Battle of the Photographs

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"The Bush administration, despite the savvy of its spinmeisters and Hollywood-trained publicists, has lost the war of images abroad," writes Juan Cole. "Although it has had more success in managing war images at home, cracks have increasingly opened up on the domestic front as well." Recent examples have included the publication of photos of flag-draped coffins bearing U.S. soldiers, Nightline's program displaying the faces of the fallen, and graphic images of abused Iraqi prisoners released on CBS's 60 Minutes II news show that have been reproduced as stills and transmitted all over the Internet. "The success of the American war effort depends crucially on retaining public support in the U.S. and winning hearts and minds in Iraq and the Arab world," Cole writes. "The images seeping out of Iraq are undermining both, because aggression, wrong-headed policies and incompetence have left a trail in photos. That is what the manipulators of the media who favor perpetual war are so afraid of."