Much has been written about the infamous pics that came out a number of years ago now of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Little more can be said, unless it be said in a court, in helping to convict those high up the chain of command.

Nevertheless, there is one aspect of the images that strikes me as radically different from any other unpleasant images that one might see (Auschwitz victims, earthquake victims, etc.) and that we are fairly innoculised to since our early years… It is the twisted and macabre holiday-snap aspect to the pics.

The girl (I don’t think it’s Lynndie England) smiling over a corpse has the cheerful, innocent, smiling, demeanour of someone posing in front of the Eiffel Tower. She is quite pretty – she might even be with a friend and stops you in the street asks you kindly to take the picture of them with Big Ben in the background. Or perhaps one of those smiley photos of someone who’s just ordered their first regional dish in a restaurant – a paella in Spain – a haggis in Scotland – a pint of ale in England – thumbs up! Send it back to Mom.

The only images that in any compare are the horrifying and gruesome images of lynchings in the Southern States in the early 20th Century. Men in hats and loose suits and women in smart frocks standing casually and quite happily beside a hanged African American – his neck twisted evilly. A group of smiling fellas posing before a charred and still smoking corpse. Is that the Abu Ghraib ancestor?

The sheer horror of the photos is compounded by the gleeful and lighthearted poses – a warped collision of darkness and light – a twisting of meaning. We understand war photos, as we’ve seen them before. We understand holiday snaps. Can we understand them together?

Hopefully not.