Reports that New Abu Ghraib Torture Video Surfaces

[Dune]

BY JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, June 16, 2004 3:15 p.m. EDT

The Saddam Torture Videos
The American Enterprise Institute held an unusual video screening yesterday, and hardly anyone showed up. One who did was the New York Post's Deborah Orin:

The video only lasts four minutes or so--gruesome scenes of torture from the days when Saddam Hussein's thugs ruled Abu Ghraib prison. I couldn't bear to watch, so I walked out until it was over.

Some who stayed wished they hadn't. They told of savage scenes of decapitation, fingers chopped off one by one, tongues hacked out with a razor blade--all while victims shriek in pain and the thugs chant Saddam's praises.

Saddam's henchmen took the videos as newsreels to document their deeds in honor of their leader.

But these awful images didn't show up on American TV news.

In fact, just four or five reporters showed up for the screening at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, which says it got the video via the Pentagon. Fewer wrote about it.

We saw part of this video a few weeks back, and indeed it is every bit as horrific as Orin's fellow reporters describe. Our computer crashed about a third of the way through and we didn't have the stomach to start watching again after rebooting. So we can certainly understand why television news outlets would see it as unfit to air.

As Orin notes, this "raises a very complex problem in the War on Terror. It's worse than creating moral equivalence between Saddam's tortures and prisoner abuse by U.S. troops. It's that we do far more to highlight our own wrongdoings precisely because they are less appalling."

Part of the problem may be that the press hasn't quite figured out how to deal with such "asymmetric propaganda," as Orin calls it. Yet it doesn't seem that it would be that hard to provide context--to make sure that every story about American abuses at Abu Ghraib also included graphic descriptions of what went on there before Iraq's liberation.

Why does the press harp on American abuses and ignore Saddam's? Orin quotes AEI's Michael Ledeen as saying it's because most journalists "want Bush to lose." Reporters, of course, are at pains to maintain an air of fairness, but surveys have demonstrated that most lean to the left.

If you listen to prominent Democrats like Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd and Al Gore, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that they'd rather see America lose the war than the president win re-election. It's bad enough that one party is willing to engage in what as a practical matter amounts to anti-American propaganda. Surely we have a right to demand better from the news media.

From WSJ.com's OpinionJournal

[AKIron]

I'll bet you won't see it on Al Jazeera either.

[Fishu]

Thats one funny thing with the noise in middle east.. they for some reason forget saddam was much worse.

However it is still very serious that the country known for freedom, democracy and laws, is downgrading to torturing of victims, something which it was known to not condone and was speaking against.

Thats something which really atracts attention.

If US chooses to bring freedom and democracy to middle east, it should be showing an example for rest of the world, not do what they're already doing widely in middle east.


So.. how many years till US will begin torture of  their own citizens, when chasing big criminals, in order to protect the peace loving americans from criminals?
Thats a scarier thought.. and it isn't an impossible scenario to happen in the future!

[VOR]

Run for your lives.

[muckmaw]

Originally posted by Fishu
Thats one funny thing with the noise in middle east.. they for some reason forget saddam was much worse.

However it is still very serious that the country known for freedom, democracy and laws, is downgrading to torturing of victims, something which it was known to not condone and was speaking against.

Thats something which really atracts attention.

If US chooses to bring freedom and democracy to middle east, it should be showing an example for rest of the world, not do what they're already doing widely in middle east.


So.. how many years till US will begin torture of  their own citizens, when chasing big criminals, in order to protect the peace loving americans from criminals?
Thats a scarier thought.. and it isn't an impossible scenario to happen in the future!

If Kerry and the Dems disarm the American Citizen like they want to, it would be all to easy, would'nt it Fishu?

I'm not worried. Not in the least. We have the constitution, we have a proven system of checks and balances, and we have the ACLU (who never seem to be on my side...but).

And if that fails, I've got my 12 gauge.

[-MZ-]

Originally posted by muckmaw
And if that fails, I've got my 12 gauge.

If the govt. comes for you, you're going to need alot more than that.

[muckmaw]

Don't make me use the Super Soaker!

[SOB]

Originally posted by Fishu
So.. how many years till US will begin torture of  their own citizens, when chasing big criminals, in order to protect the peace loving americans from criminals?
Thats a scarier thought.. and it isn't an impossible scenario to happen in the future!

LOL, you really are a paranoid wacko, are you?

[Fishu]

Originally posted by SOB
LOL, you really are a paranoid wacko, are you?

Well.. so they told me when I were speculating prisoner abuse issues.
..and whats happened in abu ghraib, guantamo and seemingly in few other prisoner camps?

Theres already Patriot act, which was passed in a record time during the confusion.
Not like it would condone torturing or like, but it has few other aspects which you before wouldn't have thought to have had any chances to get into the law.
A minor example...

and if you read carefully, I'm not telling this would happen, I'm just warning it can be a possible scenario in the future, even as unlikely as it sounds.
If you condone prisoner abuse, then you're one step closer to doing the same with criminals.

[Staga]

Yes; I believe this video is much easier to watch

[Dune]

Criminals in the US = Covered by Constitution.

Criminals/Terrorists in Iraq = Not covered by the Constitution.

[montag]

Rumsfeld said it was not torture so thats that. Lets move on and stop with the lies.

[Fishu]

Originally posted by Dune
Criminals in the US = Covered by Constitution.

Criminals/Terrorists in Iraq = Not covered by the Constitution.

Criminals in Iraq are covered in the international treaties or whatever and some of them with geneva convention

However Bush administration has been very keen to try and abuse any and all possible loopholes in the laws.
They seem to think there will be only negative impact on their administration if they break the laws directly. Rather stupid on a long run... besides loosing all the credibility, there will be other impacts as well...

So how can you be sure constitution in the future will help US criminals any better?
Patriot act goes for a very good example of getting closer to breaking apart the constitution.
Slowly step by step it could be possible to weaken the constitution and on a long run it could result in abuses.. well.. perhaps not then anymore known as abuses, but by todays stantards.

It has happened before in the history, several times.
Like they say.. history has a tendency of repeating itself.

It could happen in any country.
All it needs is favorable conditions and people in power who have the desire to manipulate people in order to achieve their objectives.

[Staga]

Yep and some people are just happy when they find a charismatic leader who leads them thru hard times to greater, more safe new world... SIEG HE... errrr....  oops.


Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!

[GRUNHERZ]

Fishu and Staga just remember John Ashscroft is watching this thread.