# The worst Iraq photos yet... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 20, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105 "2004-05-20T02:37:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/21 "2004-05-20T10:40:13Z")
above was to Libertarian, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/22 "2004-05-20T10:47:27Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > As distressing as those photos are **Lib** , you should note that the Halabja gas may have been [Iranian in origin](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1779.htm). If you were suggesting that US abuses still don’t compare to Saddam’s, they might not be the best means of doing so. Yeah, Saddam certainly deserves benefit of the doubt. But I didn’t say anything about Saddam. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/23 "2004-05-20T10:54:28Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Yeah, Saddam certainly deserves benefit of the doubt. But I didn’t say anything about Saddam. You may not have, but the first picture on your cite was of Saddam. And I really have no idea what relevance that had to the particular subject of the OP. I could cite the story of My Lai, but that wouldn’t be relevant either. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/24 "2004-05-20T11:01:53Z")
Have someone show you how to use the scroll bar. Also, have them explain adjectival clauses like “Iraq photos”. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/25 "2004-05-20T11:03:25Z")
Deliberately obtuse it is then. You really can be a prick sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/26 "2004-05-20T11:05:09Z")
there’s nothing better than a quote from 1987’s “The Lost Boys” > [@](#): > > Sam: “Are you freebasing or something? Inquiring minds want to know” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/27 "2004-05-20T11:09:05Z")
> [@](#): > > But I didn’t say anything about Saddam. Is this a joke? The page you linked to used his name 15 times. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/28 "2004-05-20T11:11:09Z")
> [@](#): > > have them explain adjectival clauses like “Iraq photos”. So we are merely competing to find the “worst” photo ever captured in the country known as Iraq, ever? [ugh!](http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/HighwayofDeath.html?PHPSESSID=362fe1c8ac0e7a605d86a97cff467ff2) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/29 "2004-05-20T11:37:22Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > have them explain adjectival clauses like “Iraq photos”. May I be the first to suggest, then, when you changed your username, it should perhaps have been altered not to **Liberal** , but to **Literal**. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/30 "2004-05-20T12:14:38Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > So, what conclusion are we to draw from this? That we shouldn’t be upset about it? Not gonna happen. What made you draw that conclusion? ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/31 "2004-05-20T12:28:32Z")
The comparison of tortured Iraqi prisoners and genocide in Kurdistan doesn’t really help your cause, Lib. It really just makes you look like an ass. There are certain arguments against witch the standard “Saddam was evil” work. However you can’t use that against US soldiers, supposedly coming in the name of freedom, killing prisoners civilians on purpose. Honestly at what point does this excuse not hold water? How much more like Saddam can we become, while still claiming that the result is the greater good? At some point you have to say, “This is fucked up and although we aren’t as bad as Saddam, I am fucking sad we even got into this mess.” I reached that point when I saw the photos. After those photos came out I thought, “Theres nothing good that can come out of this now.” Why do I think this? Its not because I think that the torture is actually impacting a large group of people. Well, I would say that it wasn’t. But we have completely lost all of our justificiation in the Arab world for being there. We tortured prisoners in the same place as Saddam. Now there’s going to be lots of new pictures showing up. The torture may stop, but the investigations won’t. Oh, and don’t think that Al Queda hasn’t just been given the best recruitment tool that they could dream of. I have no reason to justify Bush’s actions. I believed him at the beginning when he wanted to invade Iraq. I thought it was a bold geopolitical play with the added benifit of looking like it was a humanitarian action. Well, the geopolitical benefits are certainly gone by the wayside, and the humanitarian benefit is also quickly losing meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/32 "2004-05-20T13:51:05Z")
What the fuck?!? “Warning: the following photos contain nudity.” So the dead bodies are ok, but nooo nakedness? Man, that’s fucked up. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/33 "2004-05-20T14:36:23Z")
Abu Ghraib has been rechristened [Camp Redemption](http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040519-111643-9825r.htm). See, it wasn’t torture after all. Here’s why those guys were smiling: > [@](#): > > The restoration of man from the bondage of sin to the liberty of the children of God through the satisfactions and merits of Christ. The word redemptio is the Latin Vulgate rendering of Hebrew kopher and Greek lytron which, in the Old Testament means generally a ransom-price. In the New Testament, it is the classic term designating the “great price” (I Cor., vi, 20) which the Redeemer paid for our liberation. Redemption presupposes the original elevation of man to a supernatural state and his downfall from it through sin; and inasmuch as sin calls down the wrath of God and produces man’s servitude under evil and Satan, Redemption has reference to both God and man. On God’s part, it is the acceptation of satisfactory amends whereby the Divine honour is repaired and the Divine wrath appeased. On man’s part, it is both a deliverance from the slavery of sin and a restoration to the former Divine adoption, and this includes the whole process of supernatural life from the first reconciliation to the final salvation. [here](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12677d.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Misery\_Loves\_Co](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7cd45c/32.png) [@Misery\_Loves\_Co](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misery_Loves_Co)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/34 "2004-05-20T16:18:32Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Abu Ghraib has been rechristened [Camp Redemption](http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040519-111643-9825r.htm). Y’know, the other day I was re-reading 1984. Some jerk interrupted my reading, with: “Wow - haven’t read that in years! I guess it’s a little outdated though, huh?” :rolleyes: The renaming is doubleplusgood. [sub](ok, so perhaps repeated references to 1984 are trite, but c’mon, it’s too damned easy in the current socio-political climate. It’s not even a small stretch to illuminate the similarities!)[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/35 "2004-05-20T16:25:47Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > [http://www.prisonexp.org/](http://www.prisonexp.org/) > Holy shit :eek: :eek: :eek: Indeed: > [@](#): > > I ended the study prematurely for two reasons. First, we had learned through videotapes that the guards were escalating their abuse of prisoners in the middle of the night when they thought no researchers were watching and the experiment was “off.” Their boredom had driven them to ever more pornographic and degrading abuse of the prisoners. > > Second, Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D. brought in to conduct interviews with the guards and prisoners, strongly objected when she saw our prisoners being marched on a toilet run, bags over their heads, legs chained together, hands on each other’s shoulders. Filled with outrage, she said, “It’s terrible what you are doing to these boys!” Out of 50 or more outsiders who had seen our prison, she was the only one who ever questioned its morality. Once she countered the power of the situation, however, it became clear that the study should be ended. So we know that an experiment such as this **produces** guards who act like this out of apparently ordinary, well-adjusted people, and in fairly short order, too. Seems the logical conclusion is that while the MPs at Abu Ghraib might should still be punished to some extent, the serious punishments should be saved for those who, for lack of a better term, ran this experiment on them. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/36 "2004-05-20T16:30:21Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > So we are merely competing to find the “worst” photo ever captured in the country known as Iraq, ever? > > [ugh!](http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/HighwayofDeath.html?PHPSESSID=362fe1c8ac0e7a605d86a97cff467ff2) Ugh, indeed! I’ll bet there’s yet a third and then some. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/37 "2004-05-20T16:31:06Z")
> [@KGS](#): > > Ya know, I agree this sucks mightily, but I’m willing to bet this shit went on during _every_ war humans have ever fought, since we crawled out of the trees and learned how to bang two rocks together. It’s just in the era of digital cameras, worldwide media companies, and the Internet, it’s much harder to keep under wraps. > > War makes animals out of people, even the “good” ones. As it is, as it has been, as it ever shall be. ☹ Which emphasizes even more the importance of the leadership maintaining strong rules against such behavior. You’re gonna be a lot more likely to have people act like that if you tell the interrogators that ‘torture lite’ is OK, _as they did,_ than if you tell them that such conduct is expressly forbidden and will be punished. ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/38 "2004-05-20T17:20:49Z")
If you are out on having pictures of what the US caused so far in Iraq, like children with their brains dripping out of their skull or with their arms and legs blown off, or a father holding some pieces of flesh - which is what was left from his baby - up to the camera, or a man screaming in despair because the US army just killed his whole family while blowing up their car deliberately… Just say so. I’m not known to provide for links to websites. But in this case I think it can do no harm to show some pictures about what invading a nation causes among the population. You can have also some nice Iraqi-loving quotes coming from US soldiers and some pictures of such soldiers, and what is written on their helmet or on the bombs they are about to drop. Salaam. A ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/39 "2004-05-20T17:21:57Z")
If you are out on having pictures of what the US caused so far in Iraq, like children with their brains dripping out of their skull or with their arms and legs blown off, or a father holding some pieces of flesh - which is what was left from his baby - up to the camera, or a man screaming in despair because the US army just killed his whole family while blowing up their car deliberately… Just say so. I’m not known to provide for links to websites. But in this case I think it can do no harm to show some pictures about what invading a nation causes among the population. You can have also some nice Iraqi-loving quotes coming from US soldiers and some pictures of such soldiers, and what is written on their helmet or on the nice harmless bombs they are about to drop on the population. Salaam. A ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105/40 "2004-05-20T17:22:12Z")
He’s pining for the fjords! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-iraq-photos-yet/246105.md?page=3)