So that makes it ok for the media to be irresponsible? What are you suggesting? If the media's end is noble (*cough cough YEAH RIGHT*) doesn't that damage their credibility to report on actual abuses?

What ABOUT the actual abuses? I feel like I'm living in the twilight zone here, with the amount and shock and awe everyone is feigning about discovering that abuses go on in military prisons. Would you feel the same way if a news story broke about prisoners in U.S. prisons being abused? Do you actually think prisoners aren't being beaten and raped? Would you call an end to the "war against crime" and ask for the derpartment of the interior to step down? The public is stupid and apathetic and doesn't give a fuck about anything until there is a picture. Why don't you rally around the prisons until there are open and transparent policies about the environment prisoners in the U.S. are kept it? Give me a break, you pretend-friend-to-prisoners.

What ABOUT the actual abuses? What are you implying? That it's ok to make up stories about rape because abuses actually occured?

What about he actual abuses, Spankling? An investiagation isn't good enough? Now it's ok for Arabs to consider it open hunting season on U.S. troops?

Looking at the links you post I think you're ill equipped to grasp the concept of a trustworthy and accountable media, Spankling. It's important that the public have SOME idea that the media is trying to put out an honest a message as possible. Look at the garbage Al-Jazeera puts out and tell me if that's the kind of American media you want. Maybe it actually is, I really don't know about you sometimes.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

Buying Influence

Al-Jazeera is to Islamists what Fox News is to Republicans.

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

Fox news is partisan media, which is comparable to media outlets in Europe, it's just a relatively new phenomenon in American TV. I hear they are planning the launch of a liberal TV network. I wouldn't compare this with the inflammatory stuff they air on Al-Jazeera. Partisan politics can be inflammatory, but not to the extent that it justifies violence. I think there is a good argument that Al-Jazeera could insight violence and paints a very unfair picture of America. There's a difference between having an editorial opinion you disagree with, and completely ignoring good journalism to present your editorial position at any cost.

I didn't see anything about Fox News or Al-Jazeera in that story. Was it related to your statement? Do you have some similar instances where Fox News has issued a report similar to the Globe's story about the soldier porno rape? Or is it you just don't like Fox News, and you compare that to my "dislike" of Al-Jazeera? If so I don't think that is a valid comparisson.

Playing by the fundraising rules? Chilling! Why can't they get their money from China like all red-blooded democrats?

Business pulls the gravy train in America, let them vote with their dollars. Even if you don't get your money from a company and just sit on your ass and collect welfare, that comes from tax dollars, which inevitably comes from business. Welcome to reality, why don't you get a job while you're here.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

quote:

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So that makes it ok for the media to be irresponsible? What are you suggesting? If the media's end is noble (*cough cough YEAH RIGHT*) doesn't that damage their credibility to report on actual abuses?

What ABOUT the actual abuses? I feel like I'm living in the twilight zone here, with the amount and shock and awe everyone is feigning about discovering that abuses go on in military prisons. Would you feel the same way if a news story broke about prisoners in U.S. prisons being abused? Do you actually think prisoners aren't being beaten and raped? Would you call an end to the "war against crime" and ask for the derpartment of the interior to step down? The public is stupid and apathetic and doesn't give a fuck about anything until there is a picture. Why don't you rally around the prisons until there are open and transparent policies about the environment prisoners in the U.S. are kept it? Give me a break, you pretend-friend-to-prisoners.

What ABOUT the actual abuses? What are you implying? That it's ok to make up stories about rape because abuses actually occured?

What about he actual abuses, Spankling? An investiagation isn't good enough? Now it's ok for Arabs to consider it open hunting season on U.S. troops?

Looking at the links you post I think you're ill equipped to grasp the concept of a trustworthy and accountable media, Spankling. It's important that the public have SOME idea that the media is trying to put out an honest a message as possible. Look at the garbage Al-Jazeera puts out and tell me if that's the kind of American media you want. Maybe it actually is, I really don't know about you sometimes.

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You still don't address what your actual point is by bringing up the abuse photos in the context of discussing the coverage of faked abuse photos.

Even if your point is "oh these photos are bad" don't you think it detracts from their seriousness to have the media report faked photos and completely out-of-context pornography stills at the very same time these photos are leaked?

I guess by calling my argument "shrill" you are supposing I am immediately arguing against your "point". I put point in quotation marks because you seem to leave it open for assumption since you just say "what about the actual photos?"

I still ask "what about them Spankling?" This isn't shrill, I just don't know what the hell your point is. Your post is like someone saying "Dude I hate Family Circus" in the thread about political cartoons, it's just completely not related.

I said the introduction of faked abuse photos by the media is a great diservice, and you wander in like a child and ask "what about the faked photos?". Well, Spanking, since no one is saying those photos you mentioned are faked, they don't really matter in the context of an argument discussing the responsibility of the media to try and make sure they aren't publishing faked photos.

I'm sorry an argument which you don't wish to stay on the topic of translates as "shrill" in your mind. I'm sorry it gets to you that much.

What exactly do you want to bring up about the un-faked abuse photos? You've had two posts in which you could discuss your point of view. Are you saying you think they were faked also? Are you saying their over-coverage is comparable to some media outlet's attitude to rush to cover such a story that they would published faked photos without fact checking them?

I'm sorry you mistranslate my eagerness to hear your point as "shrill".

Also if there is an incident in which Fox News presented faked information as fact in the same vein as the Globe you are welcome to bring it up since you purport to be more of an expert on the subject of Fox News as I am.

If you are referring to just Fox's political bias (which I don't dispute existing) are you saying having a political bias is just as deplorable as a media outlet outright publishing slanderous and completely false allegations? If this is the case, would you apply the same analogy to a media outlet expressing a political bias you agree with?

Does me asking pointed question confuse you into such a stupor that you have to say I must be hysterical and wander off? Because that's almost the only assumption I'm left with.

Maybe you're just waiting for someone smarter than yourself like boorite or dougan to guess at what your non-point was, so you can say "oh yeah me too you said it all" again. That's always classic.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

Artillery round in Iraq emits sarin gas, U.S. military says

Sweet, we took out a Shiite leader and planted WMD evidence all at the same time.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

When I start reading mak's posts I can't get the sound of flustered chicken clucking out of my head - feathers fluttering all around.

I do like reading about ideas, words and concepts being attributed to me that never came from me though. It's like having an evil twin come to visit.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

So there was no thought or motive behind your "what about the real abuse photos?" post? Sorry for giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you had some semblance of an intelligent reason for doing that.

Well Spankling, about the real abuse photos, they are different than the fake abuse photos we were discussing. The fake abuse photos are "make-believe". They were placed in a context that was false. In the case of the photos of the British soldiers peeing on prisoners which the Mirror ran, I think they are believed to be staged, but not doctored. Also the pictures which the Boston Globe said were of soldiers raping Iraqis were from a pornography. Pornography is also "make-believe". That means it didn't really happen. So the real abuse photos are different in that respect.

If you get confused again, just ask! ;)

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

Stop being an ass, Makk.

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

That no-account filthy rag the Christian Science Monitor is talking bad about Rummy.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Just giving back what I get. Spankling has had plenty of chances to explain what he meant, instead he talks about hallucinated chicken noises, so I really don't know what conclusion to draw except that he is very confused.

Frankly I don't care if they have to humiliate Al-Qaeda agents to get information out of them (as if wanting to kill innocent human beings isn't humiliation enough for them). But put a rubber stamp on them that puts them in a legal black hole and ship them to Guantanamo first, don't be an amature and strip them nekked while they are still POWs. God, what are you, a high school freshman?

But even still if you abuse POWs, even IF it's under orders, that's not an excuse, and hasn't been since WWII. Also the establishment of a super-secret abuse program seems a little unlikely, unless the abusers were also issued super-secret-abuse-digital-cameras to document the super-secret abuse, with the establishment of a super-secret email program by which the super-secret abuse documentation could be super-secret sent to media outlets for publication.

But hey, maybe they forgot to mention the abuse program was super-secret to the abusers.

But you're right Spankling:

Damning evidence!

A strip search just because he was Arab? Racist!

Give these Al-Qaeda guys a break, it's a hard enough job to have to attack Americans without this crap.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

Enough about the war. Yay!

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

Didn't you say before that torture doesn't work for getting information?

How do you know these are "Al-Qaeda guys"?

I said humiliate them, not torture them. As far as I know humiliation doesn't lead to unreliable intelligence, but if you're putting screws into someone then yes I'd say there's a good chance they'd say anything to make you stop.

Oh by the way being naked isn't agonizing pain. I know the media in the U.S. had been portraying it as such. But I have reliable first-hand experience that being naked is not at all painful.

I was talking about the protocols instituted for interrogating Al-Qaeda and suspected Al-Qaeda in Guantanamo which were criticized in the report. I frankly don't care what they do with them in Guantanamo.

Yes, when they have prisoners in Iraq and they don't know what if anything they are guilty of it does no good to humiliate them. If anything it could turn them to "the dark side" if they aren't there to begin with. I don't think they should obstruct the investigation into this, but it doesn't sound like they are. Once they identify someone as Al-Qaeda and they do want to humiliate them in ways not sanctioned for use on POWs under the Geneva Conventions, then yes just reclassify them and ship them off to Cuba.

I'd like to know a little more about the context of the pictures, if they were all "trouble-prisoners", exactly what the circumstances are, who the hell are the people in the pictures, and so forth. The fact that the people posing in the pictures are obviously posing and happy sort of suggests to me that they are 100% clueless that they are doing anything wrong. I wonder if they will keep their expression when they are busting rocks in a military prison for 20 years. For those of you who don't know, if these poeple are convicted, military prison is hard labor, it's not like the regular prisons.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

On May 3, andydougan said:

This is a position he has consistently held in support of the war, while I have consistently countered that although toppling a dictator is a good thing, we could expect this war to worsen conditions for Iraqis, on the general principle that chaos and hatred follow in the wake of mechanized destruction.

Andy, I offer a couple of excerpts from the past 24 hours' news for your consideration.

===========================

Headline: Violence Leaves Iraqis in Despair; Funeral Evokes Leaders' Anxiety About Transition. The Washington Post, May 19, front page.

..."If something is not done about this security situation, there will be no transfer of power," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the council.

Othman, who is generally pro-American, described the assassination as only the most extreme example of the lawlessness that has grown in the year since President Saddam Hussein was driven from power. "Never in Iraq has it been like this -- never, even under Saddam," he said. "People are killed, kidnapped and assaulted; children are taken away; women are raped. Nobody is afraid of any punishment."

===========================

Excerpted from: "Former Abu Ghraib prisoner Saddam Saleh hopes to attend tomorrow's court-martial trial of Jeremy Sivits." National Public Radio's Morning Edition, May 18, 2004.

Mr. Saddam Saleh was jailed [at Abu Ghraib prison] between last December 1st and March 28th of this year... In 1999 Saleh spent two and a half years at Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein, he says, for trying to evade military service.

Mr. SALEH: (Through Translator) Of course, I was tortured by Saddam's intelligence. They took pliers to my flesh, but they didn't strip me naked. I was hanged to the wall from my legs, but at least they kept my clothes on. They didn't sexually abuse me or put me in a room with dogs. That's really terrifying.

I'm 29, and no one even in my family has seen my body. Now, the world has seen me humiliated.

WESTERVELT: Saleh landed in US custody, he says, after reporting a suspicious car to Iraqi police during a visit to Baghdad. When they found that he was carrying nearly $1,000, Saleh says, they turned him over to the Americans and accused him of belonging to an insurgent cell. Saleh was engaged to be married and says the cash was for furniture to start a new life. Now after Abu Ghraib, Saleh says his marriage is off and his life in ruins.

Mr. SALEH: (Through Translator) It's not only touched my dignity. Everything has gone, everything. I just can't imagine myself responsible for a family. I lost my honor, my dignity, I lost everything.

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What others say about boorite!

Good thing too, because pliers hurt a little bit, but being naked hurts a LOT.

Dougan's argument is still valid because there isn't really a government in Iraq yet. In any event the United States didn't blow up the council president.

So Saddam Hussein was always very nice and non-violent towards the Shiites, and cultured an evironment of safety for them. Ah yes, it's all coming back to me now.

When will it be time to start blaming the Iraqi insurgents for the actual violence and chaos? When they are voting Republican?

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

For those of you not familiar with Makk, it just ain't worth the time.

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What others say about boorite!

Some phoney prepped Iraqi idiot comparing the brutal physical torture and repression of Saddam Hussein to being humiliated by military prison guards isn't worth anybody's time. I thought you were posting that as a joke, but it sounds like you weren't. I guess that's even funnier though.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

Ah yes, damn those "Iraqi idiots" that fine folks like you wanted to "liberate".

Damn 'em all to Hell!

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Think classy, you'll be classy.

Just like with Bush, once I read a lie or two from mak I stop reading and move on to something else. I don't have time for all of his lies. I gotta pick and choose.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

I called him an idiot because he said being physically tortured and repressed for years and years was better than being stripped by a few corrupt prison guards. I didn't just call all Iraqis idiots and then end my sentence, as you suggest with your selective quoting.

What lies are you talking about? Is saying being stripped isn't worse than being tortured with plyers a lie? Help me out here. Is pointing out that you post stories with changed and unrelated headlines a lie? Because really it seems more like a lie to post a misleading headline than to point out that it has been changed. Or was it a lie that Michael Moore's Disney "dispute" was trumped up and staged?

Just don't respond at all instead of sulking and saying "oh, maak is so mean, he's always lying." It makes you look childish. If I've won the argument, just leave it at that and I won't rub it in.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

Baaaak baaaak baaak

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Much better.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

It wasn't a nudist camp. The men were sexually abused. The idea was to destroy them psychologically. That's nice, isn't it?

I think I want to emphasize a point from the other excerpt. Here we have a pro-American Kurdish member of the American-picked governing council saying that conditions were not this violent and chaotic even under Saddam. This is remarkable because the speaker is not some disaffected Sunni Saddam lackey. He is:

1. Pro-American
2. Picked by Americans to be in the interim government
3. A Kurd. A Kurd for God's sake.

Now if someone like that is saying, "not even under Saddam did we have conditions like this," I think it's worth noticing, at least. That is, if anything can penetrate the fog of one's blind ideological devotion to one's state and all its actions, it would be something like this.

Peace be on all living things.

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What others say about boorite!

Even if you're forced to be naked, it doesn't destroy you psychologically. This is war, get real.

Since there is still no real effective government in Iraq, I don't think it's a surprise that the lack of government is more chaotic than a dictatorship. The context you present it in, as if everything we are doing is leading towards anarchy instead of fighting against it, is what I take issue with.

In any event open democracies are more chaotic than iron fisted regimes. Would you advocate an iron-fisted regime for the United States over its open democracy because it is bound to be more stable? (As long as you are only coerced with plyers and physical torture, and no forced nudity, which would leave your psyche shattered and you a worthless shell of a human being, longing for death and torture over being naked).

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008