# Did 60 Minutes Act Unconscionably? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 6, 2004, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799 "2004-05-06T06:42:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2004, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/41 "2004-05-06T21:11:48Z")
Threadnapping: What is a Buttmuffin ? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![cichlidiot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f9b8f/32.png) [@cichlidiot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cichlidiot)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/42 "2004-05-06T21:56:13Z")
> [@hildea](#): > > So, even if it _had_ been possible to keep this hidden (and I agree that it wasn’t), publishing the photographs was the right thing to do. Now, at least, some of the abuses by coalition soldiers will stop. For a while. At Abu Ghraib. I agree with this. I think the amount of scrutiny placed upon the chain of command, the disbelief expressed at being unaware of prisoner treatment protocol under the Geneva Convention, and the general public disgust will speed changes in a way they might not have had the photos not been published. I think some aspects of it look counterproductive, but I think the long term will outweigh that. ---
**Author:** ![cmason32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@cmason32](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmason32)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/43 "2004-05-06T22:04:35Z")
What interests me most about this discussion is that it indicates just how much the country has changed in the last ten years. No one bothered to consider the political consequences of showing the american soldiers being dragged in the streets in Somalia. And yet now people question whether it was even appropriate to read the names of soldiers who died in Iraq on Nightline. In fact, one media company refused to air the show. The question is no longer whether we are deserving of the truth but rather whether the broadcast of a news item comforts the enemy. It appears to me that once we accept the notion that some truths are unacceptable to show because of the political consequences, we have begun to undermine the democratic process. Rather than serving as a watchdog, the press instead serves to protect the interests of the government. If this is the case, how do we know whether the government is actually serving in our best interest? And at what point do the news broadcasts become propaganda machines for the ruling party? I acknowledge that the press is fickle and can turn on any group in heartbeat. Nonetheless, we are left with a press that considers the political consequences of a story before it values its newsworthiness. To some people, that may be more important. I, however, would rather have a news media that reports the truth, no matter how ugly it might be. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2004, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/44 "2004-05-06T22:06:15Z")
Let me try to make a point here. The one thing a commander of soldiers fears and, if he is any good at all, strives to prevent is the moment his disciplined, trained soldiers cease to be a military organization and become an armed mob. That is true whether the commander leads a rifle team or commands a theater of operations. It is all the worse when subordinate commanders are the leaders of the mob. That is precisely what happened in Vietnam at MiLei – a whole battalion turned into an armed mob free of the restraint of discipline or law or simple humanity. On a lesser scale that is what happened in the Iraqi prison. It is a shameful thing and in hind sight when the passion of the moment passes, the participants know that; that is precisely why the participants don’t talk about it and try to keep it secret. While commanders fear the loss of control, what they abhor is the disclosure of a loss of control that they have tried to keep secret. The last response is to such a disclosure is to acknowledge that their people have run amuck and that they tried to keep a lid on it. Their first response is to deny that it ever happened, followed by an effort to rationalize the havoc as a good thing, followed by attacking the guy who let the word out, followed by high minded avowals to see to it that the perpetrators are properly exposed and punished, followed by frantic, and often silly, effort to prevent the loss of control from happening again. There are people who never get beyond the denial and rationalization stage (sound familiar?). We are seeing the same pattern in the Iraqi prison disaster that we saw in the MiLei atrocity. All we are missing to this date is the attempt to turn the immediate perpetrator into a hero _a’la_ Rusty Cally, and the white wash of the next command level _a’la_ Captain Medina. It will happen. It will start with Ollie North and some sort of balderdash “support the troops” campaign, and our friend **New Iskander** will follow that parade with a scoop shovel. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2004, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/45 "2004-05-06T22:47:48Z")
> [@Spavined Gelding](#): > > We are seeing the same pattern in the Iraqi prison disaster that we saw in the MiLei atrocity. All we are missing to this date is the attempt to turn the immediate perpetrator into a hero a’la Rusty Cally A pointless hijack (but I started the thread so I can do that): I used to do work for a library in Columbus, GA. I ate quite often at a local Waffle House and I noticed that almost everytime I was in there I saw the same portly 50-60ish fellow who sat alone saying nothing and always, regardless of the weather carrying an umbrella. I assumed he was a harmless aging eccentric. I later learned from one of the staff that the man is William Calley. He owns a pawn shop in the area and he carries the umbrella to open in the event of photographers or news crews who still occasionally try to interview him. Backing up a few threads, _buttmuffin_ is an odd endearment used by an old flamingly gay friend-of-a-friend of mine. I could never quite determine if it’s derogatory or not, so it must not be. (The interesting thing about the old man: he is the brother & business manager of an ultra-conservative former governor of Alabama and looks enough like him to be his twin, so hearing the words “that is one sweet lookin’ piece of boy p\*ssy over theah” come from him was rather like hearing a Pat Robertson lookalike discuss the merits of Ricky Martin’s bon-bon.) ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/46 "2004-05-06T22:50:55Z")
Because of the power of television, people forget that _60 Minutes 2_ was NOT the only news organization to have the photos. _The New Yorker_ magazine also had them. And those are just the two I know of. So, there’s no point in arguing that if the photos hadn’t been shown on TV, they wouldn’t have gotten out. And while I can’t argue my expertise in foreign policy, I have spent more than 20 years in public relations. I can tell you one cardinal rule: when you know bad news is coming, get out in front of it. In this case, the Army asked, and CBS agreed, to sit on the story for two weeks. And what happened when the story finally ran? We were treated to a host of official spokespersons who hadn’t seen the report and who wouldn’t comment on it because an investigation was ongoing. We were treated to the sight of the President of the United States being caught totally off-guard and (as of this afternoon) publicly acknowledging that he had reprimanded the Secretary of Defense. If the Army, the Pentagon, the Department of Defense, the White House - _anyone_ - had taken that two weeks to brief everyone and prepare a response and gone on 60 Minutes to say the President was shocked, the Secretary of Defense was shocked and the Army had been conducting its own investigation for weeks (and all of this is apparently true) the entire command structure wouldn’t have been caught with its pants down, and this thread would never have been started. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/47 "2004-05-06T22:58:11Z")
> [@](#): > > If the Army, the Pentagon, the Department of Defense, the White House - anyone - had taken that two weeks to brief everyone and prepare a response and gone on 60 Minutes to say the President was shocked, the Secretary of Defense was shocked and the Army had been conducting its own investigation for weeks (and all of this is apparently true) the entire command structure wouldn’t have been caught with its pants down, and this thread would never have been started. This is taking at face value their shock and surprise at face value. Just like the Dick Clarke book, they had ample warning time that this would become a major issue, a big PR deal. So how seriously should we take their protestations? Remember, Myers, Rumsfeld, and Bush all claimed not to have even read the core report several days AFTER the story broke. Bush didn’t even seem to know that there had been an investigation. This begs the question of who really knew what, when, public statements aside. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/48 "2004-05-07T00:09:52Z")
> [@wisernow](#): > > It is perfectly fine and right to believe in the freedom of the press but like anything else it cannot be taken as absolute. If that freedom leads to grave danger and is likely to be catastrophic to society at large, and if suppression of that freedom can avoid that, the latter is obviously the option to choose. Of course, the correction of mistakes and delivering punishment commensurate with the crime, to the erring people should be pursued simultaneously, and proper checks and procedures should be ensured that never ever can something like this be repeated. I’m sorry but I think this is a rationalization used to protect and maintain the _staus quo_ and those who produced it, and to allow them to escape the consequences of bad management. I think our troops are no more endangered by the revelation of prisoner abuse than they were by the original decision to insert them into a preemtive war based on half-truths at best. Actual endangerment of troops is well covered by existing laws such as prohibitions on revealing troop and ship movements in wartime. Adding either a self- or government-imposed censorship on such things as a complete loss of control, or alternatively winking at gross violations of military good order and discipline, on the part of command is destructive and not supportive of the national interest. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/49 "2004-05-07T00:49:09Z")
Hmmm: could this explain why the issue wasn’t taken more seriously in the Bush administration, at least until the story hit the media? [http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week\_2004\_05\_02.php#002924](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_05_02.php#002924) > [@](#): > > We can contribute a second hand anecdote to newspaper stories on rising concern, last year, from Secretary of State Powell and Deputy Secretary Armitage about Administration attitudes and the risks they might entail: according to eye witnesses to debate at the highest levels of the Administration…the highest levels… **whenever Powell or Armitage sought to question prisoner treatment issues, they were forced to endure what our source characterizes as "around the table, coarse, vulgar, frat-boy bully remarks about what these tough guys would do if THEY ever got their hands on prisoners…"** > > – let’s be clear: our source is not alleging “orders” from the White House. Our source is pointing out that, as we said in the Summary, a fish rots from its head. The atmosphere created by Rumsfeld’s controversial decisions was apparently aided and abetted by his colleagues in their callous disregard for the implications of the then-developing situation, and by **their ridicule of the only combat veterans at the top of this Administration.** ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/50 "2004-05-07T00:54:49Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > This is taking at face value their shock and surprise at face value. Just like the Dick Clarke book, they had ample warning time that this would become a major issue, a big PR deal. So how seriously should we take their protestations? Remember, Myers, Rumsfeld, and Bush all claimed not to have even read the core report several days AFTER the story broke. Bush didn’t even seem to know that there had been an investigation. This begs the question of who really knew what, when, public statements aside. I’ve been wondering if all day if maybe Bush didn’t know months ago. Now he can claim he had no idea and _Rumsfield_ knew and never told him! Isn’t that awful! Bush is an innocent victim in all of this. A man struggling to do the right thing, but being kept in the dark by his most trusted advisors. A man he thought he could trust. Isn’t that tragic? Don’t you feel sorry for him? So we’ll all understand if Rummy has to go away now and hopefully we can put all of this behind us and forget it ever happened. Who likes pie? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/51 "2004-05-07T01:04:35Z")
> [@Jonathan Chance](#): > > At a minimum I can vote their commanders out of office and expect the soldiers themselves to be tried or handed over to the Hague. They couldn’t be tried at The Hague. The court isn’t competent since Irak isn’t a signatory of the treaty. Besides, even if it was competent, it would be only subsidiary to a trial in the USA (if they weren’t tried in the USA at all or if they had been tried but the court found it was a mock trial). Such a thing could only happen if a special court for war crimes in Irak was insituted, similar to the courts for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/52 "2004-05-07T01:18:47Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > I’ve been wondering if all day if maybe Bush didn’t know months ago. Now he can claim he had no idea and _Rumsfield_ knew and never told him! Isn’t that awful! Bush is an innocent victim in all of this. A man struggling to do the right thing, but being kept in the dark by his most trusted advisors. A man he thought he could trust. Isn’t that tragic? Don’t you feel sorry for him? So we’ll all understand if Rummy has to go away now and hopefully we can put all of this behind us and forget it ever happened. Who likes pie? Note also that Bush’s supposed chastizing of Rumsfeld happened FIVE DAYS after the story broke, and after Bush and Rumsfeld had talked several other times. Heck, he went to a party at Rumsfeld’s house on April 30th, the day he and his PS had both commented on the photos. ---
**Author:** ![iamme99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/57b2e6/32.png) [@iamme99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamme99)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/53 "2004-05-07T02:03:10Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > I would have squelched it. All involved US soldiers would have been moved to different locations, given very dangerous missions or retired from active service. All available copies of the pictures would be destroyed, a policy of frightening prisoners with faked pictures would be created, with the faked pictures being created similar to the real pictures. That would allow any future surfacing of missed pictures to be easily shown to be fakes. The Red Cross issues with the running of the Prison would be used as justification for the complete reorganisation of the prison system in Iraq and for the heads that rolled from the previous prison administration. I would also do everything possible to silence any Iraqis Identifiable from the images. > Then again I would also have planted evidence of WMD’s in Iraq within the first 48hours of taking over the capital city. > This is immoral, I believe was is immoral. I think once the decision to go to war is taken, it is the responsibility of those with authority to ensure that the war is finished as quickly as possible with minimum casualties, and minimum repercussions, even if that requires missinformation and immoral actions. Wow! I do hope you never get elected to a position of real power… ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/54 "2004-05-07T06:10:43Z")
Some more developements: > [@](#): > > [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6870-2004May6.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6870-2004May6.html) > > According to these interviews, Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions as early as last fall – both in one-on-one meetings with Rumsfeld and other administration leaders, and in group meetings with the president’s inner circle on national security. Officials described Bremer as “kicking and screaming” about the need to release thousands of uncharged prisoners and improve conditions for those who remained. Joshua Marshall also points out that if we want to blame military intelligence, then the only real figure in authority over that is Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. > [@](#): > > [http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week\_2004\_05\_02.php#002926](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_05_02.php#002926) > Remember him? He’s the one who got in trouble last year for describing his battle with a Muslim Somali warlord by saying “I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol”, saying President Bush was chosen by God, and generally that the war on terror is an apocalyptic struggle between Christianity and Satan. > … > > In any case, I doubt very much that all this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into is attributable to this one man. But at what point in this scandal does someone ask whether some of this might have some connection to the fact that the guy running military intelligence believes the war on terror is a literal holy war pitting Christian America against Satan and his Muslim minions? ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/55 "2004-05-07T18:48:16Z")
> [@iamme99](#): > > Wow! I do hope you never get elected to a position of real power… **Bippy** was just doing some very cold-blooded _realpolitik_. It’s what Bush & Co have been trying to do, but they just lack the competence, apparently. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/56 "2004-05-07T19:23:27Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > Remember him? He’s the one who got in trouble last year for describing his battle with a Muslim Somali warlord by saying “I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol”, saying President Bush was chosen by God, and generally that the war on terror is an apocalyptic struggle between Christianity and Satan. If this is indeed the same guy responsible for those prisoner abuses, you can kiss any chance of seeing him punished goodbye – can’t jepoardize that Christian Fundamenalist voting bloc, y’know. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/57 "2004-05-07T19:49:41Z")
To respond to the OP, in a free society, the news media is supposed to get the facts out. If something happened that the government doesn’t want anyone to know about and should be stopped, that’s ESPECIALLY the sorts of things they need to cover. To even question if 60 Minutes might have done something wrong is just another case of wanting to blame the messenger. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2004, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799/58 "2004-05-07T19:50:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*“George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States, he was appointed by God.” > > “Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy. It is the principalities of darkness. It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy.” \* > > Boykin is the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence. [General Seeks ‘Satan’ Speech Probe](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/16/attack/main578471.shtml) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-60-minutes-act-unconscionably/243799.md?page=2)