Category: Old Dish

“The reality of war in all its aspects needs to be reported and photographed. That is the patriotic, and necessary, thing to do in a democracy.” – Michael Getler, ombudsman of the Washington Post, May 9, 2004.

BBC WATCH: “His killers shouted “Allah is great” before holding what appeared to be a head up to the camera.” What appeared to be his head? Who do they think Zarqawi is: Penn or Teller?

OUR ALLIES, THE FRENCH: How Le Monde pictures America:

A STEP TOO FAR: You should check out Josh Marshall’s read of the ICRC report. As usual, he goes deeper than many others. He homes in on the critical passage:

“[M]ethods of physical and psychological coercion used by the interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information. Several military intelligence officers confirmed to ICRC that it was part of the military intelligence process to hold a person deprived of his liberty naked in a completely dark and empty cell for a prolonged period [,] to use inhumane and degrading treatment, including physical and psychological coercion, against persons deprived of their liberty to secure their cooperation.”

There is some troubling stuff in this report. Which is why it’s disappointing to read Marshall conclude the following:

The president’s stylized expressions of outrage and disgust are further revealed, I believe, as play-acting, like his feigned outrage over the outing of Valerie Plame by one of his top advisors and his pretended efforts to discover the culprits. More echoes of the search for the ‘real killers’.

Puh-lease. Trying to implicate the president himself in the Abu Ghraib horrors, trying to claim that his “disbelief and disgust” were somehow faked, seems to me to be excessive. To equate him with O.J. Simpson is a symptom of creeping Krugmanism.

“I’m probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. These prisoners, you know they’re not there for traffic violations. If they’re in cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they’re murderers, they’re terrorists, they’re insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and here we’re so concerned about the treatment of those individuals.” – Oklahoma senator, James Inhofe.

TOURIST HELL: The abuses of the INS – now called the BCIS – are legendary. But after 9/11, the experience of travelers to this country has gone from bad to worse. Here’s a classic story of the current mess. We really have to find a better balance between legitimate security concerns and pointless hassling of tourists and visitors.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “While I do not necessarily disagree with the release of all images of horror in order to put these abominations into some sort of comparable context, I am very much disturbed and worried by the effect of such acts and the motivations for your calling for this display of a violence-in-the-media free-for-all. It seems to me that we need to be careful of playing one-upsmanship with regard to violence. The murderers that beheaded Nick Berg, in the words of one of my hometown’s famous chefs, “kicked it up a notch” and used Abu Ghraib as the excuse for doing so. Now, in the wake of this unfathomable public decapitation horror, we will have U.S. citizens who were once queasy about Abu Ghraib, now frothing at the mouth and calling for the heads of Iraqi POWs on a platter – no matter their innocence or their harmlessness in captivity. It seems to me that the intention of your call to grisly voyeurism is not to create perspective to eliminate the need for atrocities and inhumanities, but rather to desensitize us to the “lesser” cruelties of Abu Ghraib to the point where we perhaps may justify and tolerate it with a wink and a nod — raising the bar for what is considered “acceptable” levels of abominations. Such grisly voyeurism demands the escalation of “bigger and better” brutality. And in the justifiable outrage you feel at the moment, I think you are unwittingly and unthinkingly walking this dangerous path.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

Here they are – absolutely horrifying beyond belief. My heart goes out to his family. We will now see what the mainstream media is made of. You think we will see “slideshows” of this?

You can see the first part of the video on this page. They leave out the actual murder.

The mainstream media is driving me bonkers. They keep referring to an al Qaeda website that carries the video of the beheading of Nick Berg. But they won’t tell us the name of the website! Not only will they not show what al Qaeda really is, they won’t even allow us to know how to find it. If anyone out there has a link, please let me know. We can get around the Washington Post, which has a “slideshow” of American abuse but won’t even provide a link to the horrors perpetrated by the enemy.

Here’s an email that strikes me as representative of most Americans:

“Andrew, you know I’ve never really liked this war and my disgust for George Bush and his planning for this war is immeasurable. However, I agree with your piece “Insane Spin.” I am still fuming about the beheading of Nick Berg, and people throughout the world need to understand the contrasting images of that situation and the Abu Ghraib prison fiasco. The world needs to understand that we will get to the bottom of this problem no matter where it leads. In contrast, al Qaeda and it’s murderers flaunt this type of cruelty because they believe it will make Americans run away. In fact, it pisses us off and this type of crap needs to shown to the American people so that we all know who we are dealing with.”

Let’s start an internet campaign to insist that the major media – including the New Yorker, the networks, the major newsweeklies, and every major paper – run a picture of Zarqawi holding up Nick Berg’s severed head. It’s time to release the Pearl video and stills too. Enough with the double standards. The media were absolutely right to show the abuse photos. But they are only part of the story. It’s about time the media gave us all of it, however harrowing it is.

Here’s a superb and measured analysis of where we now are in the war. I agree with almost all of it.

How are the media this stupid? AOL headlines: “Abuse Scandal’s Deadly Fallout” referring to the hideous beheading of Nick Berg. Or this idiocy: “American Beheaded for Abuse.” Do these people have no memories? This is al Qaeda. They beheaded Daniel Pearl long before the war in Iraq. They murdered thousands in New York City long before Saddam was removed from power. And they are as stupid as they are evil. Iraqis now have contrasting images. Do they want to be run by people who cut innocent people’s throats at will or by people who have removed a dictator and are investigating unethical abuse of prison inmates? Zarqawi has now done something for our morale as well as his. He has reminded us of the real enemy; and he has reminded the Iraqis. One simple question: will CNN now show these video stills? I know it must be torment for the family. But if we are in a propaganda war, as we are, we need to be as ruthless in publicizing the murders committed by our enemy as we are in exposing the abuses committed by our own.

What goes around …

Like the New York Times, they may now have an ombudsman. About bloody time.