Scenes of Horror from the Saudi-American War on Yemen

and some commentary on our lousy news media:

These searing images document a masterwork of unbounded cruelty for which American tax dollars supplied the medium, and which American apathy has enabled.

For the last three years, the United States has been providing military and logistical support to a Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Muslim countries trying to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized Hadi government which was deposed by Shia Houthi rebels in 2015. Claiming to be fighting against Iranian influence in the region (a connection the rebels deny), the coalition has been targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The Saada attack killed over 50 people, 44 of whom were children between the ages of six and 11.

Despite their propensity to offend viewer sensibilities, these scenes are necessary for American audiences. Images have a unique power to humanize brutality—to connect terms like “civilian casualties” and “collateral” to faces across the globe belonging to people who, as it turns out, look an awful lot like us. Footage can sway public opinion and catalyze policy change by delivering us from our detachment and laying bare our egocentrism.

The editors of Jet Magazine understood this power when they published photographs of Emmett Till’s battered, decaying body in 1955. So too did the editors of The Cleveland Plain Dealer when they printed Ron Haeberle’s pictures of the My Lai Massacre 13 years later.

But today, the sense of responsibility to the public discourse that once motivated these bold editorial decisions has been largely eclipsed by a focus on advertising dollars. The news cycle is increasingly driven by ratings, clicks, shares, and likes—something MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes candidly acknowledged in a Twitter interaction on July 24 when he called climate change segments “a palpable ratings killer.” As Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi put it in an exchange with this writer, “[j]ournalists like ‘stories.’ And readers like them even more.”