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but I don't feel the need to have 1000 photos come to light with videos to boot. People who side with Bush will say "they do the same to us", others will ignore it even if its shown right in their face.
I do think this story shouldn't die, and I think by talking about it and keeping it in the public it will be easier to do so. I think in this case, since it is a world issue it will be harder to kill this story than your average bushco machination. I agree with you all that this story shouldn't become back page news, the people responsible should be tried and held accountable. It is a major black eye on the US "Freedom" effort in Iraq and to our world image.
It's just that a certain amount of awareness will come from showing the pictures and I feel there is a point of diminishing returns after which I feel that it is more to feed a political machine than to actually bring justice or a better image to the world that what we are currently leaving there.
I also wonder about the actual victims of the torture. How much is too much for them, I can't answer that. I can try to speculate how a grown man who has been humiliated, imasculated, tortured and dehumanize may feel and my first thought is immediately that if something like that happened to me I would want to disconnect from the world. I wouldn't want it on all the 24 hour new stations. Perhaps you feel different about it, and thats cool with me.
I don't want to brush this fuck up under the rug but at the same time I don't want to sensationalize or make it a political statement any more than it has to be. It is a major administration fuck up and should be seen as such, the fruition of an ill advised unjust war where it literally seems the inmates (Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rummy etc) run the asylum. Even as such, I don't want to wield it as a major campaign tool because ultimately that would be using the misfortune of the detainees to our gain.
I'm not trying to start a fight with people who think all the information should be all over the news, the internet or however you might think it best to let release this information. I dont think the pictures should be destroyed. I do think they should be available for the public to see, but I worry about the venue at this time.
two anectdotes that I think of when thinking of these pictures...one is a picture that might have been taken of you when you were totally trashed doing something incredibly stupid or maybe a horrible picture of you taken as someone kicked your ass or something. It may show up in the school paper, or your friends and enemies might always refer back to it or always show it to someone who hasn't seen it before. You in all your glory, humiliated.
The second is a bit more personal...I was on a message board one time and someone had a post saying something like "check this crazy shit out" so I clicked the link. What I saw was a guy (A chechnyan) laying on the ground with a boot holding his head down, in a split second someone (a russian soldier) brought a knife down and jammed it in behind his wind pipe and started cutting. I could hear the air mixed with blood in his throat, his eyes open as he was dying on film. I felt sick as this unknow person kept cutting until they had cut this guys head off. It fucking almost makes me cry thinking about it, I've never seen shit like that before. I know it goes on, but it's now seared into my brain I can't forget any part of it. I feel dirty having ever watched it, all I could/can think about is this person who I didnt know and his family, the guy that killed him and what the fuck would make someone do that aside from war. I had witnessed a war crime on video.
Sorry so long, I've been wanting to spew all my thoughts on this for some time, I guess its a bit cathartic. I have a feeling that my view is pretty unpopular, Im not here to fight about it. I'm not a freeper, a chicken hawk or disruptor. I get 90% of my news from here & LBN, the rest from NPR on the right to and from work, and a bit from glimpses I get from the tv tuned to cnn 20 feet from me at work. I'm not leaving, Im not mad, I just felt like saying all that.
Ben
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