Peter B. Hales’ article “The Atomic Sublime” analyzes the images and writings that were projected on American society in the 1940s and 50s by American media. Government regulated the media so the entire population saw and read the same information that was often skewed and censored. In one image that Hales analyzes the photographer’s cropping obscures the iconic mushroom cloud to create an abstracted image that beautifies the atom bomb. This technique also works to eliminate any reference to the bomb’s scale or destructive capabilities. The media censorship illustrated in Hales’ draws parallels with the Collateral Murder video we watched in class. Wikileaks exposed that the same type of censorship that the government orchestrated in the 40s and 50s is still happening today, keeping much of US Military action hidden from public knowledge. The release of that video publicized the atrocities conducted and covered up by the government.

Hales words can also be related to the Collateral Murder video in his discussion of the use of Bikini as an atom bomb test site. Hales mentions a story that appeared in National Geographic in 1946 that describes the natives of Bikini as “primitive” and “savages.” Another publication by the Navy Photographer Carl Markwith describes the natives as “brown people” with little technological advancement; perfect targets for the United States to overtake and control. The dialogue used by US Military members in Collateral Murder demonstrates that these white supremacist ideals that substantiate Western imperialism continue to be prominent in contemporary society. The speakers in the video use code names like “Crazyhorse” and the Military has been known to refer to non-Western countries it is invading as “Injun Territory.” These titles allude to the genocide of the American Indians and therefore the dominance of the United States, and the white man, over the “other,” the “savage,” that exists outside of  Western “developed” society. The targets in the 2007 footage from Iraq are more “brown people” to be dominated and eliminated by US Military conquest, just as American Indians and the people of Bikini were