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implode
05-20-2005, 03:16 PM
SADDAM GETS NAKED, PEOPLE FORGET THAT BEING NAKED ISN'T A CRIME

<a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_saddam_photos">ousted dictator porn - the next big thing?</a>

in a shocking display of audacity, the british newspaper The Sun (though "rag" might be more fitting, as any content it might contain would be more suitable for cleaning up toppled glasses of orange juice than absorbing into your mind) decide to adorn their front page with a photograph of former iraqi dictator saddam hussein bent over in his underwear, a position he's undoubtedly grown accustomed to in his recent tenure of being in situations where he cannot seek solace behind forty armed guards.

and in a shocking display of slang-for-homosexuality, people across the world have condemned these pictures as being "distasteful", "an insult to humanity", and other things that make you wonder what goddamned perspective you have to be thinking in to believe that a photo of a man in his underwear is more "distasteful" than sending thousands of people into gas chambers when you lose your cable TV feed.

let me be clear, because i don't want to inadvertently insult any sunni muslim invader zim fans - whether you believe the genocide mr. hussein inflicted on his own people was justified or not, you still must accept that it happened. if you don't, you end up looking like the 80 year-old german statues that hole themselves up inside their rooms for 40 years writing fairytales about how the word "auschwitz" never really existed. i don't care if you believe your own peopel deserved to die for refusing to bow at the snap of a finger - you need to apply this logic to yourself. would you rather be photographed naked or shot in the face? if your answer is "shot in the face", i have an insurgency business card you might be interested in looking at. forgive me if i don't visit you in person to relay it to you. this man is in prison for a REASON - he is in violation of what we as a humanity agreed on thousands of years ago, when we had nothing to write with but sticks and the ground we found those sticks on: if you're responsible for more deaths than bruce willis's movie career, you deserve to be investigated. because despite popular belief, more people dying does not get as much accomplished as people living does.

the people who are speaking out against this are mainly supporting their arguments by shouting about how the privacy of a baby-killing tyrant should be respected once we've isolated him from the baby population. this is all well and good in a world where everybody hugs each other after every meal just so they don't forget what it feels like to be loved, but these folks seem to forget the reason hussein was arrested in the first place - if saddam hussein was hugging you, it was actually a saddam hussein lookalike who was hiding a cyanide syringe in his sleeve. "do unto others as you would like done unto you" is a philosophy that works for approximately as long as you can avoid broaching that person's past. YES, two wrongs DO make a right when the first "wrong" is actually "genocide and slavery." in fact, 2 wrongs still haven't made a right, as the photos of saddam being forced to dig a grave for every person he unjustly executed have yet to make the rounds in the british tabloids.

prisoners have generally given up on the prospect of being respected by everyone in the world, as anyone active in the field of oppressing others will vouch for the fact that the little girl you molested doesn't suddenly recover an objective opinion on violent anal rape once you've been incarcirated. and as such, concepts like "privacy" should be reserved for people that probably won't take it as an opportunity to torture people who've read different books than them. being photographed in his underwear is the LEAST of saddam's worries, folks - he's going to trial under a tribunal of judges who lived on the same street as three of their friends who dissappeared in the heat of the iraqi night. anyone seriously wondering whether we might have hurt saddam's feelings by posting a picture of him in his skivvies might do well to consider the fact that just two years ago, dancing around in your underwear in iraq for your transgressions wasn't simply getting off light, it was <i>not even a punishment.</i> i'm not even talking about the insane middle east, where people take turns killing each other to express their outrage at other countries - no, even in america, being photographed in your underwear does not merit a fucking condemnation from the red cross. i mean, what the goddamned bloody fuck? the red cross just spent ten years wiping up shi'ite putty from the palaces of baghdad, and now they're outraged that the man who gave those commands is having his privacy invaded? the red cross would do well to hide inside their own medical bags and roll themselves down the biggest hill they can find, if only for the sake that they might realize that rolling down a hill is almost as stupid as expressing concern over the privacy of a self-proclaimed murderer.

people invoking the geneva convention as just as bad, if not worse, because they aren't so hopelessly stupid that they've forgotten that being dead is worse than being naked. people who have actually read the geneva convention should understand the difference between stuffing an enemy grunt's asshole with fire ants and laughing at a picture of the enemy commander in his underwear. WW2 vets must be disgusted - ever hear the rhyme "hitler only has one ball, goebbels two, but they're very small"? welcome to a world where the people you're fighting for sit at home demanding you apologize to hitler's genitals for any embarrassment you may have caused them. the geneva convention was put into place so people found guilty of torturing for the sake of laughing at torture could be duly punished, not so those very same people could have a security blanket for their fragile ego. if you aren't looking the other way from these photos, you should be lauging at them. period. if you're rallying against them, you'd better damned well be doing so with a mortar in your hands and a retardedly literal koran interpretation in your heart, because if you're not, the only "cause" you're advancing is a world where we read our felons bedtime stories and let them hold our hands as they drift off to dreamland. and since that's where you're living in the first place, maybe we ARE all better off that way.

THE NEWSWEEK SCANDAL - AFGHANS KILLING EACH OTHER - <B>UH-OH</B>

<a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&q=afghan+riots">"peaceful protestors shouting "Death to America"</a>

as the world scrambled to find more reasons to be pissed off with america, newsweek near immediately retracted their story of U.S. interrogators using such hostile techniques of interrogation as <i>being mean to a book</i> in the fear that more fucking lunatics might accidentally set themselves on fire while trying to ignite three american flags and a child's book report on abraham lincoln at the same time.

the story reported that U.S. interrogators in guantanamo bay, cuba (a holding pen for prisoners of war, as thusly, <i>certainly</i> the place the american media should be writing fucking all-inclusive essays about) had attempted to flush a copy of the koran down the toilet in an attempt to get the prisoners to talk. of course, were the media not an oversensitive tulip garden, they might have used the actual motive, "in an attempt to piss the people that are spitting on them off." and we might have had a full 30 minutes of footage of lunatics punching each other in the face to watch while we sat down to dinner. in response to this, people who have read the book used the familiar tactic of <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&q=afghan+riots">"GOING FUCKING INSANE</A> in an attempt to display the outrage at american disrespect that they've been displaying for the past ten years anyway. and, as typical media pussies do, newsweek retracted the story with the grammar-school excuse "the source was determined to be invalid."

alright, newsweek. time for a lesson in sociology from someone who never took the class - if people are killing each other over something you wrote, it's because the idea of it upset them, not the fact that you didn't confirm with with several unconnected sources. publically announcing that you were just bullshitting them will accomplish exactly this: 8====D it doesn't matter if you constructed the story with a fucking etch-a-sketch in your underwear, YOU ALREADY DECIDED TO PRINT IT. saying "oops, wrong country, lol, stupid sources" does not suddenly unmake the atomic decay of the country you just pumped 50 megatons of uranium into. it just makes you look like a lumbering jackass who can't be bothered to look at a map before you hit the LAUNCH button. the only good that you've done by retracting the story is MAYBE getting the non-war-ravaged part of the world to not believe anything you say anymore. if you wanted to make yourself look like an irreputable source of news, congratulations, dipshits, you did it on the wrong side of the world. the people getting upset about this don't give a fuck if the story actually happened - all they want is a reason to stand up and defend their way of life. they take the koran VERY SERIOUSLY, in case you haven't noticed, what with the wars we have going on that all fucking started over a dispute between the american defense department and the people who don't want U.S. military strongholds built on canonical holy lands. it is your responsibility to not print things that only our adversaries will give a shit about, and you failed. big time.

and so we apologize. for what? so the people who are so quick to proclaim "DEATH TO AMERICA" will stop killing each other? OH MAN, GOOD THINKING GUYS. a better way to handle this might be to post a follow up story with the headline: YEAH, WHAT IF IT DID HAPPEN? YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? people need to be taught that reverence is no excuse for rioting. i'm sorry, but it's true. if something means so much to you that you're willing to die over the idea of the desecration of it, YOU DESERVE TO HAVE TO FIGHT FOR IT. PERIOD. it will seperate the people who just find solace and comfort in religion and the people who don't understand what religion is about. if you want to take to the streets and participate in the ridiculous trampling of people who agree with you, by all means, GET YOUR ASS OUT THERE. there is a right way and a wrong way to deal with everything, and if the people we'll probably have to start fighting in a few months want to deal with it the wrong way, what the hell are we doing trying to break it up? america relies too heavily on this recess-aide role we play in the world. it's like we're trying to keep these people alive longer so we can have the satisfaction of killing them ourselves.

<img src="http://www.islamfortoday.com/US_flag_burning_2.jpg">

<b>"oh, no no no no, achmad. put that burning american flag down and go back inside, we were just lying to you. now, what were your exact coordinates, again?"</b>

let these fuckers rally. and let the fuckers who think saddam hussein deserves a nice private evening in his garden riot with them. maybe we'll have a forest-fire effect where all these misfits who have nothing better to do but be pissed off at everything will burn each other out, and we can finally live in a world where people don't even consider getting out the machete when you tell them you don't have the exact same opinion on a book you've both read. being upset at something you've read is fine - physically battering each other over who'll get to lynch the author first is stupid. and it's not our place to intervene in another countries' stupid - we've got plenty of our own to deal with, thanks.

implode
05-20-2005, 03:23 PM
a portion of this was deleted because it pushed it over the character count. it was the most caustic part of it, though... so if anyone brings the topic up, i'll post it.

exemplary citizen
05-20-2005, 03:34 PM
Aw, I wanna read it. Doooo it.

implode
05-20-2005, 03:38 PM
blah. alright. you'd better attend the funeral, though.

"being upset at something you've read is fine - physically battering each other over who'll get to lynch the author first is stupid. and it's not our place to intervene in another countries' stupid - we've got plenty of our own to deal with, thanks. it's too late to just keep to our own and let these people hate us on their own time. our government already fucked with them. all we can do now is either show them the respect every human deserves and remove all troops from anywhere they aren't wanted, or find ways to kill everybody, ever. those idiots who cry "nuke 'em all" probably have the most reasonable fucking idea, even thought they don't understand why. if we can't learn to live side by side, one of us has to go under. i can't stand this suspended animation shit where we just kill each other in the hope that eventually one of us will get sick of dying. if humanity can't learn to be reasonable, let's just invoke another ice age and get this shit DONE already. i'd certainly rather just die from that than live in fear that i'll be killed by an idiot for something somebody else did. where the fuck are the spaceships to transport reasonable people to reasonable space stations, already? i've got better shit to worry about than your goddamned religious outraged foot that you'd like to plant in my undeserving face."

exemplary citizen
05-20-2005, 03:57 PM
But of course! I won't even buy you one of those "lightly used" coffins. Nothing but the finest for our Cory.

implode
05-20-2005, 04:01 PM
ehehe. why thank you!

i kind of went off on a tangent there, though. it's hard to take the "kill everyone" argument too seriously.

Awesome McManly
05-20-2005, 04:27 PM
I strained my eyes reading all of that, but oh man was it worth it!

Now back to my regularly scheduled checking out girls that walk by my store

implode
05-20-2005, 04:39 PM
I strained my eyes reading all of that, but oh man was it worth it! ahaha. best review <i>ever.</i>

"i didn't wear glasses before i started reading your work."

Awesome McManly
05-20-2005, 04:45 PM
what about, "I ignored hawt asses to read this"?

implode
05-20-2005, 04:53 PM
i don't identify with that one as much, since i don't see too many hawt asses from my second story window in front of my computer. but i've never had the joy of having a computer at my job, either... so... yeah. yeah. thank you.

Adnama
05-20-2005, 04:53 PM
great rant, implode. what happened to the days when the news actually took itself seriously? they were actually too stupid to realize what kind of effect a story like this would have-or they just really don't give a shit anymore.
Newsweek sucks anyway, Time is much better

Awesome McManly
05-20-2005, 05:02 PM
i don't identify with that one as much, since i don't see too many hawt asses from my second story window in front of my computer. but i've never had the joy of having a computer at my job, either... so... yeah. yeah. thank you.

I wont have one much longer.

I'll be half naked and dirty. just the way you like me.

MST3Kakalina
05-20-2005, 06:00 PM
i'd like to point out, mr implode, that the dignity and decency of people should always be a top priority, right after we make sure no human rights are being violated. (i will read the rest of your rant in a minute)

hypocritical coming from me? perhaps a bit. but i think one of the ways you can mark a civilized society is by how it treats the accused. if you are not willing to extend the values you hold most dear even to those who you think deserve to die unspeakable deaths, then i would say you're not as civilized as you think you are.

Adnama
05-20-2005, 06:54 PM
my bad, i didn't specify which story i was referring to-i was talking about the fake koran-flushing, not the saddam nudity
:meh:

implode
05-21-2005, 03:33 AM
i'd like to point out, mr implode, that the dignity and decency of people should always be a top priority, right after we make sure no human rights are being violated. (i will read the rest of your rant in a minute)

hypocritical coming from me? perhaps a bit. but i think one of the ways you can mark a civilized society is by how it treats the accused. if you are not willing to extend the values you hold most dear even to those who you think deserve to die unspeakable deaths, then i would say you're not as civilized as you think you are. "the accused"? you explain it as if there's a possibility that saddam is the victim of some elaborate misunderstanding. obviously, you can't mean that, though, so: i've got no problem with sacrificing the idea that we've reached the height of civility for the sake of making punishment a bit more like punishment. concepts like freedom of speech and such are basically abolished in the confines of a prison, since a prison is a semi-functional "sovereign" territory (i.e., certain rules that would apply in regular society do not apply to anyone in attendance - for example, the freedom to not show up) so i'd say a minor <i>priveledge</i> like privacy is something that should really be determined by the warden. like, if he wants to put a camera in your cell to monitor you 24 hours a day, you can't do anything about that - but if he wants to put that signal on the web, you suddenly have rights again? i don't understand the sense in that.

and besides, being photographed without consent isn't even a violation of human rights <i>outside</i> of prison. if it were, every single paparazzi member would have a motorcycle and look like reno raines (... <i>renegade.</i>) he wasn't photographed naked, so unless there's some absurd "degree of skin" rule that i've never heard of, i'd submit saddam is operating under the same rules as anyone. sure, maybe the paparazzi don't have the right to come into your house and take your picture, but NO ONE has the right to come into your house if you don't want them to. not so for prisoners.

i'd say the closer mark of a civilized society is not stooping to level of the "accused" when doling out punishment. while i can't say i'd be <i>outraged</i> at accusations of violent prison rape, torture, and eventual murder at the hands of the guards, i don't believe it would be a proper resolution. another thing is that we can't operate under this "innocent until proven guilty" concept with someone that we ousted from power and imprisoned because we believed he was guilty. that's a bit silly, in my estimation. if anyone's ever been proven guilty, it's this guy.

MST3Kakalina
05-21-2005, 06:19 AM
oh come on, does putting a picture of Saddam in his underoos on a major media publication really serve any pragmatic goal, other than to gloat? to be under surveillence 24 hours a day does. can't you come up with a better counter example than that?

no, i don't like this. this is a stupid and scary precedent to set.

and there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam is guilty; i was extending the example to be more general and include a whole gamut of people.

implode
05-21-2005, 11:37 AM
oh come on, does putting a picture of Saddam in his underoos on a major media publication really serve any pragmatic goal, other than to gloat? to be under surveillence 24 hours a day does. can't you come up with a better counter example than that? nope, but thanks for ignoring every example i posted excluding the one you could belittle. gosh, i sure do feel <i>swayed.</i>

no, it serves no goal other than to laugh at an ousted dictator in shambles. and i am completely okay with that. it should set no precedent other than PERHAPS that maybe people will start applying reason to individual situations. this precedent nonsense is getting out of hand - oh, if we do this NOW, then someone who did it in the future to joe blow, afghan soldier, could contest any wrongdoing in court by citing the example of saddam's underwear antics and get off scot free - no. he couldn't. or he shouldn't be able to, anyway. that's why we have judges, goddammit. to establish a difference between embarrassing a bloody dictator for the hell of it and embarrassing an enemy soldier for the hell of it. whether you make the rules black and white or leave room for creative interpretation, either way, somebody is going to end up getting screwed. it's just the way the judicial system works. and in this particular scenario, i wouldn't mind seeing saddam get screwed. in the slightest. you can shout counter examples at me until you're blue in the face, but that will be DIFFERENT, because we're not deciding the fate of a ruthless genocidal dictator in those examples. in fact, let's set a precedent today - if you've been proven guilty of the slaughter of over 500 people, everyone on the planet gets a turn to pee in your mouth. they don't have to TAKE that turn, of course, but the opportunity is there. that way, we don't have to worry about embarrassing the poor murderers who only killed a family of four, and these rejects of humanity can finally get what's coming to them without a cacophony of overimaginative, paranoid voices shrieking in terror at the idea of future situations that will never come to pass.

MST3Kakalina
05-21-2005, 06:17 PM
and besides, being photographed without consent isn't even a violation of human rights <i>outside</i> of prison. if it were, every single paparazzi member would have a motorcycle and look like reno raines (... <i>renegade.</i>) he wasn't photographed naked, so unless there's some absurd "degree of skin" rule that i've never heard of, i'd submit saddam is operating under the same rules as anyone. sure, maybe the paparazzi don't have the right to come into your house and take your picture, but NO ONE has the right to come into your house if you don't want them to. not so for prisoners.

well, as i understand it, isn't it a violation of some kind of legality thing these days, anyway? regardless, no one condones the paparazzi or thinks they do a good thing (or at least, i certainly don't think so. maybe everyone else does.) no, saddam isn't operating under the same rules as us, but functionality should always come before spite. i think the newsweek photo crosses very decidedly into the "spite" realm.

i'd say the closer mark of a civilized society is not stooping to level of the "accused" when doling out punishment. while i can't say i'd be <i>outraged</i> at accusations of violent prison rape, torture, and eventual murder at the hands of the guards, i don't believe it would be a proper resolution. another thing is that we can't operate under this "innocent until proven guilty" concept with someone that we ousted from power and imprisoned because we believed he was guilty. that's a bit silly, in my estimation. if anyone's ever been proven guilty, it's this guy.

and i never said he wasn't guilty. but i already pointed that out.

have i sufficiently addressed your previous points? i thought i had before, but i guess i didn't. sorry about that.


no, it serves no goal other than to laugh at an ousted dictator in shambles. and i am completely okay with that.

i guess this is where we part ways on the issue. i am NOT completely okay with it. i visit a flakey new age hippie pagan/wiccan board, peppered with a whole lot of...well...mellowed out hippies and the like (think a whole board full of _brendas). anyway, here's a little piece of "wisdom" that you can take or leave:

<i>My friend likes to use the "If I had baseball bat..." example. When a serial murderer/rapist/molester/etc is finally caught and convicted, a lot of people will say, "if i had a baseball bat and 15 minutes alone with this guy..." My friend responds to this by saying, "Look at the face of the person beating the criminal with the bat. Is that someone you want to become?"</i>

i don't know, <i>i</i> found it insighftul.

it should set no precedent other than PERHAPS that maybe people will start applying reason to individual situations. this precedent nonsense is getting out of hand - oh, if we do this NOW, then someone who did it in the future to joe blow, afghan soldier, could contest any wrongdoing in court by citing the example of saddam's underwear antics and get off scot free - no. he couldn't. or he shouldn't be able to, anyway. that's why we have judges, goddammit. to establish a difference between embarrassing a bloody dictator for the hell of it and embarrassing an enemy soldier for the hell of it. whether you make the rules black and white or leave room for creative interpretation, either way, somebody is going to end up getting screwed. it's just the way the judicial system works. and in this particular scenario, i wouldn't mind seeing saddam get screwed. in the slightest.

the system doesn't always work like it should, plodeykins. i just don't like the mindset that sort of thing engenders. i don't LIKE to see people reason and react with indignant rage and hatred. someone's always going to end up getting screwed, yes, but i think the best thing to do is to minimize it as much as possible.

i think maybe part of the problem i have with this is that life isn't a simple cause-and-effect thing, either. yes, Saddam did horrible things to people. well, we put him in power in the first place. there wasn't necessarily any way for us to know what kind of guy he was THEN, but even so. we let all other kinds of people get away with stuff scott-free (the stereotypical Columbian drug lord getting a little sumfin' sumfin' from the CIA, for example) that...wait, what did that have to do with what i'm trying to say? nothing at all. forget that. i think i wanted to say something about how there was a good chance we could have known what an asshole he was, and went in and put him in to exercise our best interests anyway.


you can shout counter examples at me until you're blue in the face, but that will be DIFFERENT, because we're not deciding the fate of a ruthless genocidal dictator in those examples. in fact, let's set a precedent today - if you've been proven guilty of the slaughter of over 500 people, everyone on the planet gets a turn to pee in your mouth. they don't have to TAKE that turn, of course, but the opportunity is there.

<i>Look at the face of the man urinating into Saddam's open mouth. Is that someone you want to become?</i>

i know you were being facetious there, but still.

that way, we don't have to worry about embarrassing the poor murderers who only killed a family of four, and these rejects of humanity can finally get what's coming to them without a cacophony of overimaginative, paranoid voices shrieking in terror at the idea of future situations that will never come to pass.



i wasn't aware you could predict the future, implode =P you never know. i think the attitude towards this sort of thing can easily evolve into allowing more awful things. it may take a while, but it can certainly happen.


god, i sound so fucking pendantic in here. i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i'm going to stop typing now.


SAY. i have the same birthday as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. isn't that awesome?

implode
05-23-2005, 07:42 AM
My friend likes to use the "If I had baseball bat..." example. When a serial murderer/rapist/molester/etc is finally caught and convicted, a lot of people will say, "if i had a baseball bat and 15 minutes alone with this guy..." My friend responds to this by saying, "Look at the face of the person beating the criminal with the bat. Is that someone you want to become?"

i don't know, i found it insighftul. no, no! it's good. not akin to my personal philosophy on these affairs, but definitely good. here's a brief overview of my opinion on the topic: saddam hussein is responsible for immense amounts of unjustified suffering. unjustified suffering is the absolute worst feeling you can experience as a human being. like, if you and your friends all buy matching catwoman outfits and decide to rob a liquor store. the guy behind the counter doesn't give you any shit, he opens the counter immediately, hands you the money, etc... yet you still decide to pop him one in the jaw, sending him to the floor and assuring that he won't be able to call the cops for a good few minutes. that's two examples of unjustified suffering. you may have robbed the store because you needed money, but the storekeep needs money, too, and you took food out of his mouth to supplement yours without knowing whether he's spending his money on 12 year old asian prostitutes. WERE he spending his money on such things, the robbery would be justified - but you don't know. you couldn't know. therefore, there's one wrong. secondly - you popped the guy in the mouth, for no good reason other than trying to assure your safety from JUSTIFIED suffering. that's selfishness to the worst degree, because your desire to be happy is interfering with someone elses desire to simply not be bleeding from the mouth. he didn't do anything to deserve the loose tooth - you DID do something to deserve the cops on your trail.

i have a ways to go before i am a fully realized jedi, i'm aware. too privy to hate, which leads to suffering... but don't tell me that luke didn't smile when the emperor was heaved into oblivion. :P

argonaut
05-23-2005, 08:14 AM
Yet another great piece or writing, Cory. You're outgrowing this forum. You should get this stuff out where more people will see it, gain some notoriety, get syndicated, make a ton of money, and fly us all to the Caymans for Moosecon '08. Philosophically I tend more towards Koba's viewpoint, but that doesn't take away from the writing.

I think these events, taken together, are more a condemnation of the media than of US policy regarding prisoners of war. (Is Saddam still in US custody? I'm not sure on that point, and I only browsed the links).
koba - newsweek photo
Remember, newsweek didn't publish the photograph. Some British rag did. And I'm quite sure the thought process didn't go much beyond "Hey, look at these pictures that Nigel got! Let's put them on the front page and sell a bunch of papers!" I'm sure that no more thought was given to the appropriateness of showing those images than the Newsweek editors gave to the inflamatory nature of their story. "This is cool stuff. Let's put it out there, so people will spend money on our publications" If there's any deeper driving force behind the media on any level from newsrack tabloid to national news agency, I'd be surprised to see it.

The fact that Saddam Hussein can be regularly viewed in his underwear bothers me not at all. I'd be bothered if it were otherwise. He is a prisoner, a mass murderer who's guilt is certain. Every photo of a prison cell that I've ever seen has a toilet sitting out in plain view, without so much as a curtain to pull around. Privacy is just not something that is provided to inmates. You lose the right to it when you prove yourself necessary of being monitored. What bothers me is the mentality that can get images of an underclothed Saddam Hussein published for all the world to see. It's exploitation of something that none of us should even begin to care about, and yet people - from the guy with the camera to the British news editor - pounce on it for some kind of thrill or monetary gain.

As for the Newsweek story, there's a deeper hypocracy at play. Somewhere in his article, (too lazy at the moment to go back and quote), Implode said that a US prisoner of war camp is certainly the type of place that should be watched by the media. In such a place, there is no other overseer, no other force to keep things from getting out of hand than the fear of being exposed to the world. I don't fault Newsweek for printing its story, but for pulling its punches.

The fact remains (to my best knowledge) that the US remains guilty of both mental and physical torture at Guantanimo Bay. An article I read last week stated that 23 people have died there under questionable circumstances, and five have simply disappeared. Bad shit is happening there, and I'm convinced with a little more due dilligence, Newsweek could come up with more comprehensive stories with real sources behind them. But no - instead the White House is having a bully time deflecting its own credibility 'issues' back at the media, and newsweek is backing off with its tail between its legs. Why? I'm guessing it has a lot to do with not selling as many ads.

It's not the story that caused the rioting, it's the torture itself. It's the hypocracy, the betrayal of our political morality. I've talked with Actual Muslims about this. The major reason that American military influence is tolerated at all in most places is that we've set ourselves up to be the Good Guys. That we are there to liberate oppressed peoples, to offer liberty and humanity, not to grab gold and real estate. Obvious fallacies to that statement aside, most of the world still wants to hold us to that, and when stories to the contrary leak out they tend to get rather upset.

It's worth mentioning here that I don't understand that reaction personally. When I first heard of the beheadings in Iraq my first impulse was not to go outside, throw a brick through Starbucks and burn an Iraqi flag. There's something about the mentality in that part of the world that completely escapes me.

Anyway- I'd feel better about this if we just owned up to it: We're at war, you and us. You're blowing up our soldiers with IED's and cutting the heads off the people we send in to rebuild your bridges and piplines. We're taking those among you most likely to be terrorists and beating them within inches of their lives. I think if we just abandoned that political morality and admitted we're using the same tactics as everyone else, they wouldn't get so bent out of shape when they find our claims of humanity to be false. We didn't start rioting or bombing mosques when we found out the Bathists and Sunnis don't play fair. It's what we expected.

MST3Kakalina
05-23-2005, 09:11 AM
not newsweek? my bad. garglefuck. i'm like...not here at all this week. don't expect me to make any sense at all. i will reread this thread sometime and try to more coherently back up my opinion.

the Worms
05-24-2005, 04:06 PM
One camp:

the people who are speaking out against this are mainly supporting their arguments by shouting about how the privacy of a baby-killing tyrant should be respected once we've isolated him from the baby population.

Implode's perspective:

two wrongs DO make a right when the first "wrong" is actually "genocide and slavery."

and

just two years ago, dancing around in your underwear in iraq for your transgressions wasn't simply getting off light, it was not even a punishment.


Koba's perspective:

the dignity and decency of people should always be a top priority, right after we make sure no human rights are being violated.


The important distinction, as I see it, is a matter of human right. The most fundamental problem with this distinction, though, is that human rights are no longer a principle that can easily fit into the concepts of the current world. From the very beginning, human rights were ill-defined and what definition they had (that is, "inalienable God-given rights" to "life, liberty and property" -John Locke) is unfortunately an even worse defense now than it ever was. The fact that a president who likes to invoke God is put under such scrutiny and derision (not to mention disdain) for doing so demonstrates the fact that this polis can no longer call itself "one nation under God" but "one nation... oh and some of us believe in God." Not that any of that is a bad thing. The point is that the progressive tendency of government ever since the early 20th century makes it impossible for us to deny that we no longer see man as an autonomous being who has absolutely no inherent connection with his fellow man. Socialistic efforts as well as patristic efforts make it evident, and there is no escaping the fact that inalienable rights can no longer be the basis of justice. For this very reason, people have invented rights out of nothing (such as the right to privacy) for the sake of pushing the country either more to the left or more to the right (whatever those terms mean these days -- I have no idea myself). So, in a land without a concise and meaningful definition of these mystical "human rights," how can we even approach a consideration of what "dignity and decency" are?

The point is that human rights are not the issue here. It is not a matter of what prisoners do or do not deserve, since, as prisoners, they will be treated accordingly; rather, it is a matter of what those interested in being involved in the breaches of their privacy have as their fundamental motive. Punishment is for the sake of the punished as well as all those the punished threatens. By isolation, the prisoner's punishment is fulfilling its duty to those apart from him, but what actually takes place in the prison (and privacy is not one of those things granted) is entirely for the sake of the person being punished. In the public's involvement, it is going beyond its sphere of interest, and sticking its nose where it does not belong. In this particular case, the people at fault are the people who motivate the media to put a story in the paper about naked prisoners. To desire to see another human being humiliated is to be a parasite. It serves no constructive purpose, and destroys both the humiliated and he who enjoys the humiliation. Such a person is weak and so must suck the strength out of the fall of others, be they noble or be they vicious. To have removed Hussein from authority is enough; to mock his downfall is to allow him to continue to reign in the vicious nature of the person laughing, if nowhere else.

MST3Kakalina
05-24-2005, 05:27 PM
To desire to see another human being humiliated is to be a parasite. It serves no constructive purpose, and destroys both the humiliated and he who enjoys the humiliation. Such a person is weak and so must suck the strength out of the fall of others, be they noble or be they vicious. To have removed Hussein from authority is enough; to mock his downfall is to allow him to continue to reign in the vicious nature of the person laughing, if nowhere else.

Worms gets the prize for saying exactly what i meant more specifically and just plain better than i ever could.

KLEIN
05-24-2005, 06:17 PM
So how many of those does he have now?

500?

MST3Kakalina
05-25-2005, 06:13 AM
somewhere around there, yeah.

argonaut
05-25-2005, 06:15 AM
Heh. He collects them like house league soccer trophies.

...it is a matter of what those interested in being involved in the breaches of their privacy have as their fundamental motive... In the public's involvement, it is going beyond its sphere of interest, and sticking its nose where it does not belong. In this particular case, the people at fault are the people who motivate the media to put a story in the paper about naked prisoners
Yeah that's more or less what I was going for in response to the first story. My overall point was that the real motivations behind the media cause it to make a spectacle out of unimportant things, while coming up short on the big issues. In addition to the above, I would say that if you're going to tell a story that might incite people to violent demonstration, make sure you get it right. Don't hide it in the 'periscope' section. Verify your sources, and tell the whole story.

implode
05-26-2005, 10:55 AM
In this particular case, the people at fault are the people who motivate the media to put a story in the paper about naked prisoners. To desire to see another human being humiliated is to be a parasite. It serves no constructive purpose, and destroys both the humiliated and he who enjoys the humiliation. Such a person is weak and so must suck the strength out of the fall of others, be they noble or be they vicious. To have removed Hussein from authority is enough; to mock his downfall is to allow him to continue to reign in the vicious nature of the person laughing, if nowhere else. i agree (yes, it is possible.) i never actively desired to see saddam humiliated - i simply accepted these events as just another downfall that the guy had coming. i have no sympathy for his plight, and i don't think that there has been any violation of any sort of implied moral obligation to the human race. i think that he's caused enough unjustified suffering to not deserve a handwritten apology from the newspapers for making him feel bad. quite simply, beat him, throw him in a cage, paint his toenails blue, or treat him like a relative - whatever you want, guys. my head is turned the other way. i stopped caring about his "human rights" the moment he stopped caring about everyone elses. i suppose my articl-ument could be classified as an argument against something that isn't the issue, but that's fine - if nobody cares enough to isolate the point, i'll argue against whatever else it is you have to submit to the issue.