Beheading

[it290]

I was actually referring to the people who beheaded the man as being stupid for releasing it. Infuriating a country by beheading one of it's own is not the way to gain sympathy from anybody... Would you have felt more or less sorry for Iraq if you hadn't just seen them saw an innocent man's head off with a dull blade? Making a point aside, they'll never get what they want if they keep killing innocent people, as they'll have absolutely no support. From a PR standpoint, they should be shot for being so stupid.

First off, I don't feel any more or less sorry for Iraq, as the murder was the action of a few people, and not representative of a nation. Secondly, you have to understand that those behind it aren't TRYING to get Western support. They're trying to rally the Muslim world, and although this may be a sick and brutal way of doing so, I'm sure it is effective to some extent; undoubtedly many Iraqis feel disgusted by these images, but some individuals with a more militant bent may look at it as inspiriation.

In the same way that the media is trying to portray the actions of a few of our troops as representative of the entire military, the same can work in the other direction. I showed the beheading to a completely clueless friend of mine, who doesn't keep up on politics or current events at all (a blank slate of sorts...) He mentioned something along the lines of 'nuking the entire nation of camel jockeys'. I showed him the pictures of the torture, and even he was able to distinguish that there's a difference between publicity beheadings and interrogation (or even torture for amusement, sick though it may be). While all of those are far across the line, publicity beheadings are so far off you can't even see em.

As others have pointed out, when you even have to attempt to compare the actions of your nation's military to those of international terrorists, you know something is pretty far out of wack. And I'm not sure I agree with you about the 'far across the line' bit... I'm sure those who would prefer being decapitated to being tortured and humiliated.

I don't support the torture. Let me say that flat out. However, I also don't support the release of the photographs. Journalists still haven't recognized that releasing this sort of media will result in the death of troops. They aren't inspired by patriotism, or else they wouldn't be sacrificing the men fighting for them... they're inspired entirely by money... and lots of it. While there's no clear solution, as they obviously need to make sure changes come about, they could still satisfy their dirty needs by blackmailing and extortion... and that wouldn't result in a direct loss of human life. The lesser of two evils if you will...

They're journalists. It's their job to ensure that the reality of the events reaches the public. No, doing so doesn't support the military or the current Administration, but that is a result of there being freedom of the press in this country. You would prefer that the photos weren't released? Remember, many of those who were tortured and died at Abu Ghraib were innocents. By not releasing the photos, you'd be ensuring that their human rights continued to be violated, and you'd be endangering their lives as well. Is that the lesser of two evils? I'm afraid the journalists were simply reporting. If there is anyone to blame for subsequent deaths related to the torture photos, it's the US government and military. There should have been more oversight in place. Also, why is it that Gen. Taguba's report is only coming out to the general public now? If not for media pressure, the government may have never taken any action against the torturers.

However, my initial reaction to the news of it was that the US military needs to release a tape showing the fast, less brutal, guilotine beheadings of TEN Iraqui prisoners, including a statement saying "For every one of us you kill, we'll kill ten of you. We outpopulate you by 100 to 1." HOWEVER, what they don't tell Al-Jazera or even the American news media is, the tape is a fake, with special effects designed by someone like Tom Savini or Peter Jackson's WETA team. That bit of info only comes out years later.

Hmm yes, let's inspire mass uprisings and violence all over the country, as well as long lasting ill-will towards the US. That's a great use of propaganda if I've ever heard of one.

 

[it290]

War isn't nice and clean cut these days, not like it ever is, but at least in WWII you usually knew who the enemy was. That "militant group" in question in this particular incident, aka Al Qaeda, is not a country (If I've lost you here, google Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). It isn't the "organized military" of any country either, but it IS organized. Not being the military of any country doesn't stop them from killing us, in any country. They are still an organized group set on destroying us, so yes, you can compare them to our military to some extent. That's the kind of thing we are up against.

The difference is, unlike the US government/military, they aren't claiming to support freedom, democracy, human rights, yadda yadda. What they are doing is entirely in line with their supposed ideals, whereas America's actions in the war have simply proved that we have a force of lying hypocrites who are conducting a war on false pretenses.