Whether the treatment of Saddam bothers you or not really isn’t the issue here.
The problem is that violating aspects of the Geneva Convention in this way, and in their earlier treatment of Saddam when he was first captured, gives the US no moral high ground from which to protest when other countries break the rules of the Convention. It also makes it more likely that other countries will break the rules, because they figure that if the US doesn’t adhere to the Convention (to which it is a signatory), then why should they?
And, in the long run, the people most likely to suffer from this are US soldiers captured in battle.
I wonder how the Fox News All-Stars will react if this picture stirs up the same riots and other shit as the Newsweek matter, considering that Rupert Murdoch owns Fox as well as The Sun and the N.Y. Post. If troops get injured or killed during protests related to this picture, will their moral outrage meter still go through the roof?
I just want to state that I refuse to click on any linkage related to the topic. I don’t want to subject my fragile little mind to the imagery of Saddam Hussein in his BVDs.
mhendo, I think you’ve put your finger on what bothers me, too.
Except for the comment about when SH was first captured. I think that a few simple pictures of the man being taken to prison were inevitable, and not so much a matter of trying to make SH a curiousity or to humiliate him, but an effort to help stem the insurgency by showing that the leader the insurgents were supposedly backing was no longer at large.
Or to put it more simply, there were other factors than simple humiliation or public curiousity that I believe would differentiate those pictures from this one.
I’ll admit, however, my recollection is only of a few pictures (Or perhaps only one) of the bearded SH being taken from his hiding place, then about a week later a more formal mug-shot showing a clean-shaven SH. If you know of other pictures that were released, I’m prepared to eat my words here.
Well, what i was thinking about specifically was the video released by the US government of Hussein undergoing a medical exam just after his capture. This video contained footage of him, unwashed and unshaven, being poked and prodded in his open mouth by the examining physician. I’m sure there was nothing untoward or problematic about the medical exam itself, but it seemed to me at the time (and to plenty of other people) that this particular footage was chosen specifically to humiliate him in front of the world. This footage came not too long after US officials had expressed disgust at Iraqi soldiers and insurgents parading captured US servicepeople in front of the cameras.
Given the prominent coverage this footage of Saddam received, i’m surprised to find that it’s actually quite difficult to track down either the footage or the stills on the internet. I did find it, though.
First, here’s a photo showing Paul Bremer sitting in front of a video of Saddam’s medical exam. The picture, though, doesn’t really give the full picture of what they showed.
If you want to see the video, go here and click on the second link down, entitled “Saddam Capture Video.” After you get past the commercial, you’ll see video of the hole where he was captured, followed by video of him undergoing the medical examination.
I want to point out that i don’t feel especially sorry for him. But, given the uproar by US authorities over humiliating videos of American prisoners released by the Iraqis during the war, i think it was rather hypocritical of them to release this particular piece of footage.
I’m sure we discussed this on the Boards when it happened, but i can’t find the thread right now.
Just curious, is there any reliable information that suggests that this picture was ractually eleased by an American soldier? I rather doubt that service members are the only ones who have access.
mhendo, I don’t doubt you. I just hadn’t remembered the videotape release.
sigh I’m sure that there could be some justification for it based upon further proof we have the real man. I don’t like it, even if it were true. And it would have been better done after accusations that the US had a double, not as a pre-emptive release.
Leaving aside the yuks, though, was anybody else bothered by this remark of the President’s?
I have no problem at all with describing the ideology of people who go around car-bombing innocent civilians as “barbaric and backwards”, mind you. But I think it was pretty damn clumsy to contrast it with the mindset of “many in the western world”.
What I think he meant, and what he should have said, is that it’s hard for many civilized people, western or eastern, to comprehend such barbarity and backwardness.
What he did say is easily open to misinterpretation as a comparison of “barbaric, backwards” non-westerners with enlightened, civilized westerners. Or worse, as a comparison of “barbaric, backwards” Islam with enlightened Christianity.
And does anybody doubt that fanatical Islamic-extremist leaders will gleefully leap on that misinterpretation in order to show their followers that the American President, in his “own words”, believes that their holy faith is an ideology too barbaric and backwards for westerners even to understand? Coming on top of the Qur’an-desecration agitation, that just puts the cherry on it.
First the post-9/11 “crusade” remark, then a couple other incidents I remember noticing at the time but can’t recall now, then this. For pity’s sake, can we get the President’s speechwriters to cool it on giving so much rhetorical ammunition to our enemies? :rolleyes:
I believe the president’s speechwriters are expressing exactly what he thinks. The current administration is indeed on a crusade to bring Christian enlightenment to the heathens.
