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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Dear Salon,
Thank you for publishing these photos, it's important to keep the hysteria alive and to rally your base to renew their subscriptions. The anti American left needs somewhere to be biased in their favor since the rest of Amerikkka has the Times, CNN and the New Republic to parrot pResident Bushevik’s SOB line.
I think the problem of the US (which I love dearly) losing its way in the past 20 years is due to the left not having babies. Used to be the greatest leftist thinkers in this country had gads of kids they could teach their philosophy to, but now the only people spawning are the eugenically obsessed right wingers. I call on all the left to have another summer of love, but burn your condoms and not your bras and draft cards this time!!!!!
Congrats on breaking this important story and not letting the outrage be covered up. But here's a news flash: not everyone has or wants to use Flash. You need a non-flash version.
how about thousands of rioting muslims?
This is off topic, so I'll stay brief- but it does appear inconsistent to air the photos of abu grhaib and not the muslim cartoons. Both can be discussed without seeing them- and in fact, as Mr. Shaprio himself said, the overexposure can be desensitizing.
Listen, I think a bunch of cartoons is a silly thing to riot over. I think the cartoons are pretty unsophisticated, as far as political cartoons go. However, we can easily just sit here and say "those cartoons are stupid and people who riot because of them are stupid" or we can try to understand how a bunch of stupid cartoons became the latest flashpoint in a trumped up clash of civilizations, how those in the West and those in the middle East are continuing to be led down a path of conflict by our leaders and powerful personalities.
Back on the photos- it is offensive and saddening to hear the same defense against their release rehashed- that it would ignite anger towards the West at a sensitive time. What other information could be withheld on this rationale?!
We are on autopilot, and we have already entered the storm. It is time to wake up.
What a waste...so many other things need your attention yet you go back to Abu Ghraib "torture" photos? Couldn't you have spent your time and money on say, Bush spying on Americans and how the whole issue is quietly dissappearing? It would have been great had you done a little investigative journalism, got a great scoop, then taken the show on the road to NPR and other national outlets so that millions of people could visit your website. Just like they're doing now, except it seems like todays little photo essay is more about the deal you have going with HBO and advertising revenue. Where's the news??
To all of you conscience-free readers who are worried that these photos make Americans look "bad," I say it would take a Hieronymus Bosch to make us look as bad as we actually are. After all, we are a people who knew with absolute certainty that the Bush Administration was doing all this and worse -- and still 66% of the electorate either didn't care enough to go to the polls in 2004 or actually rewarded this sadistic evil with a vote of approval.
How many months have passed by since the first photos were released? How many days have come and gone without reports of new horrors? Is there anyone in America who doesn't know that right now, as I write this message, "doctors" are ramming tubes up detainees' noses in Guantanamo? Or that dozens of these same detainees are in such utter despair that they only want the freedom to die?
I have to wonder how you can continue to whine about your precious "image" abroad, how you can look at yourself in the mirror, how you can even think of being in the same room as your children, when you have done NOTHING to stop your government from committing these crimes -- and committing them in YOUR name.
Thank you Salon for having the courage to publish these photos, knowing as you must the harsh backlash you will face from the O’Reily and Limbaugh crowd.
Several have said that by publishing these photos, has put our troops at risk. They claim that the pictures are so incendiary that they will inflame Muslim passion against the U.S. and incite terrorist attacks. And this may, in fact, be true- making these pictures public may indeed have the end result of inciting terrorist attacks on America or our allies, although it seems that radical fundamentalists hardly need much justification beyond their long standing and deep-seated grievances against America and western culture. This is unfortunate, but the blame does not lie with Salon or other newspapers who shed harsh light on these photos.
It is not the pictures themselves, but the acts of abuse and degradation depicted therein that provoke radical fundamentalists to action. The pictures are mere evidence of actual acts committed by American soldiers and agents, funded by American tax dollars, and condoned implicitly or explicitly by American government officials. The photos provide silent testimony of real actions- and it is those actions that Muslims, and for that matter most of the civilized world, considers atrocious. If the American government wants to prevent pictures like these from leaking out and inflaming Muslim passion, we- the government and citizens of the United States- need to make sure that these kinds of acts do not occur in the first place. If our government treated detainees with basic human dignity, and refrained from shackling them to bed frames with underwear on their head, then there would be no pictures.
We must demand humane treatment of detained prisoners, at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo or even at secret black site prisons around the world that our government doesn’t want to acknowledge. We need to insist that legislation like the McCain amendment banning torture really is the law of the land, and not just a piece of paper to be signed and then disregarded at the president’s whim. We need to hold our government responsible for acts like these that were committed in the name of the American citizenry. This doesn’t mean punishing a few low-ranking soldiers for individual acts- it means holding the entire chain of command responsible for the actions committed and encouraged under its direction and control.
There are no rules in war? The enemy has done bad things too? Didn’t they behead people on camera? These are not excuses and do not justify or condone abuse of detainees in American custody. Terror is not justifiable in the name of fighting terror, and the ends do not justify these means. The term “war crime” exists for a reason- there are some actions that are beyond even what is considered permissible in the brutality of war. Saying that the enemies’ actions are justification for our own acts of abuse is to say that we are no better than they are- to sink down to their level in a race to the bottom of depravity. When Bush & Co. were selling this catastrophe of a war to the public and congress, we were repeatedly told that Saddam was a “monster who tortures his own people.” Who is responsible for tortures committed after Saddam’s fall?
These pictures of abuse have nothing whatsoever to do with the Danish cartoons, as others have already eloquently explained (kudos alarajrogers). If you feel the need to see the danish cartoons and haven't already, do a Google search.
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
