The Phantom: The Shadow of Abu Ghraib
The Legacy of Abu Ghraib
In April 2004, CBS news published a series of photos documenting the abuses of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of US soldiers. These grainy low res photos forced the American public, already fatigued by the seemingly endless iraq war, to question their support of the war effort.
Out of Sight Out of Mind
Abu Ghraib Never Ended. Since then nobody has been caught.
Guantanamo Bay 20 Years and Counting 24 Hours a Day 7 Days a Week
Most prisoners have never been charged...
Phantom: A monument to American Torture No image is more emblematic of american torture than the leaked photo of the robed prisoners forced to pose on top of a cardboard box. There is something Christ-like about his pose. As though he is being crucified by American Imperialism. Despite this, the prisoner is dressed as a ghost. A phantom to haunt the collective American public forever. The diner sign is a callback to the fact that this torture still continues at guantanamo bay. Nearly 20 years since it opened. The juxtaposition of this classic Americana iconography against the tortured phantom highlighting the hypocricy of the “Land of the Free”.
In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia voted that the Bosnian citizen Lakhdar Boumediane, held at Guantanamo Bay with no criminal charge, had no right to the writ of habeus corpus. This is the same man George Mason’s Law School is named after.
An alternate location would be Tysons Galleria. The CIA headquarters is close by and this is where a lot of CIA employees shop. A monument like this amidst the various luxury boutiques will force people to reconcile the insignificance of their materialism.
Prashanth Panicker ppanicke@gmu.edu