Remember this picture? Pictures CAN change the world during wars

I'm much too young to remember when this happened, but I've heard and read repeatedly that the photograph linked below (The Tet 1968 Execution -- graphic) was one of the major turning points in US politics abroad.

http://www.treefort.org/~cbdoten/rvntanks/080-4450.htm

These pictures can never go away, and they're now on the net. Unlike many of the lies that Bush has gotten away with, these won't go away. All it takes is a second to look at a picture. It will even sink into our video-friendly, hyper-active culture.

the photo of Kim Phuc, the little girl running naked down the road after being napalmed, and the Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire.

I was not the most politically aware person during the Vietnam war, but I was old enough to have the major iconic images make an impression. Years and years and years later, I was able to recall them with absolute clarity.

When I used those three in a classroom presentation a year or so ago, the "youngsters" literally gasped. They didn't have a clue. Now, sadly, they have their own version.

ie, what combination of words did you use?

Look+Vietnam+photo+Kim+Phuc

2nd hit. Use the "+" for narrowing the search.

Oh the horror of war!

How can ANYONE be an apologist for THAT?!! :mad:

and in the newspaper. I was terrified of soldiers (including I went through a period where I would not hug my dad when he was home, because of his army uniform - it scared me to death).

War is a horrible, horrible thing. I can't stand it.

And it did change the world.

plastic mixed with aluminum metal tiny flecks, and ignited by phosphorus....

napalm has been banned by the UN....the burns are impossible to treat since the flaming gels and hot molten metal flakes stick to your skin from the molten plastic....


there were reports of the NEW AND IMPROVED versions of napalm used in Iraq....


the little girl in the photo now lives in Canada...her clothes were burned off from the flaming napalm, and that may have saved her life, also that she was running....she had more than 40 painful operations to repair her burned skin....

almost 99% of scientific research funds in America goes to the military....just for a moment...imagine a world where American Scientific research funds goes to alternate energy, curing diseases, soil and water solutions....and cleaning up the major environmental damage on military bases, which include nuclear weapons sites....

Dow made much of the napalm and also had research labs on many campuses. Students demonstrated to get Dow off their campuses.

...have never left me. Images are so incredibly powerful. They sit always just below the surface of everday consciousness. I recall Kim's image along with RFK's execution, the gang pointing to the source of MLK's fatal bullet, much more since (marking my age, I guess). But this single image of Kim Phuc is why I am a pacifist. There is no idealogy, no political ideal, that is worth the infliction of such terror as is here portrayed. More horrifying than Kim's physical pain is the terror and grief on the boy's face, just to her left. Such total disappointment in the Universe!

This is not to say I wouldn't die for what I belive in (my life is mine to do with what I will); instead, I say I will not kill. I will not inflict terror. I will not contribute to the chorus of cries we see depicted here in this image. I'd die first.

Cease to do evil; try to do good.

(To all that would point out the evils of "the other side" -- evil is evil, terror is terror, pain is pain. An eye for an eye does nothing but continue the cycle evil. We need to find another way.)

became emotional upset with the scene talked about it for weeks with many questions.

The one question I'll never forget was, "how can God let this man be deaded" my son's exact words as he look me in the for eye for searching answering.

then you can see, if you can stand to watch, the video that the above still was taken from, along with the video of the execution of the Vietnamese man - not just a still, but the whole graphic thing until the blood stopped gushing.

and it is more terrifying than the still.

... and I wasn't even born until years after the end of the Vietnam War.

This is one of the most powerful photos in history.

photo.

His name is Nick Ut. He's one of the photo guys at the AP in Los Angeles. The photo department was right next to our on-air booth for the radio network, and I'd see him all the time, before he'd head off on assignment somewhere - usually to the same event I was about to go off to cover, myself. The absolute nicest, sweetest, most unassuming guy. Small in stature and very good at making himself "invisible" in crowds. He never bragged or swaggered about it, and if you didn't already know (because somebody ELSE hadn't yet told you), you'd never in a million years have guessed that he'd taken THIS landmark photograph. He won a Pulitzer Prize for it. Used to tell of some of the debates that went on in the newsroom over whether to run the photo because of the little girl's nakedness. The editorial decision was made to go with it because of the stark and VERY real horror of the photo. They didn't feel it was right to mess with it or crop it or edit it in any way, and they felt strongly that viewers would get the true message of the photograph, instead of wallowing in any prurient sidetracking crap. They judged correctly, as it turned out.

It gets to me, too. I don't know what moves me more - the little girl screaming, or the little boy ahead of her in the foreground, and HIS screaming. The shape of his open mouth, all by itself, speaks volumes.

Nick Ut can currently be found - still taking photos for the AP. As an entertainment reporter, I used to find myself crouching in the front, next to him, or near him, with my little tape recorder and notepad, while we covered the latest big name to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or the attendees at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon, or some other frippery. It always blew my mind that this guy was a living monument to photojournalism, a walking, talking legend who'd witnessed some of the most horrendous things imaginable and captured more than a few of them on film. Yet, here he'd be at some dumb, superficial celebrity photo-op, dutifully carrying out his responsibilities as a photojournalist with the same quiet, thorough professionalism he used while covering the Vietnam War. I used to see him and feel happy that he was shooting lots of stupid, inconsequential fluff stuff and not having to dodge bullets anymore. It was like working next to Mount Rushmore. Every time I'd go cover something and saw him there, I felt as though I'd finally made it. One of the few things I miss about not being a reporter anymore. It's mainly the co-workers (and the HORRIBLE, tasteless, stinky gallows humor that's ever present in any newsroom).

to do that. Really interesting. He sounds like a good man

Sounds like a candidate for a People Magazine (?) story. Well written and very interesting. Coupled with the photo, it's a winner.

I'm going to send a copy of your piece to my son who's a foreign correspondent for one of the majors. He'll love it.

He sounds like a wonderful person. I'm glad that he survived the war. So many photographers and other journalists lost their lives (and are still being killed today, in conflict zones).



http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/kimphuc/





http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0008/ng5.htm


(Happier) pictures of Mr. Ut with Kim Phuc, years later ...

Truly, what you saw was what you got with him. He's just the sweetest guy. A gentle soul. He only took one of the One Hundred Most Gripping Photos of the Twentieth Century. That's all. Thanks - glad you liked the story. You'd like the man a lot, too.

I was born in '67, so I'm only talking as an outsider to that period of time. but certain key moments have been passed onto us youngsters because of the timelessness of photos and video. The other major turning point I keep on hearing about is Cronkite's breaking on-air with supporting the war...I believe he said it was lost on-air, or something like that?

not long...you're right that pic changed history...this is a very exciting time to be alive right now...


failure.

You ever see the film "Flashback"?

Dennis Hopper: The 90's will make the 60's look upside down.

I thought that meant WE'D be powerful again. I guess upside down meant "the Right-Wing Takes It All Over For Once". Sorry about the confusion there.

Apparently, all the photographers and tv reporters (film, in those days), were screaming at Colonel Loan to shoot the man. So he did.

One of the most famous photographs in history.

And we never found out the man's name.

I've been amazed by how much I've found out was staged or re-enacted for the home crowd.

But they can change history.

That's the important thing I think we need to remember..for several reasons, actually. Foremost, is we have to figure out how to regain our moral status in the world, once Bush is out of office. We've lost our "9/11 Trifecta" sympathy and gained Bush hatred.

Foremost, is we have to figure out how to regain our moral status in the world, once Bush is out of office. We've lost our "9/11 Trifecta" sympathy and gained Bush hatred.

We've never been perfect, but what Bush* has done in just over 3 years breaks my heart.

Review this site; http://www.letsroll911.org/ check the claims, look at their log-in records, and judge for yourself. Resist the knee-jerk reaction that it can’t be true. Remember that the images have not been denied by the originators (CBS, ABC, CNN etc,). Thousands of copies are out around the world.

If these pictures are are fakes they will not survive.

If they fail to change history then we will not survive.

Personal revenge.

Have thought that all these years. Where did I get this idea.

He was captured on the street after some fighting. He had not done anything to Loan's wife and children. Loan had never seen him before. He was just another insurgent during the height of the Tet Offensive in Saigon.

You probably heard that because it is a nice rationalization. It is false as can be.

Thanks. I didn't know that.

And we never found out the man's name.

I keep waiting to see people begin to open their eyes. I hope our nation has not become so cynical or apathetic as to let this pass without SOME change.

"I keep waiting to see people begin to open their eyes. I hope our nation has not become so cynical or apathetic as to let this pass without SOME change."

Americans are like everyone else - slow to accept that we as a nation can do horrific things. It's human nature.

But I will say that we seem to take longer than some other countries I've lived in and traveled through before we admit to ourselves that things have been royaly screwed up.

Eventually we wake up, but I wish it wouldn't take so long and require an incredibile amount of damage in the meantime.

Did that photo really change anything?

60 Minutes was instrumental in that at the time. Dan Rathers was a hard-hitting, angry young journalist at the time and he did not let go!

He hit people hard with these horrors- picture after picture, interview after interview, truth after truth but the pictures helped the most.

When anyone looks at that photo they see their brother, sister, child, niece, nephew, etc... It breaks your heart and makes you realize that these modern wars are absolutely barbaric and should not be supported by thinking, feeling people- regardless of politics.

pictures made it out of the Vietnam War. I remember some graphic magazines on the newstands. I find it ironic that this war has been so sanitized from the public and now we have the release of these torture pics. I think alot of people are about to come of age in this one now.

Maybe if the Bush Admin hadn't kept it so sanitized to this point that they'd actually be jaded by this point? Coffin, coffin, coffin, --dead body, dead body, dead body -- Torture--torture--torture.

How surprised are the non-political people that you talk to on these topics? I'm finding that the war is finally connecting to people again...and on a negative way.

It's much shinier and cleaner, and aren't those computer graphics cool? Don't you feel better?

Here, have another beer, and go and purchase some useless consumer thing. You are growing sleepy, very, verrrrrrrrryy sleeeeeeeeeeepy . . .

...but are not, by design, shared by our major media. There are three pictures from "Shock and Awe" that come to mind as near rivals to Kim Phuc: A picture of a man holding a girl, about 12, with her flesh in shreds where her foot used to be. Another picture with of a boy, maybe 5, with his head shredded into ribbons but with no sign of brain or blood. And a third, a family -- a dad, a couple of daughters, a son -- running ahead of American tanks. The daughter rivals the total angry disappointment we see in the boy in the left of the Kim Phuc image. I've only come upon these images in media outside the U.S.; I've never seen anything close to the horror they depict in the U.S. majors. I guess this proves the use in concentrating the 29,000+ major media outlets into the hands of 6 major corporations...

When humans see another human in pain, the parts of our brain that register stress go off in sympathy.

This is probably the result of millions of years of evolution as a 'pack animal.' Another human's face might warn us of bad or poisenous food or other elements hostile to physical survival.

Consequently, when we can actually see other people we sympathize with them. Physically. Whether we want to or not, it's in our genes.

That's why the Pentagon learned from Vietnam not to let Americans see the results of war on human beings or they wouldn't allow it.

The photo leaks of coffins and Abu Ghraib show the power of the 'out of sight out of mind' principle.

That's why secrecy and anonymity leads to atrocity.

Then there's the psychology of the Masses. If you can just shift a group so...far, you can control them.

have such hard-ons to go to war, and salivate and glorify it so, while those who've actually seen combat tend to be rather hesitant about it.

They acknowledge and honor them.

I don't know what I'll do, but it won't be pretty.

Unlike the Right might like to think, all I do is cry each night for our men and women in Iraq. They WILL be welcomed home with open arms...but you, the men and women at the top?

Eventually the Law will catch up to you.

religious protest
http://www.evilmonito.com/002/burningmonk.htm

http://www.vietnampix.com/fire1.htm

peace

in our glorious media's sanitization of the invasion.

I really wonder if 60 minutes did a show that actually showed the truth about the invasion, and showed the photos of what we've done over there ....... what the reaction might be?

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possibly most famous picture of the putting up of the Berlin Wall

in the absense of images of the hundreds of coffins draped with the American flag that have returned without notice by the president or most of the American people.

Me Book