Image is everything
You do not have to work too hard to convince people in Asia of the transcending power of a misleading picture. Beijing almost never overcame the 1989 photograph of the Tiananmen protestor seeking to stymie the entry of the army tank into the square.
Almost a decade later, Indonesians will find it hard to forget the scene of an impatient International Monetary Fund managing director, Michel Camdessus, glaring at then president Suharto. The desperate Suharto reluctantly inked his name to IMF loan documents that brought in billions in rescue funds but whose conditions, critics say, prolonged the misery.
And, today, it is doubtful that Arabs in particular, and Muslims in general, will soon forget the sickening photos and videos of gross mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of US captors.
But dramatic pictures - even the best of them - do not always tell the whole story. Years after the 1989 Tiananmen tragedy, China was enmeshed in a profound social and economic modernisation while the west was still fixated on the picture.
The image of a crippled Indonesia endures, even as the country with the world's largest Muslim population celebrates next month its progress toward democracy with its first-ever direct elections for national leaders.
Even the stomach-churning videos of Iraqi detainees are much less than the complete picture of the US mission there. Rebuilt schools and refurbished hospitals do not provide the kind of gripping pictures that dominate the evening news. But over time, the reality of all this good and hard work can overcome the tawdry and immoral if - and it is a big if - the US does not slip up on the image front again.
This is why the Bush administration's nomination and the Senate's confirmation of John Negroponte as the first US ambassador to postwar Iraq is mind-boggling. I not only like the outgoing US ambassador to the United Nations, I admire his decades of dedication. But he is wrong for the post.
The problem is this: what if evidence of fresh US abuse of Iraqis surfaces when he is in place in Baghdad? Al-Jazeera, the Arab television network, and others would then be certain to remind the world that it was on Mr Negroponte's watch as US ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s that death squads roamed the country killing opponents of the right-wing regime.
It is true that there is no more evidence that the ambassador directed those Honduran operations - or knew about them, or covered them up - than there is against Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the case of Iraqi abuses. But they happened on both men's watch. With people increasingly calling for Mr Rumsfeld's resignation, is it wise to add possible insult to injury in Iraq by appointing a diplomat with the image of dirty hands?
The appointment also risks sending a worrying message to US allies, especially in Asia, relatively close to Iraq, that have provided troops, civilian personnel and serious aid to stabilise and rebuild the country. The current scandal is an embarrassment to them all.
A journey of 1,000 miles should not begin with a misstep. The image of Mr Negroponte is just that.
Tom Plate, a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, is the founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network
Distributed by the UCLA Media Centre
