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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I understand that Walter Shapiro is ashamed about his country that allows an Abu Ghraib to exist. Yet, the rest of the world is not ashamed, but angry. Abu Ghraib is not a place in the US, it's halfway around the world in a country where the US had no business in the first place. In the rest of the world, we're not interested nor are we impressed by American shame, and certainly I don't see it as a valid excuse not to get the full truth out.
In other words, shame or not, all of the material on that DVD and the full report should be made available to the public by Salon.com. After years of human rights violations and holding the rest of the world hostage in a so-called "war on terror," that is the least we may expect from any US publication.
Okke Ornstein
Thos of you who are accusing Salon of hypocrisy for publishing the Abu Ghraib photos and not publishing the Mohammad cartoons are comparing apples with oranges.
The Abu Ghraib photos depict real toture and suffering at the hands of U.S. personnel.
The Muhammad cartoons are gratuitously offensive cartoons insulting an entire religion. Why disseminate them? Their original intent was not a demonstration of "freedom of speech", it was deliberately insulting, inflammatory, and designed to provide fodder for Muslim extremists. And provide fodder, they did...
The Abu Ghraib photos are a national shame. Those horrible acts were committed in our name. These photos NEED to be published so that people realize and remember that Americans can never again engage in these shameful practices, lest we lose our soul as a people. The rest of the world needs to know that most Americans are revolted by torture and other mistreatments, lest we, as a people, be confused with the sadists and lunatics who ordered, aided and abetted, and committed those gross abuses.
Ultimately each time A left-wing liberal uses his right to Free Speech, the conversation becomes a bore! Personaly, each time a left-wing guest on FOX is given his 4 minutes of insight, I could easily leave the room!
Because each time the most well-educated amongst them talk, he was talking like... let's say Kofi Annan, full of apparent grace and manners, unfortunately full of....'lecturing of the Brave'!
It's the SHREK (+wife) Syndrom: Beautiful outside, Ugly inside! In the Sufi language, it's the distinction between 'Zaher' (apparence!) and 'Batin' (inner/hidden!).
God has all the odds against Himself! (including pictures!). Devil hides behind the apparence of a Phoney Outrage! Only Ignorants use Outrage when they have lost the Big Picture Argument! Remember the quasi Islamic Revolution caused by the cartoons?
Moralists have the easiest Task! Yet they are square! No difference for me between Secular Liberal Purists and Religious Zealots!!! Whether those Inquisitors from the 12th Century or these Orthodoxe Powerful of the Islamic World. In all cases, it's called Fascism and fascists flirt with Bigotry and Morality! With no sense of Nuance, Reality, Facts! You may dream of an Utopic world, the Right is higher than you because they dream of a Possible World, practicle, Feasible! Plus the Left fights for itself, the Right fights for the Whole/and the World! (by Empowering the Individuals)! Personal Freedom is the biggest gift Governments can offer its citizens! I don't care if they are listening to my conversations!
You are not ashame by what you are constantly saying/printing openly in the public arena, but you are afraid by your private phone calls? Not very Logic to me! And why the Press should have the right to spy on everybody and everything with impunity anyway? If it was a Democrat President leading our Third World War instead of this President who didn't ask for 9/11 and Trouble, we would hear much less nonsense coming from the opposition Party!!! So the Ultimate and never Ending! War is the War between The Right and the Left (and far-left)! One of them is Right, the other is Wrong! And this one is a Black and White issue, we all agree! Without Nuance! One is demonizing God, the other is not even Demonizing Devil! - unless it's about the axis of Evil! a 100% Darkness case. But each time it tries - like I did with my first letter censored by the editor!), it would be called Racist or Fascist or zealot or silenced!
Yet one is the true Zealot, fascist, racist, not openly, not willingly, unconsciously! blindly! stupidly!! Superficially! (those with two faces). I call them: The Courtisans!!!
About Dick Cheney waiting 24 Hours to inform the world about his bad day, I have this to say: He acted like a Human Being, not a Robot! Ultimately the only important part of the news (for themselves) was: Will his Friend stay alive? And this answer required some Time! I think 24hours was the perfect timing anyway about the PR matter! Who the Press is trying to serve? The Angry Mob looking to lynch any Government Official for their Faux Pas (or not Faux Pas)? This Temporary Silence meant some Temporary Sacredness!
I know how you get a Kick out of your ways, we don't, it's not funny to listen to the endless left-wing Diatribes and Arrogance! PH.D or not! STOP THE NOISE! That's PEACE TOO!!!
ps. Few exceptions on both side only confirm the Law!
+ It takes a life time to reach the Light, nobody expect we stay as shallow as our twenties or thirties forever!
When you publish the photos you get angry letters from people who can't accept that their country or culture can do wrong. When you publish cartoons, you get death threats:
http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8FQU3580.html
Cowards. It is easy to be brave when you know your opponent has a modicum of civilization (a small modicum in the case of our current Idiot-in-Chief, but still more than the Imams.) When you are really threatened, just run and hide and claim you are being "sensitive." So much for the spirit of the Freedom Riders and Joe Hill. Without the Freedom to Offend, Freedom of Speech is a meaningless phrase.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
