Where are the pictures of atrocities comitted against our POW's last year?

[Infantry Grunt 1968-69]

Does anyone have the pictures that were posted last year when our soldiers were killed and desecrated? Also, the pictures of the four civilians killed last month.

[McGruff]

Here's a set I found by some unknown freeper.

Time for action.

[netmilsmom]

Michael Savage has them on his website.

[WHBates]

I don't have them but your point is well taken. How abhorred was the Muslim street when the press was plastering those pictures all over the place? In fact I heard nothing from our press at any level close to what we are seeing now about this situation.

[talleyman]

I am sick to death with the hate-America crowd's phony outrage.

[WHBates]

In fact after looking at the pictures (posted in message 2) maybe we should set a few examples of how rough thing can get? I know as a nation we wouldn't condone it but the proportional response in the press makes you sick.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

You know, it makes me think that the alleged photos of Iraq POW's playing blind mans bluff should be stopped.

We should play with them like they play with us. It may be the only thing they'll understand.

It's not arabs, it's not muslims. It's not even Islamics.

It's the terrorists, no matter where they come from.

[McGruff]

[M1Tanker]

Odd, isn't it? The level of "revulsion" in the world to the acts of a few out-of-control US soldiers. I will not mitigate their crimes: I expect, after a proper investigation, the offending soldiers will be sent to prison for a VERY long time. I hold them in contempt and disgust, bottom line. But that is the difference, we punish these criminals, our enemies do not.

That said, I am wondering where the world's "revulsion" was during 9-11 when Arabs and Palastinians were dancing in the streets. I wonder where it was when our soldiers were dragged throught the streets in Somalia. I am wondering where it is every time a homicide bomber attacks women and children in Isreal. Where was it when 4 civilians were mutilated, burned and hung in Iraq? Where was it when Arabic terrorists tried to kill 80,000 in Jordan last month?

So excuse me if I can't show the "universal revulsion" the world socialists, tyrants, terrorists and leftists show now, but seem to forget about when the atrocities happen to Americans or Isrealies.

That said, I will search for pics when I get more time.

[WestCoastGal]

Where were the pictures of the burned bodies in Fallujah hanging from the bridge. I personally am getting tired of seeing the naked Iraqis on the news every half hour!!!!!!

Here is an article where the media agonized over whether to show the bridge pictures or not. They, however, have no trouble showing the prison pictures over and over and over again. I had to turn off the news, I can't stand it anymore. They have overdone this whole story. Let the military take care of those few who did this and be done with it!!!!!!!!!

From a Fallujah bridge to York
DENNIS HETZEL
Sunday, April 4, 2004


It is 10:55 a.m. on Wednesday, and I am staring at an photograph of smiling Iraqis chanting anti-American slogans. In the background, I see two charred bodies hanging from the steel girders of a bridge that crosses the Euphrates River. These civilian contractors were strung up after their bodies were taken from a burned SUV and dragged through the streets of Fallujah.
I have just finished talking to Visual Editor Christopher Glass, asking him to print out the AP photos of this horrific incident to take to our daily, 11 a.m. news meeting.

“We need to start thinking about how we want to handle the photos of this incident in tomorrow’s paper, starting with whether we use them at all,” I had told Chris.

The looming decision reminds me of similar situations involving Somalia, where an American soldier was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, and the photos of Saddam’s dead sons. It is the place where our responsibility to show the world as it is, not as I wish it was, skirts the boundary of good taste. It is the place where frustrated editors scratch their heads at times about a public that can watch autopsies on “CSI” every Thursday night but will blame us for showing the harsher sides of reality.

That boundary line gets blurry at times. Still, like the famous Supreme Court statement on obscenity, sometimes I know what’s over the line when I see it. For example, Chris shows me one photograph that I know we will not publish. It’s simply too graphic – a photo of a charred body with arms locked into place in front of the burning SUV.

My mind begins to frame the two sides of whether to publish the bridge photo.

Don’t print it. It’s too graphic and too emotional for too many of our readers. You can describe the events in the photo in text. There are other photos that capture the scene.

Print it. The purpose of photojournalism is to tell the visual side of a story, and this photo is extremely powerful. This one frame captures the essence of what happened — the cheering crowd and the charred bodies, which are neither identifiable nor dominant in the photo.

Of course, I also know that if we decide the photo should be published, we have to make several other decisions. Coincidentally, I had just covered that with new staff members on Monday during a training session on journalism ethics, part of what we call “YDR University.” The questions we would answer determine the tone and impact of any photo we publish:

· Does it run on the front page or inside the paper? If we publish it inside, do we alert readers with an editor’s note on the front page?

· Does it run dominant on a page or smaller?

· Does it run color or black and white?

At the 11 a.m. meeting, I start the thought process by asking the assembled editors to look at the photos. We agree we’ll decide what to do at our 3:30 p.m. meeting. That’s where we make specific decisions for the next day’s paper, particularly about what goes on the front page.

After the meeting, I show the photos to Donna Mandl, our executive assistant, and Lori Gingerich, staff accountant. They aren’t journalists so it seems to me that their reactions should mirror the feelings of many readers. I ask them to look at the bridge photo and tell me how they’d feel if they saw it in the paper Thursday morning. They agree that it’s terrible to look at, but they both understand the journalistic merit of publishing it.

Of course, the 100,000 or so folks who read our paper each day don’t have me standing next to them when they see such things.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the sends a story that says the four people who died in the SUV attack were Americans. So, now we know that those are American bodies hanging from that bridge. This makes the photo both more newsworthy and more gut-wrenching for our readers.

At the 3:30 news meeting, Chris recommends that we publish the bridge photo, but that we not use it on the front page or in color. Managing Editor Jim McClure cautions not to play the photo too big. News Editor Randy Parker says he would use the photo on the front page because it tells the story so powerfully. I’m too uncomfortable with it being on the front page.

We go with Chris’ recommendation. Everyone agrees that some of the other AP photos should not be published because not only are they more graphic, they don’t convey the incident as clearly.

And everyone agrees I should write an editor’s note for the front page warning readers that the photo is in the paper.

Now it is late in the day Wednesday. I write the editor’s note and go home.

I feel a modest sense of peace that we made the best decision we could in a world so awry that we have to make decisions such as this. It’s just going to take some time to get the charred bodies out of my mind.

Maybe that’s the point.

http://ydr.com/story/editor/20794/

[monkeywrench]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/873321/posts?q=1&&page=1

[McGruff]

Here's one from Drudge 's site.

[benson106]

This is why what happened to the iraqi prisoners is such a joke. The liberals in this country have no idea what is going on in the world.

Don't these tree-huggers realize that these people hate americans just because they are americans.

These reports of abuse toward iraqi pow's enrages me because our troops are fighting the battle everyday. How would they like to live every second of every day wondering if they are going to die around the next corner.

What I also don't understand is, we have gone into Iraq and liberated oppression, mostly on women and minorities, shouldn't the women and minorities in this country be rejoicing that the people of Iraq will now enjoy freedom, much like our women and minorities have here.

God Bless America

[MississippiMud]

No arab muslim cares when Americans are tortured or killed, just the opposite, they are usually cheering. When an American dies, it is no big deal, if we kill 3 sand fleas, we are a mass murdering Nation. So much for the arab muslim mindset.

[Peter Libra]

I think it might be appropriate to indicate fairly well documented accounts of atrocities by UNITED NATIONS TROOPS. I used Google to good effect. There are a number of web sites. I simply typed in UN atrocities.

I remember, to my chagrin the four Somalis murdered by the Canadian Airborne Regiment in 1993. A 16 year old youth was burnt with ciggarette butts and killed- for thieving. Photographs showed troops leering and posing with the body. A well controlled press gave no cess to the Canadian Government though. A Colonel Seward was only discharged the service- he told his men to "rough up thieves". The poor guy that got five years, was the least responsible. (Aint that the usual case?). The Corporal in charge, hanged himself. He was awaiting trial and was brain damaged, when they saved him. No charges.

The Belgian UN troops did far, far worse. Nasty though this business is- the UN made these people look like sunday school kids.

[WHBates]

Actually it isn't the Arab/Muslim mindset that I care about. The resolve that will see us through this is right here at home. It is our press (the western press in general) that is the problem, the Arab press is doing what they always do.

[McGruff]

[oyez]

What about the Americans the were tortured by the events of 9-11?

[WHBates]

I guess if a "mob" does it, it just doesn't count. We just have to understand.