Why do soldiers swap illicit pictures? How a visual discourse analysis illuminates military band of brother culture

Introduction

‘. . . you know everyone goes through that type of stuff in boot camp in the military.’ Lynndie England

Over the past 15 years, the US military has been embroiled in several scandals involving amateur images taken by service members. Soldier-produced illicit images ¹ constitute a unique category of international images; they are publicly circulated, amateur images taken by military service members or contract staff that capture human rights violations, breaches of international law, torture and various forms of abuse. The term ‘illicit’, which will be explored further in the article, is used here to capture a number of behaviours officially prohibited by the military; these range from illegal to internally prohibited activities. Soldier-produced illicit images tend to flow from the hands of service members to the public in a consistent manner: the images are initially circulated within sympathetic internal military communities – often in real time (Kennedy, 2009) – before they are leaked to, or accessed by, a less receptive public. Although this is a phenomenon across international militaries, this article focuses on the USA, where well-known examples of soldier-produced illicit images include images of torture at Abu Ghraib, photos of hazing and initiation rituals, images of Marines urinating on deceased Taliban soldiers, and the recent uncovering of online communities dedicated to circulating ‘hate porn’ and unauthorized naked images of female service members, including the Facebook group Marines United (Keller, 2017).

Soldier-produced illicit images are not simply photographic evidence, or accidental by-products, of exceptional military activities; rather, these images – and the practices associated with these images – are central to, and reinforce aspects of, military ‘band of brother culture’. I have elsewhere described the band of brothers myth as an established and symbolic story that presents male military units as ‘elite, exceptional, and essential’ (2015: 15). Band of brother culture is defined, in part, by absolute loyalty, all-male solidarity, the presumed unique and indescribable bonds between service members. This article will demonstrate that soldier-produced illicit images shape and reinforce band of brother culture in two ways: first, the images convey consistent practices and symbols that come to be familiar and understood as normal within some military groups; second, the practices involved in the production, circulation and consumption of the images serve to reinforce expectations for group membership, including requirements linked to secrecy and loyalty.

In the United States, as soldier-produced illicit images have become public, the images are often described as evidence of ‘bad apple’ behaviour that is unrepresentative of a military culture that is defined by order, discipline and honour (The Economist, 2005). In contrast, an emerging body of critical military studies literature challenges this ‘bad apples’ narrative, and treats these images as evidence that illicit behaviour is a regular part of military culture and used to reinforce social bonds (Whitworth, 2004; Higate, 2012; Belkin, 2012). While these two approaches offer grossly different characterizations of soldier-produced illicit images and internal military culture, what unites them is that both remain largely fixated on the behaviour captured in the images, rather than the images themselves. This article makes a distinct contribution by centring the soldier-produced illicit images and the practices involved in taking, circulating and consuming these images rather than simply using the images as a vehicle for analysing or making claims about soldier behaviour and activities.

This analysis moves beyond attention to what is conveyed in soldier-produced illicit images by focusing on regular patterns across the broad genre of soldier-produced illicit images, as well as patterns in the way these images are produced, circulated and consumed. There are limitations to understanding the internal workings of any group culture. However, this article demonstrates the analytic potential of a visual discourse analysis that centres on visual patterns and practice to shed new light on elements of internal military culture. There are two particularly unique elements to this analytic approach. First, treating soldier-produced illicit images as a broad and coherent category of images allows for a systematic analysis of consistent visual patterns and signals that can normalize particular behaviours within an internal military culture. Second, examining the practices linked to the production, circulation and consumption provides insights into the ways these images establish and reinforce aspects of internal military culture, including internal loyalty bonds and codes of secrecy.

This approach to studying soldier-produced images extends existing work that considers illicit behaviour as a part of military culture by considering the role of images in normalizing dysfunctional behaviours and in reinforcing aspects of group secrecy and loyalty. In addition, the analysis makes an original intervention into the literature on the role of images in international relations by demonstrating that a visual discourse analysis can, and should, consider patterns across groups of images, as well as the patterns of practice linked to categories of images. The next section outlines the theoretical framework used to further the core argument of the article, followed by an overview of the methodology used in the subsequent analysis.

Understanding military culture through visual patterns and practices

This article builds on an established body of feminist scholarship within international relations that draws attention to the significance of gender and power in interpreting visual representations. Feminists have pushed debates about ‘visual IR’ to ensure that images are not taken as ‘reliable visual evidence of complete contexts and processes’ (Pink, 2011: 11) but as sources of discourse, with interpretations shaped by power dynamics, and gender norms and expectations (see Shepherd, 2016; Särmä, 2015; Weldes, 1999). Feminists argue that attention to gender is essential to understanding the variations in how visual artefacts are interpreted and used to represent international relations. In fact, feminist scholars like Linda Åhäll have argued that, rather than conveying fixed meanings, images hold potential for a post-structural analysis precisely because ‘visual imagery calls attention to questions of interpretation, perspective and their political effects and foregrounds representation’ (2009: 18).

Such feminist interventions into visual culture have produced unique accounts of visuality and war, as well as drawn attention to the gendered ‘aesthetics of militarism’ (Caso, 2016). In her analysis of the visual and the ‘war on terror’, Laura Shepherd explains that visual representations of the war on terror are discursive practices and explores the power dynamics and politics of the efforts to project fixed interpretations of these images (2008). This article extends this work by analysing visual patterns and practices with attention to gendered power dynamics, social norms and group identity.

This article also builds on existing work on military masculinities and culture that argues abuse is at the heart of key group rituals within the military, including initiating members into internal groups and establishing hierarchy and loyalty within these groups. In their works on masculinity and military cultures, Aaron Belkin (2012) and Paul Higate (2012) demonstrate that hazing is used as a way of establishing group bonds, conveying group power dynamics, and forcing codes of loyalty and secrecy. Similarly, Melanie Richter-Montpetit places Abu Ghraib images and the process of archiving the torture in a wider colonial legacy of ‘capturing’ power and domination (2007). She compares the images to colonial trophy photos and concludes that ‘[l]ike colonial travellers and late modern tourists, the soldiers sought to enact “Whiteness” by capturing the “exoticism” of the Other with the help of video and photo camera’ (2007: 49). Richter-Montpetit’s work sits within a body of scholarship that explicitly considers the political significance of the images taken of illicit behaviours. Susan Sontag (2004) and Dora Apel (2014) compare the Abu Ghraib images to US lynching photos. For them, both lynching and the Abu Ghraib images were circulated within a community that celebrated the abuses and illegal acts they depicted. ² In addition, lynching and Abu Ghraib torture images were designed to implicate those captured observing acts of torture. The images served as a means of the perpetrators and observers declaring themselves to be part of a superior, exceptional and unaccountable group vis-à-vis the victims.

These scholars highlight the importance of contextualizing dysfunctional and illicit military behaviours, and point to the political significance of images of these illicit behaviours. This article makes a unique contribution by arguing that soldier-produced illicit images and the practices associated with these images are essential in the creation and reinforcement of internal military culture. Internal military band of brother culture is widely understood as unique, essential to operational effectiveness, and somewhat mysterious. There is a need for systematic analyses of military dynamics that resists characterizations of band of brother culture as ‘unknowable’ from the outside. Soldier-produced illicit images are sources of discourse that can be analysed systematically to better understand internal norms and practices and the mechanisms used to sustain and enforce group culture. The following section outlines the methodology used to support this argument.

Methods

Exploring the relationship between soldier-produced illicit images and band of brother military culture requires a departure from existing approaches to studying images in international relations. The study of images has proliferated in international relations, particularly in the last decade. However, much of this literature remains – understandably – focused on the images themselves. That is, images are examined as artefacts that can or cannot ‘tell us’ something about international relations, or, do or do not have an impact on various aspects of international relations. This article builds on existing work within visual international relations and offers a post-structural visual discourse analysis that takes into consideration visual patterns and visual practices. Visual patterns are understood here as regular poses, gestures, framing, subjects and activities captured across multiple cases of images that can construct a visual vernacular, or a form of visual grammar that has the potential to convey meanings beyond the individual content of the images. Moreover, the regular practices associated with producing, circulating and consuming images can reveal a great deal about the politics, power and significance of images within a particular group.

While there is certainly evidence of scholarship that analyses patterns and consistencies across individual images, there are few examples of visual discourse analysis that analyse visual pattern and practice. Several features of international images demand attention to practice. First, images do not simply appear or become visible on their own. Second, images are not singular artefacts that ‘sit still’ on gallery walls or other fixed locations. Images are involved in a seemingly endless array of practices; they are produced, deleted, edited, published, exchanged, viewed, censored, replicated, captioned, copied, tweeted, shared, filtered and archived. Treating images simply as a visual artefact – a ‘thing’ that conveys visual information – may result in overlooking the practices associated with images and the politics involved in the production, circulation and consumption of images. In fact, one might argue that if the ‘visual turn’ ignores practice, it will inevitably overlook essential aspects of the political significance of images to international relations.

There are a range of specific methodologies possible for studying visual patterns and visual practice. For this analysis of soldier-produced illicit images, I explore the visual patterns and practice patterns associated with images through a two-stage methodological approach. The first stage examines two cases of illicit images, in order to observe patterns across the images. The second stage of analysis considers the practices associated with the production, circulation and consumption of soldier-produced illicit images across several cases.

Visual patterns

After establishing a cohort of hazing and Abu Ghraib images, a systematic analysis of the images was conducted, with attention to repeated poses and gestures, recognizable signs or symbols, and recurring image styles and framing. The first pattern observed was nudity and sexual gestures and poses. Within hazing images, nudity and explicit sexual gestures seem to be presented as a source of bonding and humour. For example, two of the images feature men dressed in women’s underwear and a dress, respectively. The soldier wearing a dress is placed in a sexually suggestive position, while service members surrounding him laugh. In addition, partial nudity – or wearing only underwear – seems to be a key element in the images.

Nudity and sexual references were also very prominent in the Abu Ghraib images. Of the images selected for this analysis, several included poses that mirrored those in hazing images. One of the most direct comparisons is the image of an Abu Ghraib prisoner forced to wear what appears to be red women’s underwear, similar to those in the hazing image analysed. In the hazing and Abu Ghraib images, it is both the partial nudity, but also the wearing of women’s underwear as a subversion of masculinity that seems to be key to the abuse. In addition, the selected Abu Ghraib images portray a number of naked prisoners, including those placed in pyramids, or grouped in ways that resemble traditional military ‘group photos’.

A second pattern across hazing and the Abu Ghraib photos was the display of physical domination. As noted earlier, it has been established that physical abuse is commonly used in hazing practices. Images representing hazing show various forms of overt physical abuse, including paddling, tying up, holding down, or otherwise physically restraining individuals. There were also a number of images that captured recruits being doused in water or some sort of putrid-looking substance. The Abu Ghraib images not only capture physical domination, but also extreme torture. Given the systematic use of torture at Abu Ghraib, it is difficult to compare the images with hazing images. However, there are clear consistencies between these two categories of images. The images analysed feature prisoners gagged, tied, held down and held in stress positions. Many of these images also include the presence of blood or faeces on the bodies of prisoners.

The theme of nudity and sexual references, and physical domination overlap with a third theme common to hazing and Abu Ghraib images: humiliation. In addition to clear efforts to physically harm prisoners, many of the Abu Ghraib images feature practices and poses that seem aimed to humiliate. Prisoners are placed in stances that could be widely seen as embarrassing, including positions that expose their bodies, or gestures clearly designed to mock or taunt them. In several of the Abu Ghraib images, service members are seen smiling, laughing and even posing alongside the scenario. This indicates a celebration of the humiliation and a sort of victory and power position over the humiliated prisoner. This theme of humiliation carries through the hazing images. In fact, most of the activities captured in the hazing images appear to have a humiliation aim, particularly – as indicated earlier – those images that include sexual gestures. Almost all the hazing images capture a group watching the victim of the hazing; these individuals are often laughing, pointing or helping to restrain the victim.

This leads to gendering as the fourth common theme within the images. There are two main ways that these sets of images are gendered. First, most of the simulated sexual acts and physical acts featured appear to be homoerotic in nature; moreover, men are seen to be taunted and emasculated by being forced to wear women’s garments. The implication in the acts is that accusing a recruit or prisoner of being gay or female is a form of humiliation. ⁵ Eileen Zurbriggen has argued that the practices of sexual abuse and humiliation at Abu Ghraib relied on shared homophobia and sexism: ‘. . . these humiliations wouldn’t “work” . . . unless both torturer and victim shared a cultural framework that denigrated women and gay men’ (Zurbriggen, 2008: 308). These activities not only send explicit messages that devalue women and homosexuals; they also solidify the perpetrators as those in power and on ‘top’ in the situation. Across the cases of images, there are consistent ways that power is articulated. Specifically, it is conveyed through violence and domination, by feminizing and degrading others, and through proving one’s authority by causing others to submit in ways that are humiliating and painful.

The presence and absence of women also genders the images. Only one of the publicly available hazing images analysed included identifiable women. In his systematic analysis of military hazing, James Pershing concluded that women were either completely excluded, or seen as potential spoilers to male-dominated hazing rituals (Pershing, 2006). In turn, images that conveyed camaraderie, loyalty and group bonding implicitly linked these traits to male bodies, male gestures and male poses. For the Abu Ghraib images, the presence of a small number of women was sensationalized in the US and international media. ⁶ Despite the testimony that revealed she was merely following orders and not even meant to be at the prison, Lynndie England was particularly demonized by the public and became ‘the face’ of the Abu Ghraib scandal (Sjoberg and Gentry, 2007). Sensationalizing England reinforced long-standing stereotypes about where women are, and should be, in war.

A fifth and final common theme across the images was the overt poses and gestures made by those being photographed toward the anticipated viewer. Service members are often posing, smiling and making direct eye contact and gestures to the camera. The images also tend to be centred within the frame of the camera, indicating an effort to effectively capture the scene. In addition, there are several images that feature one or more service members smiling, giving a ‘thumbs up’ or gesturing directly to the camera. In her article ‘“Doing a Lynndie”: Iconography of a gesture’, Stefka Hristova (2013: 430) notes how the image of Lynndie England posing with her thumb up at Abu Ghraib became translated into a ‘common sense’ and ‘humorous everyday practice’ for some. Specifically, she describes how people posted images of themselves on blogs ‘doing the Lynndie’ as a gesture of humour. This demonstrates that an element of a photo – the thumbs-up gesture next to a victimized individual – became a signal that both conveyed meaning and could be used to produce new forms of meaning in future images. Specifically, Rayan Hagen argues, ‘A “Lynndie” is meant as a stamp and seal of humiliation for both the degraded – usually a stranger passed out drunk – and the Lynndie stand in’ (Hagen, 2008). This demonstrates the capacity for meanings to be conveyed across multiple types of images and points to the value in studying signals, gestures and poses across cases of images. In this case, the ‘Lynndie’ pose from a single image came to be understood widely as a pose signalling power over another, mocking the vulnerability of a victim.

The clear efforts to pose and make signals into the camera indicate that hazing and Abu Ghraib torture images were not taken secretly or without consent; rather, the images seem to have been created deliberately for an audience that was expected to be receptive. Indeed, Dora Apel (2014: 89) has concluded that the Abu Ghraib images were ‘in part staged for the camera’ and were taken because the perpetrators ‘in their loftiest rationalizations, believe they are committing their deeds for the good of the nation or, at the least, that their acts are sanctioned by a larger community and serve the interests of that community’. Susan Sontag (2004: 89) also noted that in the Abu Ghraib images, ‘the grin is a grin for the camera. There would be something missing if, after stacking the naked men, you couldn’t take a picture of them’.

The acts captured in hazing and the Abu Ghraib torture images illustrate patterns in the ways that camaraderie, hierarchy, power and allegiance are conveyed to soldiers. This familiar visual vernacular normalizes behaviours and activities that are otherwise classified as illicit and forbidden to external audiences. To be sure, it is likely that service members in both sets of images would be aware of the public reaction to these illicit images; however, as will be elaborated in the following section, I argue that it is precisely this potential for scandal that unites service members together.

Blurring illicitness

There are several ways in which soldier-produced illicit images rely on, and subvert the boundaries that define behaviour as acceptable, legal and authorized. First, the regularity of the activities, and the consistent format of capturing these activities in images makes certain behaviours familiar, and normalizes illicit behaviours – including torture – by placing them within a broader visual context that can include authorized behaviours, such as initiation rituals. As Paul Higate explains, regular hazing practices ‘invite a common mode of intelligibility turning on sexualized intimidation enacted through the subversion of marginal men’s gendered, racial and religious norms’ (2012: 461).

It is impossible to establish with certainty how service members interpret soldier-produced illicit images, and whether indeed there is an intelligible visual vernacular created by these images. However, available interviews indicate that some soldiers and civilians indeed made sense of Abu Ghraib images by comparing them to hazing images and practices. Put simply, there is evidence that the practices conveyed in soldier-produced illicit images – like the Abu Ghraib torture images – are treated as familiar, normal or unexceptional precisely because they are compared to familiar images and practices, including hazing images and practices. For example, in an interview following the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, Lynndie England compared the torture at Abu Ghraib to regular activities on US college campuses and within US military training programmes. When reflecting on particular Abu Ghraib images, England explained: ‘this happens at colleges and dorm rooms . . . here in the US all the time . . . Maybe not this picture, but similar humiliation tactics and physical exertion, you know everyone goes through that type of stuff in boot camp in the military’ (quoted on BBC Newsnight, 2009). Here, England directly relates her actions of torture at Abu Ghraib to the experience of hazing within the military and on college campuses. She also seems to justify her participation, and downplay the severity of the torture at Abu Ghraib by comparing the torture to ‘stuff’ that ‘everyone goes through’ in the military.

These images challenge static understandings of ‘illicit’ and show the potential ways that the presumed illicitness of an image may be leveraged to enforce internal bonds and loyalty. Similar to lynching images, soldier-generated illicit images not only capture the illicit activities of a few individuals, but also regularly include a number of bystanders. By implicating a larger number of service members in the illicit behaviour, the illicit activity is used as a mechanism of bonding and shared responsibility/complicity. It has widely been acknowledged that illicit activity can be used as a tool of group bonding within the military. Pershing (2006: 473) explains: ‘the process of military resocialization involves creating an environment of shared struggle and suffering which in turn leads to increased camaraderie and loyalty between peers’. However, there has been less attention paid to the ways that illicit images can be a negative source of bonding, by implicating a wider group of service members beyond those participating in the activities. As will be elaborated further in the next section, these implicated service members include those captured in the image, as well as those who choose to circulate the images. Expanding the group of service members implicated in illicit behaviour is a negative means of solidifying group membership, whereby soldiers are committed to protecting each other and maintaining an ‘bro code’ of silence.

The illicit nature of the images is also a means to signal the exceptionality and elite nature of a military unit both to an internal military group as well as externally. One of the core elements of band of brother culture has been the presumed exceptionality of military units. Generally, this exceptionality is interpreted positively, with attention to the elite physicality and arduous type of work in which service members participate. However, I argue that soldier-produced illicit images convey an overarching message that service members see this exceptionality extending in ways that place them above the law and above civilian social norms and expectations. The regularity of illicit behaviours in the military – from sexual assault, to hazing, to repeat instances of illegal abuse – not only reinforces an ideal of band of brother culture as exceptional and untouchable, but also serves to lower public expectations of service members. There is clear evidence in media accounts and public responses to illicit military behaviour that their regularity has transformed the ways in which ‘illicit’ and ‘normal’ are understood in relation to military culture. For example, the understanding that male service members are inherently disorderly, charged with testosterone and trained to kill has meant that military sexual violence is regularly framed as an inevitable consequence of unruly men working in close confines with women.

There is some evidence of this shifting expectation for service members in the cases of Abu Ghraib images. A wider group of politicians and pundits echoed England’s comparison between torture at Abu Ghraib and fraternity and military hazing. Several commentators compared the torture at Abu Ghraib to hazing practices in an effort to reduce the culpability of the perpetrators and to cast the acts as normal ‘prank’ behaviour rather than as criminal activity. For example, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh characterized torture at Abu Ghraib as ‘sort of like hazing, a fraternity prank. Sort of like that kind of fun’ (quoted in Zurbriggen, 2008: 309). Similarly, the Weekly Standard online editor said on CNBC, ‘I hope these guys are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law . . . but at the same time, let’s not get too crazy and call them Nazi-like . . . Worse happens in frat houses across America . . . bad pictures with some guys playing naked Twister. It’s bad, but we don’t want to get too crazy’ (Last, 2004).

The purpose of the previous section was to show that there are patterns and regularities to the practices captured in soldier-produced illicit images. For some military groups, these practices of violence, humiliation, physical domination and sexual simulation are normal and often associated positively with dominance, power and leadership. To be clear, there is not a clear and distinct separation between military and civilian groups when it comes to soldier-produced illicit images. The above quotes by Rush Limbaugh and the CNBC reporter illustrate that civilians might also view torture images in relation to other soldier-produced illicit images. In this case, Limbaugh explicitly understood – and attempted to downplay –Abu Ghraib torture as an extension of hazing practices. The point here is not to try and draw a line between how soldiers and civilians ‘see’ images. Rather, it is to argue that the practices, routines and rituals captured in soldier-produced illicit images are made possible, normalized and visually digestible through more-accepted hazing, initiation and bonding practices.

Visual practices

The second stage of analysis centres on the practices associated with the production, consumption and circulation of a group of images. Again, observing the behaviours of an internal group presents challenges. To overcome these, I draw information about these practices from court cases, interviews, military blogs and news articles. To provide continuity with stage one and because there is a rich body of data to draw on, I centre the analysis on the practices associated with Abu Ghraib images; however, I also bring in other cases of illicit images to show continuity and broader image-practice patterns. This section examines the practices of taking, circulating and consuming images, with attention to what these practices might illustrate about band of brother culture.

The first set of practices associated with soldier-produced illicit images centre around circulation. Research shows that soldiers have practised sharing war images and postcards with each other and with family members from as early as photographs were available (Mortensen, 2015). Perhaps most infamously, it has been widely acknowledged that German Wehrmacht troops took photos of war crimes they committed. While the sharing of images within internal soldier groups is nothing new, digital technology has impacted the way images are produced, circulated and consumed. During the initial stages of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the US military encouraged the ‘digital image culture’ amongst soldiers and saw images as a way for soldiers to bond and keep in touch with family and friends (Struk, 2011: 18). However, after the torture images at Abu Ghraib were released, digital recording devices were banned for a period of time, with the Defense Department arguing that soldier-produced images could pose a security threat. This ban was eased officially in 2010, yet there is evidence that the culture of digital images thrived throughout this period, with the circulation of digital images becoming ‘a habitual component of everyday life’ for soldiers (Mortensen, 2015: 58).

Given the private nature of internal military groups, it is difficult to know exactly how soldier-produced illicit images are circulated. However, the investigations surrounding several scandals associated with such images provide a window into image circulation. Media investigations, court transcripts and service member testimony regarding several ‘image scandals’ indicate several consistencies with regard to circulation. First, it is clear that digital technology has impacted the mechanisms by which soldier-produced images are circulated and the speed and volume of images circulated. In the past two decades, as technology has advanced and more soldiers go to battle equipped with their own digital camera or cell phone, the number of soldier-produced images has increased dramatically (Smith and McDonald, 2011). These digital images can now be circulated instantaneously. Moreover, given the availability of digital sharing platforms, the ‘internal’ group circulating particular images might include individuals located around the world who are connected through private websites or email chains (Kennedy, 2009). In effect, digital technology has both sustained and altered the historic practice of sharing images within a ‘small’, internal military group; today, such a group might include thousands of service members – and civilians – located around the globe.

Research on soldier-produced illicit images also reveals an apparent tension between the desire to share illicit images and the desire to ensure the images remain private within select groups (Mortensen, 2015). Service members have used various technologies to facilitate their sharing practices in ways that also protect images from being leaked or accessed by a member outside the internal group. For example, over the past two decades, soldiers have shared illicit images using dedicated web clusters, Facebook groups, USB keys, burnt compact discs (CDs), YouTube, MySpace, blogs and military blogs (or ‘miliblogs’), group chats and communal websites (Anden-Papadopoulos, 2009; Kennedy, 2009).

The way that the Abu Ghraib images were circulated and archived reveals a great deal about power dynamics and group identity and loyalty within the US military. The practice of circulating these images is also illustrative of systematic patterns of illicit image circulation within the US military. The images were circulated internally before they were made public and became part of a criminal investigation. Specifically, the images were circulated and viewed digitally within an internal group, primarily through ‘burnt’ CDs (Soussloff, 2008: 156). As Soussloff put it, ‘the actual discovery of the images . . . relied on . . . file sharing’ (2008: 178). Evidence indicates that the Abu Ghraib images were widely circulated within the 320th Battalion, which was the Military Police Battalion responsible for guarding the prison (Soussloff, 2008: 178). Subsequent investigations also revealed that there were possibly thousands of images of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. The wider military Criminal Investigation Division (CID) into torture at Abu Ghraib produced two reports: the first found 1,325 images and 93 videos of ‘suspected detainee abuse’, while the second report found ‘approximately 280 individual digital photos and 19 digital movies depicting possible detainee abuse’ (Baumann, 2009 citing the Criminal Investigation Division Reports). The CID, the international media and the public largely focused on 279 images and 19 videos; of these 279 images, 173 were taken with Charles Graner’s digital camera (Baumann, 2009). It was never made clear how the CID decided which images to focus on, and there was subsequent debate about the politics of releasing more Abu Ghraib images.

Joe Darby is the man accredited with sparking the investigation into torture at Abu Ghraib. In interviews and testimony, he recalled that he had been in Iraq for seven months when he was handed two CDs of images by his colleague, Charles Graner (Rowland, 2006). Although most of the disc contained images of the local area, Darby soon found images taken at the Abu Ghraib prison. He has claimed that, at first, he thought the images were of soldiers joking around, ‘because I have seen soldiers do some really stupid things’ (quoted in Bryan, 2007). It was only when he looked through more images that he realized they were of Iraqis in the prison. Darby explained:

The second CD, the first picture I opened was the pyramid of men. And at first I didn’t know it was Iraqis. I mean, I was more shocked. It seems more like something that a fraternity would do, like a prank. And, you know, I found it amusing, but then as I went on to further pictures and realized that these were prisoners and what was happening to them, you know, I became very disgusted. (Quoted in Rowland, 2006)

This quote illustrates that Darby’s first instinct was to treat the images as part of the normal military ‘prank’ activities he had seen during hazing. However, Darby went on to share the images with authorities because he felt the activities went beyond acceptable behaviour.

There have been several recent scandals that reveal patterns in the practices associated with soldier-produced illicit images more broadly. For example, in early 2017, news broke that a private Facebook group, Marines United, was being used to share or promote the sharing of nude images of female service members (Chappell, 2017). These images included ‘revenge porn’, or images that service members posted of ex-girlfriends without consent. Other images included those collected from private social media accounts, as well as images of service members that were taken without their consent. When the website was investigated, and taken down, it had 30,000 members (Chappell, 2017).

Marines United appears to be part of a widespread pattern of sharing unauthorized naked images of women and female service members. Investigations into Marines United led to the discovery that a number of other branches in the military were involved in similar online groups dedicated to sharing naked or explicit photos and videos of women. An ABC news report found ‘hundreds of nude photos . . . from every military branch’ had been posted on a dedicated military message board on a pornographic image-sharing website called AnonIB (McCarthy, 2017). Similarly, in 2004, a website called Now That’s Fucked Up (NTFU) was used by US service members to exchange ‘gory’ amateur images of war for amateur porn, which included ‘revenge porn’ (Kennedy, 2009: 829). In other words, NTFU was a website dedicated to the exchange of two types of soldier-produced illicit images – unauthorized images of death and injury in war, and unauthorized images of women’s bodies.

There are patterns to the modern practices associated with circulating soldier-produced illicit images; there are clear, if unwritten, protocols around sharing, viewing and responding to such images within military communities. The practice of circulating these images creates an internal group and private audience that has access to the images. Service members who become part of these internal groups are expected to consume the images in a particular way (see Crilley, 2016; Chappell, 2017; Wall, 2009). First, there is an expectation of secrecy and allegiance that requires service members to, effectively, remain silent about the images and only share them within trusted circles. Second, they must consume the images in a way that demonstrates loyalty, support and acceptance. Viewing the images is not enough to be considered part of the internal image group. Service members are expected to perform their endorsement of the images and the actions they convey through sharing, ‘liking’, inviting other individuals to the private group, or commenting on the image. In turn, the boundary between the producers of images and the audience that ‘consumes’ them has become blurred through these common social media practices.

In addition to consumption practices, a related set of practices associated with these images revolves around soldiers maintaining loyalty and – effectively – keeping their mouths shut about illicit images (Chappell, 2017). Circulation practices illustrate that soldier-produced illicit images do not simply archive abuse or violations; these images forge a mutual commitment between the viewers and the participants, who are expected to maintain a code of silence regarding the incidents. In turn, images seal the bond created by mutual violation; they archive the unauthorized acts and provide evidence of their occurrence, thereby making the ‘code of silence’ and group loyalty incredibly important. Sharing illicit images within an internal group implicates all members who have viewed or shared the image in the acts that the images convey. The internal audience established by the circulation of these images relies on trust and a commitment to secrecy. Individuals are forced to maintain secrecy and loyalty to both the individuals captured in the images and the wider community that has shared and commented on them. Once soldiers are brought into this wider image community, they are expected to practise solidarity and secrecy. In this sense, acceptance into the band of brothers requires soldiers to endorse illicit group behaviour, or at least to keep their mouths shut about it.

When examining specific cases of soldier-produced illicit images, this expectation of secrecy and loyalty has been made explicit. Recent inquiries into the Facebook group Marines United provide rare insights into the types of policing activities that take place within internal military groups that circulate illicit images. Investigations into the Marines United Facebook website found that a strict code of secrecy was enforced. This included the practice of publicly ridiculing any individuals who expressed reservations or concerns within the group; such individuals were also regularly excluded from the group. Once the group was under investigation, Marines United administrators told members to ‘[a]dmit nothing. Deny everything. Make counter accusations’, and not to ‘be a bitch’ by identifying any member of the group (Chappell, 2017).

The practice and consequences of whistle-blowing are significant with regard to illicit military images. Thomas Brennan, the former Marine who uncovered Marines United on his blog, War Horse, almost instantly received anonymous death threats from former members of the group and the wider military community (Philipps, 2017). This practice of isolating and threatening whistle-blowers has a long history. In 2013, five years before the investigation of Marines United, US Congress member Jackie Speier wrote a letter about the use of social media to abuse and humiliate women in the Marines to the then Secretary of Defense, the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Principal Deputy Inspector General. In the letter, Speier (2013: 2) noted that those who tried to reach out to the administrator of the site to express any concerns were ‘mocked and made the target of future posts’.

The Abu Ghraib case reiterates the consequences for those who expose the illicit behaviours internal to military groups. Perhaps one of the least-known aspects of the Abu Ghraib image investigation is the fate of whistle-blower Joe Darby. Joe Darby was guaranteed anonymity as part of his commitment to participate in the investigation of torture at Abu Ghraib. However, in a publicly televised hearing on Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld named Darby as the initial source of the images. Rumsfeld commended his bravery; however, the act of naming him instantly put Darby in danger. Following the hearing, Darby had his home vandalized and was isolated by friends and neighbours. The military concluded that there were imminent threats to Darby and his family and that they could no longer continue living in their community. Darby and his family currently live under protective military custody in an undisclosed location.

Conclusion

A rigorous examination of the patterns and practices linked to soldier-produced illicit images makes three distinct contributions both to the study of military culture and to the visual turn in international relations. First, such images are treated as an established element of military culture and a broad category of images that should be examined across multiple cases; this approach moves beyond an examination of ‘scandal’ case studies and debates about ‘bad apples’ and disrupts romantic depictions of positive and orderly band of brother culture. Building on research going back to the study of the Wehrmacht units (Shils and Janowitz, 1948), this article points to a band of brother ‘underbelly’, where abuse, dysfunction and illicit behaviours are used to establish bonds, group membership and power dynamics. The analysis demonstrates how soldier-produced illicit images establish a visual vernacular that normalizes abuse, sexism, racism and homophobia, while the practices of production, circulation and consumption reinforce dysfunctional loyalty codes.

Second, rather than simply studying soldier-produced images as stagnant artefacts that convey aspects of a particular event, the practices associated with soldier-produced images – that is, the production, circulation and consumption of these images – are considered alongside the images themselves as meaningful forms of discourse worthy of political analysis. This extends existing work on visual discourse analysis by encouraging scholars to examine broad categories of images and to analyse practices of production, consumption and circulation alongside an analysis of visual patterns presented in the images.

Third, a systematic analysis of regular visual patterns and practices helps illuminate the curious way that military culture is defined through a constant tension, subversion and blurring of common understandings of ‘illicit’ and orderly behaviours. This analysis may help inform broader investigations into the ways in which national militaries retain reputations as disciplined, despite regular and well-reported incidents of disorderly conduct, including systemic sexual violence, hazing and abuse. Soldier-produced illicit images signal the ways in which officially prohibited activities can become understood as normal not only within internal communities but also by a general public. Consistent evidence of illicit behaviours – including images – helps inform public characterizations of these activities as both uncharacteristic of military institutions and inevitable and justifiable elements of a unique and elite military culture.

This article seeks to demonstrate that images are central to the production of the band of brother internal military culture. Simply treating soldier-produced illicit images as an artefact of ‘exceptional’ activities does not capture the wider routines, power dynamics and cultural practices linked to them. Authorized and official war images consistently represent soldiers as honourable, brave heroes defeating foreign enemies. Band of brother culture is typically associated with positive characteristics of loyalty, camaraderie, courage under fire and indescribable bonds. However, there is also an underbelly to the band of brother culture that can use humiliation, peer pressure, stigmatization and ostracization to enforce group loyalty.