Choose a set of military images or objects and consider how they have Essay - 1

Choose a set of military images or objects and consider how they have mobilized popular opinion in support of war - Essay Example It is only though the lens that the civilized world has come to known the grotesque realities that is bestowed mostly upon the innocent civilians. Be it the Vietnam War, the World War II, and the Afghanistan war, the consequences have always been the same. In such situations, photographers of courage, and practically, photographers of luck have played vital role in mobilizing an entire public opinion in either way. Nevertheless, history has been the testimony of the fact that images speak loud. This paper presents few such images and their cause and effect in influencing the opinion of people in the event of a war and its subsequent outcome. The images have been captured under different conditions and times, although all have a common element of historical value. All of them represent the times during which they were clicked and in some or the other way bore importance in prominent aspects of history. When Eddie Adams shot this picture of a South Vietnamese General- Nguyen Ngoc Loan shooting a suspected Vietcong guerrilla, he might have never known how intensified would be the ripples that this image would generate. â€Å"It earned Adams a Pulitzer Prize† (Coward 2004). Although the image brought out anti-war feelings as â€Å"public approval certainly cannot be taken for granted† (Handel 1992), what it did was to escalate the Tet Offensive which was a massive campaign against the Republic of Vietnam forces and the U.S. and its allies. Although the fate of a war is never known, bitter feelings on any side always tend to extend the war as might have been in the case of the Vietnam war which went on till a few more years. Although Adams’ first comment was- â€Å"The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.† (Robbins 2010), he later on apologized to Nguyen for whatever humiliation the photograph did to his reputation. On the 11th of September 2011, when an airliner hit the North Block of the World Trade Center, Richard Drew was