I don’t know about rjung, but you’ve completely convinced me that this whole Abu Ghraib bugaboo is really just a tempest in a teapot. I mean, if the Times got something as critical as the deadline wrong, pretty much everything else they print is suspect, too.
Was I trying something? It seemed to me they were both criminal matters, but I seem to be wrong and said so.
Want or need to know is different than want or need to see…thats my personal opinion though. But again, I’ve already said I was wrong. Did you just want to keep pounding on me for fun?
-XT
It appears to me that the DoD is still trying to keep these videos from going public. The only difference is that they haven’t yet gone against a court order to do so. Are you okay with the government attempting to keep them from us?
Nice strawman. Got anything of substance to post?
Funny…the feeling is mutual.
I don’t know, since I haven’t seen their reason. But the statement that the Pentagon has “squelched” the release of this material is simply untrue. It’s still unlcear to me which Friday we’re talking about-- Friday last week, or this coming Friday. Assuming it’s the latter, I’m willing to wait until then before deciding whether or not the Pentagon is “squelching” anything. Is that unreasonable?
In addition to what others have already said, consider the radical shift in public opinion that resulted from the recent release of this bit of death, lies, and videotape.
Some people won’t believe it until they actually see it.
OK, tell me exactly what my strawman is.
Here’s yours:
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That I claimed the abu Graihb scandal was a tempest in a teapot.
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That I claimed everything the NYT reports is suspect.
It goes like this:
There is suspicion that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were of a scale far worse than currently believed. How bad? Dunno. If only, * if only* there were some means of verifying these charges, some sort of…I dunno…documentation, that the American public could access to set the record straight.
:smack:
Wait!! There is!!! However, it’s in the hands of the Pentagon, an organization which last I checked was ultimately answerable to the citizens of the United States (I know, I know…I’m naive-I blame it on all those Tom Clancy books). If it exonerates them or corroborates the “few bad apples” meme, why are they dragging their heels?
The OP’s assertion is that the Pentagon is stonewalling, witholding important information that several groups believe the American Public has a right see and judge. Your post pointed out that the article mistakenly stated the deadline , and asked that the OP reconsider his opinion. The actual date of the deadline is irrelevant, no matter how finely you want to split hairs. The actual date of the deadline does not address in any manner the meat of the issue; the Pentagon is refusing (up to now, granted) to divulge information which could shed new light on the scope of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. You’re comment addressed none of this.
You post was extremely, uh… terse. If I misinterpreted them, please, explain what exactly you meant. It was hard to read them as anything else but an attempt to downplay the gist of the topic at hand by focusing on minutiae.
The quote in the OP claimed that the Pentagon planned to not adhere to the judges order:
That’s incorrect. Our OP likes to quote left-wing blogs and wonders why the mainstream media isn’t lust like those blogs. I showed what happens when they act too quickly-- they end up issuing a retraction.
Nothing has been “squelched” yet. Nothing. If and when it is, I’ll join in the chorus to condemn the pentagon, as I have in the past relating to this very issue.
No, I had the same kind of thoughts. I know why they should be released and all. All the proper forms filled out, dotting your “t’s” and whatnot. I certainly agree with Cervaise.
Personally though, I’d be just fine with a description of what was contained. Having the video and photos released just seems needlessly…oogy and voyeuristic. It feels even worse when I think that when these are released, they will be on a loop on the news for the next two months. Major media feeding frenzy. :eek:
To summarize: I know that there is good cause to release the videos/photos and that they should be released. It just feels skeevy.
I am well aware of the OP’s leanings and posting style. Correction or not, I wouldn’t consider the New York Times a left-wing blog, nor would I consider Seymour Hirsch as anything but reputable, even if the cite is from last year (and reads like he’s on crank) The retraction concerns a piffle, a mere bagatelle, and does not repudiate the main issue, so your point is lost on me, I’m afraid.
You are, of course, technically correct that there is no “squelching” going on. I’d say we’re merely on the cusp of a “squelching;” maybe we can call it a “muffling,” a “slight attenuation of the facts”…“being economical with the truth,” perhaps. Me, I’d rather look at the forest than focus on a single leaf.
Look, I understand your exasperation with knee-jerk attacks on the Administration. However, I don’t see how a knee-jerk defense is any better. However, upon re-reading your last posts, it seems that your barbs are really aimed at the messenger, and not the message, so I’ll just butt out. rj’s a big boy, and can fend for himself.
From the second cite in the OP:
The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," [Hersh] told an ACLU convention last week.
Sweet Jesus.
I don’t know if it’s skeevy that I’m feeling. It’s the thought that the entire Middle East could blow up at the release of these videotapes. Apparently, Seymour Hersh feels the same way (from the same cite):
But Arabs now, moderate Arabs, Arabs that normally would be doing the kind of — as you know, the overwhelming, the vastly overwhelming percentage of moderate Arabs deplored what happened to this country on 9/11, as much as anybody here — but those Arabs we’ve lost. They see us as a sexually perverse society. The sexual stuff we did to them is seen as just perversion. And I think we’re going to have consequences for a long time to come. There’s an awful lot of respect in the Arab world for Americans, I travel there all the time, and American Jews even, it’s not, nobody’s going to — I wouldn’t walk around Baghdad — but most of the world is very safe. We have a lot of problems.
Maybe WE don’t need to see them, but it would make it impossible for the government to deny or cover up once it “hit the street”. The backlash would be “of biblical proportions”. But it looks more like they are afraid of the House, Senate, Supreme Court, FBI, etc getting them. If that happened, some very important heads might roll. Trials, courts martial, war crimes tribunals, that sort of thing. I wonder how many of these films and records will be “lost damaged or misplaced”.
Boy would I like to believe that, but I don’t see it happening. “The buck stops here” went out of vogue a long time ago. The people directly responsible for these acts (the rapists, etc.) will be punished. The higher ups that should’ve known what was going on will deny knowing anything.
Too late for that now. We know that the evidence exists. If it disappeared, it would be a sure sign of a cover up from higher up. They’ll just keep pursuing every legal means to prevent their release until people lose interest and the media gives up.
From your cite: “Defense Department lawyers met that deadline, but asked the court to block the public release of the materials.”
Still sounds like an attempt to squelch to me.
Afaik the Senate and Congress have already seen them…I’ve seen comments by several of them on it. So I don’t see that as an issue unless I’m mistaken. And so I don’t see them having the ability to really bury this issue…after all, presumably Democrats in the Congress and Senate won’t allow that to happen, and THEY have seen it. But I agree that they should be shown…I just feel a bit hinky about they showing scenes of rape and murder to the general public because it seems ripe for abuse of the already abused.
-XT
In order to understand better the situation : is there already an investigation? Are the courts waiting for the release of these documets so that a prosecution can be started?
I cited the NYT. The OP cited The New Standard.
If the retraction is “a mere piffle”, why is it the title of this thread? Again, nothing has been “squleched”. And when the photos become available, I fully expect them to be on the front page of every major news paper.
No…afaik this is for public consumption and has nothing to do with the trials currently underway to prosecute those that did this.
-XT