The other day, I heard something on the radio which pissed me off. It was this conservative moron with what was basically a hate-radio show, disguised as “politics,” and he was spouting off about how those Abu Ghraib torture photos were released on purpose to “scare” Iraqis. Seems that Rush Limbaugh has been thinking along the same lines, according to this site.

Anyway, at first I thought this was total crap, and the sort of excuses over-the-top conservatives make up to cover the asses of those they support. On one hand, I still think that. But on the other, I’ve been thinking a bit more about how the proliferation of these photos may be a sophisticated bit of social-engineering, with very specific aims in mind.

The first and most obvious one is degradation, of course. Intentional demoralization of Arab society, by means of vivid images of how much stronger “we” are than them, and basically showing them who the new boss-man is.

Then I got to thinking more about how sexual all the images are. On one hand, you have all the homoerotic content (which Limbaugh above compares to “standard good old American pornography”) and you also have the images of this little woman, in a position of power over these men. You have her pointing at their “weiners” and seeming amused. You have her standing behind and above this weird ball made of naked men. And most recently, you have her holding a leash on this one guy.

These images, I think, attack directly the more traditional sexual mores of the Arab culture. Whether it’s attitudes towards homosexuality, or else the roles of women vs. men. It seems super important that we see this small woman in a position of seemingly sexual power & authority over these broken-down faceless men. I would even go so far as to guess that there is an element of erotic fantasy in these pictures, which is designed to re-program sexual attitudes towards a more modern, western view of sex.

I also think that using a “real” incident (instead of just bombarding Iraqis with endless episodes of Sex & the City, Will & Grace, and Queer Eye) is very important. A while back, before the shit hit the fan, I had an interesting conversation with a taxi driver in Baltimore about how, instead of bombing, we should just send them all our movies and tv, so that they start thinking like us, and becoming culturally assimilated to us. But I think there is such an anti-US sentiment in the Arab world, that they would probably just try and reject that sort of cultural indoctrination, by force-feeding them our stories and pop-media.

It’s almost as if their culture has an immune system against us and our values. It’s easier for them to ignore and disarm cultural signals being passed through entertainment. But, if you could somehow package those same messages into real events, people would have no defense against them. Especially if the outer-wrapping of the story is one that’s so horrific and paints us in such a bad light. I imagine the first response to these images for an Arab might be something like “Those fucking asshole Americans,” and they kind of file it away in their minds as yet another horrible thing we have done to them. And this is the trick, this is where the viral images slip in, and bypass the cultural immune system, zooming straight at the centers of the mind which deal with sexuality and gender issues.

In a way, it’s your classic media virus, wherein you pass in a meme or cultural idea by piggybacking it onto another unsuspecting symbol. Advertisers do this sort of shit all the time. They are constantly changing their tactics against us as consumers, as we become aware of their techniques and develop cultural resistance against them. So, maybe military intelligence and psyops are using the same sorts of techniques. Maybe it’s all intended to be sort of a battering ram against traditional Arab culture, to pave the way for them to become Americanized enough so that we can start really blasting them with our mainstream media and all our corporate products.

Anyway, just something to think about. Of course I don’t condone any of this torture, yadda yadda yadda, and I hope it fucks up America’s quest for world domination even further. I would say that I hope it helps to unseat Bush, but I have a feeling that Kerry is just going to push the same agenda down our throats anyway, just in a slightly different packaging. It’s Coke vs. Pepsi, but that’s a post for another time.

later

I was also just wondering if there isn’t also an agenda/message being covertly transmitted by these images both to Europeans and Americans as well. But I’m tired so I’m not gonna write about that now.

ALSO:

I wonder who owns the copyrights to these photos. And I wonder if there are fees involved in licensing use of them for broadcast and publication. I wonder how I would find that out.

Furthermore

I wonder how many of the same or similar abuses occur in American prisons on American prisoners daily.