Letters to the Editor
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Salon is hypocritical
So you won't publish the Danish cartoons out of "respect for Islam" but you could care less about respect for America and its military. These photos may not be pleasant, but the so-called torture doesn't seem to be any worse than college fraternity pledge hazing.
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???
What's with all the people bitching about Salon not publishing the Danish cartoons? There has been a link to the cartoons in EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE written about them on this site. Is it that you only want to have to click once instead of twice?
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Once again, Salon thinks WAY too much of itself.
Salon has accomplished absolutely nothing here.
First of all, don't flatter yourself to think that a significant amount of people view your website, especially people oversees. For the most part, you preach to your own choir.
I can absolutely guarantee that there will be no one whose viewpoint will change from these new photos. No one will be persuaded. People who thought that what happened at Abu Ghraib is a war crime, the most disgusting atrocity since the Holocaust (and there actually appear to be people who feel this way), will only strengthen their view as they "weep" while viewing them.
People who feel that the abuse was an overblown anomoly, or an uncomfortable but necessary act of interrogation and deterrance, will not change their minds.
But..thank you for not publishing the Danish cartoons. We wouldn't want to offend anyone!
Watching a 10 second crappy commercial is worth reading Heather's TV column. But to think that someone would pay to be a member of such an arrogant, predictable website? No thanks.
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Thank you..
Thank you for publishing these photos..
The truth must be shown..
You have done the right thing..
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Linking is much different from posting
------"There has been a link to the cartoons in EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE written about them on this site. Is it that you only want to have to click once instead of twice?"
AmyS and others, there is a big difference between posting a link to another website and actually posting the cartoons within one's own site. Anyone can post a link, and there is a distinct separation that remains.
Otherwise, why didn't Salon just post a link to the new Abu Ghraib photos? They made the specific decision to place them front and center on their front page.
No question about it.
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Way to go, Salon
It's about time Salon got back to business for the type of articles it made it's name with. Journalism is supposed to expose necessary and nefarious activities of any power, whether business or governmental, that threatens to undermine the rules that bind our society together. Other newspapers and magazines are willing to allow the government to sweep this under the rug and charge only the low-level soldiers involved, which does the country as a hole an injustice.
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It's not what you did, it's why you did it...
Unlike Walter Shapiro, I am not "ashamed to live in a country that somehow came to accept that torture and prisoner abuse were simply business as usual." I am most definitely ashamed of everyone who participated in the insanity of Abu-Ghraib, yes, but I do not paint all the rest of our military or our citizens or even our politicians with that same brush.
If Salon or Walter Shapiro has evidence that "the country" came to accept these abuses as "business as usual", then bring that material forward. It simply does not exist. To argue that Republicans in congress didn't investigate as fully as Shapiro felt necessary may have merit but it does not bolster that stubborn conclusion of his. For the record, the "country" was shocked and outraged at these photos and the vast, vast majority of our citizens believed that such practices had no place, even in a military prison.
I am a life-long liberal Democrat who worked many years as a journalist but when I see Walter Shapiro reaching so hard to make such a wrong-headed conclusion, I can see why many Americans are exasperated by both Democrats and journalists. Bad news should not be used as a "gotcha" for anybody's political beliefs. When people who represent my country behave badly, I understand the need for their punishment and it brings me sorrow. But I am not ashamed to live in my country. I am ashamed of them.
This is a serious issue. I defend Salon's right to publish still more of these pictures (if you feel you have to) but I am very angry that you are doing this, not out of love of country, but out of hate. Please, get a clue.
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Where is the Journalism?
Salon is becoming a mindless parody of a publication. Your convenient display of "courage" in following the Australian press in publishing these 2.5 year old photos, combined with your recent display of "prudence" in not publishing the Mohammed Bomb Head cartoons is revealing you as a publication that is sliding down the slippery slope of questionable 'journalistic' decision making. You are well on your way to the irrelevance reserved for sensationalistic grocery store checkout counters, or hopelessly reactionary left wing (or right wing) syncophants.
Where was your courage when you needed to stand with a global free press, and stand with the Danish people?
Where was your courage when you needed to say "We will not be silenced by intimidation." to the the hyper-reactionary militants who are attempting to truly dictate what is said and not said in free press around the world?
These photos and the activities that they portray are reprehensible. Your choice to ONLY bring a spotlight to THIS reprehesible event, 2.5 years after the fact, without showing the same commitment to openly discuss and portray the current, newsworthy, important reprehensible events that define the world we live in, and the middle east, is also reprehensible.
You are not brave, you are not incisive, and you certainly shouldn't adopt this pose of quiet journalistic bravery. You haven't earned it. You are becoming an irrelevant left wing we-only-exist-to-conveniently-shout-insults-at-the-current-administration news journal.
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The Abu Ghraib photos..
I can't stop crying.. Is it any wonder we are viewed as monsters by the rest of the world? I grew up believing that we were the good guys, that we helped the little guy.. I thought that we stopped the injustice in the world.. Now I find that we are its cause.. We are monsters, may God have mercy on our souls.. My entire belief system just came crashing down around me.. I'm literally ill over this..
My question is this.. This administration has proven themselves to be liars and cheats on so many different occasions..How can people believe that they care anymore for the people of America than they do for the people of Iraq? What will they unleash on us if we balk at their plans? Will they do to Americans what they did to the people of Iraq that got in their way? To the people in this country who still believe that what this administration has America's interest at heart.. Why are they selling us off to China? Why are they taking our rights away? Why are they bankrupting our country? Why did KBR get a contract for new detention centers? Why are they spying on Americans? Why are they selling our public lands? How do we know that they are not securing the oil for themselves on America's dime?? They've lied about everything else, why should anyone believe they are not lying now?? We're supposed to trust them because they tell us so? You trust that they won't take the oil and try to control everyone in the world including the US? No one thinks it's odd that the areas all over the word that are rich with oil are now suddenly "claimed" hotbeds of terror activity?? I don't think they want to secure the oil for the US, I think they want to secure the oil to control the US and the rest of the world.. They've already shown that they will let oil companies gouge us, how bad will it be when they control all of the oil? I fear that they will soon have the whole world including America on its knees, and by then it will be too late. They have lied about everything, and I'd bet anything that they're lying about this too.. They don't care about America, if they did they wouldn't be destroying all that it stands for.. Their only concern is money, power, and profits.
I implore the people of this nation to wake up.. Please wake up before it's too late..