Setanta wrote:
I cannot accept the body of your argument here. Neither the Viet Mihn, nor the Viet Cong, nor the North Vietnamese Army were signatories of any of the Geneva conventions. Do you contend that the French before 1956, and Americans and South Vietnamese thereafter, were justified in treating those whom they took prisoner in any fashion which suited them? Do you think any method, such as throwing one of two prisoners from the door of a helicopter, while questioning the other--were justified because they might not have been uniformed combatants? Do you think Nguyen Ngoc Loan had a right to do this:
to a man with his hands bound behind his back, because he is not in uniform? (Before you go off about the war and that picture, the photographer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for that photo, and was very likely putting his life on the line to obtain it.)
The Shrub yodels on about how Al Qaeda hates us because of our freedom, our democracy, our moral superiority. If we become no better that those whom we oppose, does it not occur to you that
the foe has won on the basis of those very terms?
No one will ever convince me that extremism in the defense of liberty is justified, and in most examples i would seriously question how any such actions can be considered to be in defense of liberty--they create an atmosphere in the world which endangers us that much more. This isn't some playground fist fight in which you are going to make the other guy think you're so tough that he will back down.
I will never subscribe to the notion that the ends can justify any means.
In the case of the the General who killed this Viet Cong irregular, how about this comment:
Who can forget the image of South Vietnamese police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan putting a pistol to the head of a Vietcong captive? This summary execution on the streets of Saigon was said to capture the abject immorality of the Vietnam War.
Does it matter that the "victim" was in fact the head of an assassination squad who had previously massacred a close colleague of General Loan - along with six children? Perhaps not, in the greater scheme of things. But was this not a germane fact that might better inform our understanding?
Or how about the comments by the photographer who TOOK the photo:
PHOTOJOURNALIST Eddie Adams died last Sunday at age 71, but his place in history is secure. Indeed, Adams made history with his famous picture of South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. Taken in Saigon on February 1, 1968, the picture showed Gen. Loan's point-blank execution of a Viet Cong captain named Bay Lop. The images were searing: Loan's cold grimace; a snub-nosed .38 revolver held inches from Lop's terrified face; the fiercely clenched teeth of an officer standing nearby.
It won a Pulitzer Prize for the Associated Press in 1969, and was one of the most influential still photos of the 20th century. But until the day he died, Eddie Adams regretted having taken it.
Actually, that's an understatement. Adams blamed himself for ruining Loan's life. "The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera," was how he put it. His picture told one story; but his contrition for that picture told quite another.
Indeed, I have a Time book "Great Images of the 20th Century" that has this to say about the photograph: "The victim's helplessness and the brutal efficiency of his killer caught in a single image many of hte elements that were turning a majority of Americans against the war." (p. 52)
Until this past week, I was not aware of Adams' regrets. And I teach photojournalism.
Loan died in July 1998, at age 67, from cancer. Torn up by regret, Adams penned a moving eulogy in Time magazine. It was part remembrance, part mea culpa for his 1968 picture. "Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world," he wrote.
"People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.
