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© Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 24:1 (2004)What Might Education Mean After Abu Ghraib:Revisiting Adorno’s Politics of Education 1Henry A. GirouxVisual representations of the war have played aprominent role in shaping public perceptions of theUnited States’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. Theinitial, much celebrated image widely used to representthe war in Iraq captured the toppling of the statue ofSaddam Hussein in Baghdad soon after the invasion.The second image, also one of high drama and specta-cle, portrayed President Bush in full flight gear afterlanding on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Thescripted photo-op included a banner behind the presi-dent proclaiming “Mission Accomplished.”The mainstream media gladly seized upon the firstimage since it reinforced the presupposition that theinvasion was a justified response to the hyped-up threatthat Saddam’s regime posed to the United States andthat his fall was the outcome of an extension of Ameri-can democracy and an affirmation of its role as a be-neficent empire, animated by “the use of military powerto shape the world according to American interests andvalues.” 2 The second image fed into the scripted repre-sentations of Bush as a “tough,” even virile leader whohad taken on the guise of a Hollywood warrior deter-mined to protect the United States from terrorists andto bring the war in Iraq to a quick and successful con-clusion. 3 The narrow ideological field that framed theseimages in the American media proved impervious todissenting views, exhibiting a deep disregard for eitheraccurate or critical reporting, as well as an indifferenceto fulfilling its traditional role as a fourth estate, asguardians of democracy and defenders of the publicinterest. Slavishly reporting the war as if they were onthe payroll at the Pentagon, the dominant media rarelycalled into question either the Bush administration’sreasons for going to war or the impact the war was tohave on both the Iraqi people and domestic and foreignpolicy.In the spring of 2004, a new set of images challengedthe mythic representations of the Iraqi invasion: hun-dreds of gruesome photographs and videos document-ing the torture of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiersat Abu Ghraib. They were first broadcast on the televi-sion series 60 Minutes II, and later leaked to the press,becoming something of a nightly feature in the weeksand months that ensued. Abu Ghraib prison had beenone of the most notorious sites used by the disposedHussein regime to inflict unspeakable horrors on thoseIraqis considered disposable for various political rea-sons, and the photos ironically reinforced the growingperception in the Arab world that one tyrant was simplyreplacing another. In sharp contrast to the all-too-familiar and officially sanctioned images of goodhearted and stalwart American soldiers patrolling dan-gerous Iraqi neighborhoods, caring for wounded sol-diers, or passing out candy to young Iraqi children, thenewly discovered photos depicted Iraqi detainees beinghumiliated and tortured. The face of the American invasion was soon recast by a number of sadistic images,including the now infamous photos depicting the in-sipid, smirking faces of specialist Charles A. Graner andPfc. Lynndie R. England flashing a thumbs up behind apyramid of seven naked detainees, a kneeling inmateposing as if he is performing oral sex on anotherhooded male detainee, a terrified male Iraqi inmate try-ing to ward off an attack dog being handled by Ameri-can soldiers, and a U. S. soldier grinning next to thebody of a dead inmate packed in ice. Two of the mosthaunting images depicted a hooded man standing on abox, with his arms outstretched in Christ-like fashion,electric wires attached to his hands and penis. Anotherimage revealed a smiling Lynndie England holding aleash attached to a naked Iraqi man lying on the floor ofthe prison. Like Oscar Wilde’s infamous picture ofDorian Gray, the portrait of American patriotism wasirrevocably transformed into its opposite. The fight forIraqi hearts and minds was now irreparably damaged asthe war on terror appeared to reproduce only more ter-ror, mimicking the very crimes it claimed to have elimi-