The term “fauxtography” was coined after the events in Qana, Lebanon, this past summer. It’s a disturbing concept and an even more disturbing new reality. I just came upon a picture that illustrates (better than a thousand words) how the fauxtography sausage is made—and how hungry is the appetite for that sausage:

(via LGF)

Jeroen Oerlemans, The Netherlands, Panos Pictures. Paramedics show the dead body of a baby to the press after Israeli bombing of Qana, Lebanon, 30 July 2006

Of course, war photography doesn’t have to be so extravagantly manipulated [[scroll down for the head-on version]] in order to raise controversy. When Mathew Brady exhibited some of his photographs during the American Civil War, it had the opposite effect of what he hoped: the public was shocked and turned off.

[[ I will save the subject of contemporary war photography for another day (though you can see an example of it Andrew Sullivan, who regularly uses images as an enhancement to his rhetoric on his blog. And why not? I do it, too. I tend toward the satirical whereas Sullivan tends toward the shiv-to-the-kidney. What can I say? All is fair in love and war—every war: remember Johnny Got His Gun?

That’s the first thing I thought of when I clicked on the link Sullivan sent me to. Dalton Trumbo’s searing, graphic anti-war novel was published in 1939, on the long eve of our entry into World War II, and republished as we sank into the jungles of Vietnam. Everything old is new again. Unless you can pull off the Born Yesterday (TM) dodge or the Who Knew? (TM) defense, on the theory that Every Day Is Groundhog Day (TM) ]].

Stepping back into another era, I can attest to the power of a couple of Vietnam War photographs (and a lot of the era’s extremely successful homefront propaganda, as for example, this, but that’s also a subject for another day).

When the photo below was published in 1972, it caused a sensation. It seared the conscience and delivered a message in a way that the continuous loop of jungle-warfare scenes on nightly TV did not; if anything, those news reports deadened us to the war. With arresting photos like this, the feeling in the air was palpable. We thought we could sense the rest of the country tipping over to join us in anti-war territory. And still Nixon was re-elected.

In 1996, Charles Paul Freund wrote about “Vietnam’s Most Harrowing Photo” and the double-edged sword that is war photography:

Kim, 9 years old in 1972, had taken shelter with others in a pagoda when the American military ordered the South Vietnamese air force to attack her village of Trang Bang because it had been infiltrated by enemy forces. The pagoda was hit, killing, among others, two of Kim’s brothers. Terrified survivors streamed onto the highway, where photographer Ut snapped them. Kim is naked, screaming in fear and agony, in the center of the image.

Breaking the fourth wall behind that scene, Freund notes:

[Photographer] Ut’s was not the only camera present; the sequence exists on film as well. Because it is more dreadful physically, the film is less potent emotionally. … [T]he filmed sequence closes out the event, and gives viewers an opportunity to shrug it off. Ut’s photo is of a crowded highway winding eternally through hell, and it won’t let you go.

Indeed.

[T]he picture ran on front pages throughout America. Benjamin Spock, who chose the photo to speak for him in the 1994 exhibition “Talking Pictures,” certainly echoed many of its viewers when he wrote simply, “[I]t horrified me,” and credited it with confirming his opposition to the war.

And it worked for the North Vietnamese, too:

The image was, of course, an important piece of atrocity propaganda for the North Vietnamese, who were themselves responsible for significant suffering both before and after they attained power. Like all such atrocity material, it undermined the morale of the side responsible for the pain it depicted.

Yes, and that’s why this kind of propaganda is such an effective weapon in asymmetric warfare. However, Freund makes another crucial point:

But the political manipulation of imagery doesn’t delegitimize its content. The pain here is only too real.

Indeed—in the Vietnam photograph Freund is describing, that’s true. And that’s also what makes it distinct from the example of fauxtography I’ve been discussing, which is staged atrocity propaganda. The effect is immediate. We stop and look. We are shocked and horrified. And that is all. For: the baby is dead, all right, but we feel nothing. And not just because there are dozens of photographers in the breaking-the-fourth-wall version of the photo above.

It’s because there is a difference between authenticity and, well, faux-ness. See for example this “original” photo from the series taken at Qana:

(via EUReferendum)

compared to this, which won the World Press Photo of the Year and which was not staged but which is rich with meaning—the awful authenticity of glitter and doom living side by side in Beirut in the summer of 2006:

Spencer Platt, USA, Getty Images

Young Lebanese drive through devastated neighborhood of South Beirut, 15 August

David Gergen has been dumping on the Republicans since forever on CNN. Tonight he visited with Larry King (following an interview with Giuliani), and Gergen was pretty impressed:

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ADVISER TO PRESIDENTS NIXON, FORD, REAGAN & CLINTON: Well, what I find really interesting, Larry, is that the pundits — the commentariat, if you would like to call it that, has discounted — and I’ve been among those who have discounted a Giuliani candidacy for some time.

We’ve always said, you know, he looks attractive on the surface, but people are going to move away from him. This is, after all, the Republican Party.

But something really interesting, though, has happened over the last 30 days. A month ago, the “USA Today”/Gallup Poll had Giuliani and McCain basically running neck and neck for the Republican nomination. Giuliani was ahead by around four points.

Their recent poll — it just came out today — has Giuliani ahead of John McCain for the Republican nomination by 16 points. Sixteen points. He’s opened up a huge lead and I find it really interesting.

I must say, my good friend, Arianna, I disagree about what’s going on here, in part, with Giuliani. I think he’s taking these stands because that’s what he believes in. And I think his appeal is he seems — like Barack Obama, who lights fires on the Democratic side — he is appealing because he’s authentic. He is who he is who he is. And it’s not all calculated…

Of course, some of us, ahem, saw this coming—and voiced our caveats. Back in August. Ahem. But we want to emphasize that we are not politicos. No sirree. We are culture watchers. Plus, we always listen to the voice of our inner sociologist. Oh. And we are no longer ideologues.

Hamas’s Khaled Mashal may have jumped the gun a bit, because I note that the Palestinian national unity deal with Fatah seems to have fallen apart already. Nevertheless, I note that there is a master of PR, rhetoric, and American and international politics behind this piece published under the name of Hamas’s Khaled Mashal in today’s Guardian.

[[Shorter version: your friends the Saudis made us an offer we couldn't refuse. We're all one happy family now, see? Now, you'd better pay up and you'd better bring the hammer down on Israel---because if you don't, you will pay and pay and pay.]]
It is cast in the language of the Palestinians’ struggle for freedom and their “national rights.” It deplores the recent horrible violence in Gaza and insists that Israel must share the blame for this. It talks of new partnerships and rebuilding what the Israelis have destroyed. It talks again about freedom from occupation and political rights and the hundred-year-old [!] victimization of the Palestinian people. It then audaciously claims:

All previous peace proposals have failed because they were intended to impose an unjust pro-Israel settlement on our people, and were based on the assumption that the Palestinian struggle was a form of terrorism that the Palestinians had to renounce. The attempt to divide Palestinians into moderates and extremists or peacemakers and terrorists has failed. Now we are united in our determination to seek an end to oppression and occupation.

In other words, Hamas is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and its acts of savage violence against innocent Israeli civilians is not “terrorism”: it is “struggle” against “occupation.”

And now he’s demanding that this struggle against occupation be rewarded. Or else:

So, will the international community seize this historic opportunity, require Israel to respect our rights and stop hindering this attempt to turn the Palestinian national agreement into a reality? Or will it remain weak and ineffective in the face of Israeli intransigence and risk alienating not only Hamas but also Fatah and all the other Palestinian factions? [wait a minute---I thought you just said all the Palestinian people are one, that there are no "extremists and moderates" to divide and conquer--ed.] …
The west needs to wake up and realise that time is no longer on the side of Israel and its policies of occupation, destruction and expansion. Time no longer favours the continuation of policies biased towards Israel. It will not serve the best interests of the west to support Israel while it continues to terrorise our people, occupy our land, violate our basic human and national rights and encroach on Muslim and Christian holy places. Such blind support has proven to be very costly for the west and will increasingly damage its vital interests.

It must be understood by all that the people of Palestine have the key to both peace and war in the Middle East. There can never be peace and stability in the region without settling the Palestinian question. And that can only be achieved by ending the occupation and recognising our people’s rights.

I will be waiting with bated breath for the responses to this bravura performance.