSecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has pointed out at other times, no one image tells the whole story.Questions arise about what is, and isn't, shown.

One obvious question During live coverage, viewers saw a U.S. soldier drape over the face of Hussein a U.S.flag, which was quickly removed and replaced with an Iraqi flag. Commanders know that the displaying the U.S.flag suggests occupation and domination, not liberation. NBC's Tom Brokaw reported that the Arab network AlJazeera was "making a big deal" out of the incident with the American flag, implying that U.S.television would -- and should -- downplay that part of the scene. Which choice tells the more complete truth?

Another difference between television in the U.S. and elsewhere has been coverage of Iraqi casualties.Despite constant discussion of "precision bombing," the U.S. invasion has produced so many dead andwounded that Iraqi hospitals stopped trying to count. Red Cross officials have labeled the level of casualties"incredible," describing "dozens of totally dismembered dead bodies of women and children"delivered by truck to hospitals. Cluster bombs, one of the most indiscriminate weapons in the modern arsenal,have been used by U.S. and U.K. forces, with the British defense minister explaining that mothers of Iraqichildren killed would one day thank Britain for their use.

U.S. viewers see little of these consequences of war, which are common on television around the world andwidely available to anyone with Internet access. Why does U.S. television have a different standard? CNN'sAaron Brown said the decisions are not based on politics. He acknowledged that such images accurately show theviolence of war, but defended decisions to not air them; it's a matter of "taste," he said. Again,which choice tells the more complete truth?

Finally, just as important as decisions about what images to use are questions about what facts andanalysis -- for which there may be no dramatic pictures available -- to broadcast to help people understandthe pictures. The presence of U.S. troops in the streets of Baghdad means the end of the shooting war is near,for which virtually everyone in Iraq will be grateful. It also means the end of a dozen years of harshU.S.-led economic sanctions that have impoverished the majority of Iraqis and killed as many as a half millionchildren, according to U.N. studies, another reason for Iraqi celebration. And no doubt the vast majority ofIraqis are glad to be rid of Hussein, even if they remember that it was U.S. support for Hussein throughoutthe 1980s that allowed his regime to consolidate power despite a disastrous invasion of Iran.

But that does not mean all Iraqis will be happy about the ongoing presence of U. S. troops. Perhaps they areaware of how little the U.S. government has cared about democracy or the welfare of Iraqis in the past.Perhaps they watch Afghanistan and see how quickly U.S. policymakers abandoned the commitment to "notwalk away" from the suffering of the Afghan people. Perhaps we should be cautious about what we inferfrom the pictures of celebration that we are seeing; joy over the removal of Hussein does not mean joy over anAmerican occupation.

There is no simple way to get dramatic video of these complex political realities. But they remainrealities, whether or not U.S. viewers find a full discussion of them on television.

CopyrightRobert Jensen 2003. Robert Jensen isa founding member of the Nowar Collective, ajournalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of  Writing Dissent: TakingRadical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream.