# Pat Boone is pissed at 60 Minutes for Abu Ghraib **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 9, 2004, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399 "2004-06-09T02:56:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/61 "2004-06-10T12:06:18Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > Nobody cares since this thread has run out of steam, and nobody care would anyway, but here’s what I think. Interesting pun. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/62 "2004-06-17T14:50:29Z")
I’m going to resurrect this discussion, mistake though it may be. If it was so important for the American people to see the abuses at the prison at Abu Ghraib, then it would be useful for the public to see these things in context. Ted Kennedy made a crack about Saddam’s torture chamber’s being reopened under new management. This was a pretty glib line. I wonder if he would have made it if a video, [played at a news conference on Capitol Hill by senators of both parties,](http://santorum.senate.gov/pressreleases/record.cfm?id=222122) was shown on the nightly news. As it is, it wasn’t. In fact, it hasn’t even been mentioned in the mainstream press at all, apart from one mention [in this opinion piece in the New York Post.](http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/23065.htm) The tortures shown in this video go far beyond anything seen committed be Americans at the prison. A description of the video can be found here, along with some other discussion of the issues surrounding the story. [WARNING - THIS DESCRIPTION IS VERY GRAPHIC](http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/schulz200406170846.asp) Now, I have to ask. How can this video be suppressed in the news, if the Abu Ghraib pictures were such a hot story? And before anyone replies that the video can’t be shown due to its shocking nature, keep in mind that the mere existence of this video, and others like it, hasn’t been covered as a news story at all. Not on TV, not in print. [This is a Google News search indicating an absence of mainstream coverage of this video.](http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=torture+video+abu+ghraib&start=0&sa=N) I realize it’s kinda old news that Saddam tortured people. But the extent of his brutality hasn’t been fully contextualized, so videos like this should be newsworthy when they turn up. The fact that they are ignored demonstrates either blistering incompetence in the media, or willful or unconscious bias. There can’t really be any other explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/63 "2004-06-17T15:17:20Z")
What the fuck does Saddam Hussein have to do with the fucking topic? Just in case you forgot, the victims at Abu Ghraib were INNOCENT CIVILIANS ARRESTED BY MISTAKE. They had fuck all to do with any abuses by Saddam Hussein. Your videos mitigate nothing. They’re completely irrelevant. You might as well post footage from Aushcwitz. Evil? Yes, but so what? It has nothing the fuck to do with OUR crimes. Ted Kennedy was right, btw. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/64 "2004-06-17T15:23:10Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Now, I have to ask. How can this video be suppressed in the news, if the Abu Ghraib pictures were such a hot story? And before anyone replies that the video can’t be shown due to its shocking nature, keep in mind that the mere existence of this video, and others like it, hasn’t been covered as a news story at all. Not on TV, not in print. Perhaps under the rock you call your upstairs neighbor there has been no news of this, but I read about this days ago in the NY Post. I’ve also seen it mentioned in several other places. The crux of the problem is that people know SH was a murdering asshole. Saying that we’re not \*as bad as \*Saddam Hussein is not a standard that is going to win hearts and minds over there. We need to win the PR war, we need to truly convince these people that we are there to help them. Sure, shoving a glowstick up someone’s ass is not as bad as chopping their hands off, but c’mon, it’s still pretty fucking bad. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/65 "2004-06-17T16:09:03Z")
**Mr. Moto** - any response to **bnorton** ’s cite that CBS broke the story when it did because the photos were already circulating on the Web? It’s silly to accuse CBS of jeopardizing the lives of servicemen and women by getting the photos into the news just days ahead of when we would have been tripping all over them anyway. They broke the story because _some_ news operation would have been the first to break the story in the mainstream media, and if they’d waited another week, it probably wouldn’t have been them. Anyway, please [compare the number of American or Coalition forces killed in Iraq](http://www.icasualties.org/oif/) in April (the month before the pix came out) and May (the month after). Which do you think endangered our troops more, CBS’ showing the photos, or the military’s (or was it the White House’s) decision to ‘get tough’ in Fallujah (a decision that predated and _led to_ the deaths of the four security contractors, btw) and with al-Sadr? (We’ve gained _so much_ from that decision, too. :rolleyes: ) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/66 "2004-06-17T16:58:41Z")
I don’t think measuring our enemy’s hatred by one month’s difference in casualties is appropriate, do you? I mentioned that the video was mentioned in the Post. It has been mentioned in some other sites as well. But it has not been mentioned _at all_ by any of the major TV networks or any other major newspaper, even as a small article. Sure, we knew Saddam was bad. But I don’t think people have any real idea of the scope of his crimes. This is hardly a new phenomenon, BTW. The scope of the depravity of despots like Hitler, and Stalin, and Pol Pot, weren’t fully grasped by journalists at the time. It took some historical perspective to see just how bad these men were. However, journalists at the time for the most part didn’t willfully ignore evidence when it came their way. As for CBS, I have stated numerous times that the blame for what happened at the prison rests on the soldiers there, and anyone else who may have abetted the abuse. I am firmly behind reporting the story in its entirety, including the fact that there exist pictures documenting the abuse. I don’t believe, though, that giving wider dissemination to the pictures was necessarily a correct decision, especially in a wartime situation. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/67 "2004-06-17T17:00:28Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > Perhaps under the rock you call your upstairs neighbor there has been no news of this, but I read about this days ago in the NY Post. I’ve also seen it mentioned in several other places. I’m pretty sure I read this in the Washington Post as well, though I think it was more than “days ago.” It was right around the time where someone commented that the Abu Garade prisoner abuse photos were simply the “tip of the iceberg”. IIRC, they gathered a bunch of CongressCritters into a large room somewhere, then spent several hours showing hundreds of “even more explicit” photos and videos of the abuse. If this was a well-kept secret, they sure screwed it up. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/68 "2004-06-17T17:09:33Z")
With all due respect **rjung** cite? I couldnt find anything in the Post about it. And I looked. The explicit pics you refer to were of American abuses, not the video to which I refer. ---
**Author:** ![GLWasteful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f05b48/32.png) [@GLWasteful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GLWasteful)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/69 "2004-06-17T17:47:33Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Sure, we knew Saddam was bad. But I don’t think people have any real idea of the scope of his crimes. Then you’ve not been paying much attention. > [@](#): > > However, journalists at the time for the most part didn’t willfully ignore evidence when it came their way. Well, I hesitate to say that you’ve not been paying much attention, but I was under the impression that the existence of the camps was known by the media of the day, and they didn’t disseminate the information for any number of reasons. > [@](#): > > As for CBS, I have stated numerous times that the blame for what happened at the prison rests on the soldiers there, and anyone else who may have abetted the abuse. I am firmly behind reporting the story in its entirety, including the fact that there exist pictures documenting the abuse. I don’t believe, though, that giving wider dissemination to the pictures was necessarily a correct decision, especially in a wartime situation. So, you say that it was a good idea to report the story, including existence of pictures; but that allowing said pictures to be seen was bad. Because, you know, we’re at war. That about cover it? And Santorum’s statement that, “U.S. forces entered Iraq over a year ago to liberate a nation from an inhumane and evil regime.” Is absolute crap. US forces entered Iraq because Bush _fils_ said that Hussein was capable of destroying a corner of the world with his WMDs. This despite the fact that Iraq had been eking by under sanctions for over a decade. It wasn’t until well afterward that US forces were said to have gone in to liberate a freedom loving people. Waste ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/70 "2004-06-17T17:48:57Z")
Ah, I stand corrected **RJ**. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/71 "2004-06-17T18:32:01Z")
The case for the importance of actually seeing the pictures os opposed to just reading accounts of abuse has been made by [Donald Rumsfeld himself](http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact): > [@](#): > > One puzzling aspect of Rumsfeld’s account of his initial reaction to news of the Abu Ghraib investigation was his lack of alarm and lack of curiosity. One factor may have been recent history: there had been many previous complaints of prisoner abuse from organization like Human Rights Watch and the International Red Cross, and the Pentagon had weathered them with ease. Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had not been provided with details of alleged abuses until late March, when he read the specific charges. \*\*“You read it, as I say, it’s one thing. You see these photographs and it’s just unbelievable. . . . It wasn’t three-dimensional. It wasn’t video. It wasn’t color. It was quite a different thing.” \*\* > [@Mr. Moto](#): > > I mentioned that the video was mentioned in the Post. It has been mentioned in some other sites as well. But it has not been mentioned at all by any of the major TV networks or any other major newspaper, even as a small article. Keep in mind that the media, even the mainstream media, is not some monolithic entity. When a story is not covered by mainstream conservative outlets like Fox News or The Wall Street Journal then you can’t make “the liberal media bias” argument. Something else must be driving the decision not to cover the story. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/72 "2004-06-17T19:43:08Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > With all due respect **rjung** cite? I couldnt find anything in the Post about it. And I looked. > > The explicit pics you refer to were of American abuses, not the video to which I refer. Ah, my mistake, then. This was easier in the old days, when the United States didn’t _have_ any torture videos of its own to muddle the issue. In any event, I don’t think there’s any dispute that the terrorists are Horribly Evil People We Don’t Want To Emulate™; hearing that they’re torturing folks and doing inhuman things is up there with expecting the sun to rise in the East, y’know? In contrast, the big reason the Abu Garade photos are big news is because the U.S. isn’t _supposed_ to descend to that level – and saying “Hey, our stuff wasn’t as bad as their stuff” completely misses the point. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/73 "2004-06-18T11:26:17Z")
Certainly. The impact of the pictures cannot be denied. Their importance to the DOD investigation and the court martial cannot be denied, also. Their impact on the American people certainly cannot be denied. So, given all of that, saying that these photographs would have no impact on the people we’re fighting would be an act of stunning denial. Again, I have never argued for censorship here, only for editorial judgement. Which has been lacking on the Iraq issue, right across the spectrum, since it is such a sensational story. It’s a little disingenuous, too, for CNN’s Aaron Brown to so nobly say, “You don’t appreciate what happened in that prison until you see it.” After all, CNN kept quiet on so many damaging stories, and ran their feeds past Saddam’s censors, as a condition for keeping their Baghdad bureau open. CNN would never have shown any abuses in the Saddam Hussein era after 1991. It would have cost them too much money. ---
**Author:** ![GLWasteful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f05b48/32.png) [@GLWasteful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GLWasteful)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399/74 "2004-06-18T14:28:52Z")
Heh. “Editorial Judgment” What do you think that editors have been doing? Passing the buck onto the copy boy? And I get the impression that you wouldn’t complain if the party in the Oval Office had an upper case D after his name. As you note, Iraqle is a sensational story. But you think that pursuing this sensational story shouldn’t be done because it’ll bring about negative consequences for soldiers. Well, guess what? Going into Iraq _sans_ exit strategy was and is going to bring about negative consequences for soldiers. Going into Iraq with a pitifully inadequate force (so that Rumsfeld could demonstrate that the US could kick twice as much ass with half the personnel) has and is going to have an impact. And if you take a quick peek, you’ll see whether or not that impact is positive or negative. Or do you think that the media ought to shut the hell up and not report on any of these things, either? See, you can’t pompously intone that terrible things happened, and that these photos (of Lusty Lynndie England and the shrunken penises of Abu Ghraib) show the levels of depravity that people sunk to, but that they should not be seen by the American populace because it will make people in Iraq mad. Particularly when Iraq already had more than a couple of people who were pissed as hell at the US. As I recall, RPGs were launched at the prison before this story came out, and everyone was wondering why in hell forces would try to take out a prison filled with what we in the US were told were their terroristic compatriots. Of course, after finding out that most of the people in Abu Ghraib were completely and totally innocent of anything but walking while Arab, then the stories that inmates were desirous of dying rather than face others made a helluva lot of sense. And fates forfend that CNN not consign any of their employees to death. I mean, really! As if it were all about money! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-boone-is-pissed-at-60-minutes-for-abu-ghraib/249399.md?page=3)