Iraq, and who might have faked evidence

[redbird]

Lots of people have suggested that the recent photos, in the Mirror, of British soldiers beating an Iraqi thief are fakes. (The much more damning photos of US soldiers abusing prisoners, by contrast, are almost certainly genuine.) rozk analyzes them, in some detail. After explaining why they look like fakes, she turns to the more interesting question: cui bono?

Not the Mirror. Not the anti-war movement. Not the Islamists. Roz points out that a likely effect of these photos is to make Britain less popular among Iraqis and Arabs, and to drive it closer to the U.S.

In other words, my view is that either the photos are genuine, and just improbably good for squaddie snapshots, or that they are fakes and instruments of US policy in general, and specifically that they are the sort of thing Dick Cheney sets in motion. Which would be a whole can of worms if true and a chance to make even Tony Blair tell Bush and Cheney to sod off.

Investigation is the way to go, and is potentially win-win for the anti-war forces in general, if not for the Mirror, if it's got it wrong.

Comments

[redbird]

Roz is posting from the UK: from that viewpoint, if the US government can be shown to have faked these pictures, it might help get the UK out of Iraq.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

OK. But why would the US government have faked photos that hurt it's goal? I'm not getting something here.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

It might potentially look better for the US if UK soldiers are implicated in similar activities to US ones?

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine that would be true. If UK soldiers were implicated, the UK would be more likely to pull out of Iraq, which the US can't afford. While I think the current DOD is run by incompetents, I have trouble seeing them as that staggeringly incompetent.