No words

[cantdog]

This thing has so disgusted and sickened me that I was up half the night thinking about it. It's bad enough when civilians get killed, worse when they're murdered in cold blood. But to slit a man's throat in front of a camera and then saw his head off bespeaks a level of butchery and inhumanity that's almost incomprehensible to me. And to do it in the name of religion. These people have oforeited their right to be called human.

No offense to anyone else, but I look at the other threads going on on this board, and I can't understand how people can carry on business as usual in the face of an atrocity like this. I know I can't.

If this is the kind of culture that Saddam Hussein came out of, I don't wonder at some of the techniques he used. The temptation to retaliate in kind is very strong. To someone who had his kind of power, I imagine it's irresistable.

I've been dead set against this war from the start, not only because it's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, but because changing regimes is not like changing socks, and our leadership really didn't know what the fuck they were doing going in there. Out of arrogance or out of ignorance they chose to ignore the enormity of what they were doing, and now we're stuck there with no way out. Things can only get worse.

War always becomes a race to the bottom, and all the high and noble talk ultimately comes down to the common grunts slitting each other's throats in the mud. For a war that started out with such supposedly lofty goals, the last two weeks have been nauseating, and it's hard to believe that anyone takes seriously the talk of democracy or even self-rule in Iraq in 2 months' time.

Meanwhile I think I'll go try and read some stories. Or something.

---d.M.

doc_M:

The guy is not Iraqi, he is a really for real foreign fighter. His actions sickened the Iraqis as well, and do not explain Saddam in any way.

cantdog

 

[amicus]

I have watch several dozen cable television news/talk shows, the ones I can stand...about the 'prisoner abuse' issue and now, the 'murder' of an American citizen as 'retaliation'.

That took a while to sink in...the full meaning...

I am considering a 1 Billion dollar law suit naming Dan Rather, his television network and the person that provided the photographs that were aired on national and then international television.

The charges are two: That the photographs were classified material protected by the Secrecy Act to protect the rights both of the defendants and soldiers in the field, thus a violation of the legal, moral and ethical standards.

And secondly, as the 'murder' was stated as, 'revenge and retaliation' for what those photographs displayed, a charge of complicity in 'murder', by Dan Rather, the television network and the person who provided the photographs as they have been stated to be the 'cause' of death.

One must be responsible for one's actions.

regards...amicus...

 

[ABSTRUSE]

It appears that many words have been found.

 

[cantdog]

words being found

Nationalists never have a problem with events like this.

But their words are always "I told you so." They're wrong here. This fellow did no favors for Iraq or Iraqis.

 

[shereads]

I have watch several dozen cable television news/talk shows, the ones I can stand...about the 'prisoner abuse' issue and now, the 'murder' of an American citizen as 'retaliation'.

One must be responsible for one's actions.

regards...amicus...

Fox Network, huh?

Did they mention that for months the father of one of the MPs wrote and called Pentagon officials and congressmen and begged them to investigate his son's claim that he and the others were going to be scapegoats for the people who approved their actions?

Only when his calls were ignored did this man finally agree to cooperate with a former Army general whose website he subscribes to, and who contacted CBS and Dan Rather. By the time the Pentagon called Rather and asked him not to air the story, he knew they had had months to reply to the young man's father about the scapegoating and had chosen not to. For what reason?

Did they mention that the photos were e-mailed to friends of the MPs and would inevitably have become public knowledge?

Why does everyone believe the executioners' claim that what they did to Berg was just because of the photos? He was kidnapped back in April. Daniel Pearl was beheaded months ago. There are numerous hostages and no reason to assume that their captors hate the U.S. more this week than they did when they kidnapped the hostages to begin with.

I just got through listening to a radio interview with a former Special Forces agent who has participated in interrogations, and among his comments was this: if not for the photos from the prison, there would have been another reason to execute one of their American hostages - These events appear to be timed a few months apart so that we won't become immune to the shock, and when they're ready to kill a hostage any excuse will do.

I can't help wondering why even conservative talk shows are not asking why there was no attempt by the Pentagon to answer the calls and letters of the man who only went to CBS News as a last resort. If he hadn't turned over the photos, we'd have read a few months from now that some MPs were convicted of improper conduct, and our interrogations would still incorporate the "moral and ethnical" practice of raping prisoners with flashlights, and Nick Berg would either have died anyway or would be awaiting the next excuse for a brutal murder.

These are terrorists, not angry citiizens of iraq who happened to decide to kill an American because of the photos.

 

[raphy]

I must disagree with you here. The reason human race is so utterly capable of committing horrific acts is precisely because of the ability to separate between "us" & "them" in our minds and because "they" are never considered human.

Them is us.

I couldn't agree more.

And rg - I do understand what you're saying, but I think that if you accept the realities of war (i.e. that there is no real winner, that everyone's in the wrong and that regrettable, shocking and downright barbarous things are going to have to be done if you want to defeat the other side) that you have to think about it as 'them' and 'us', because if you start to think of it as the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys', then you'll become way too disillusioned way too fast.

I guess the geneva conventions don't apply to either side in this war anymore.

Yeah. I feel for that soldier's family. I feel more sorry for them that the guy's death was videotaped and splashed all over worldwide news. Now everyone knows how he died.

The death of a soldier is, while not necessarily expected, it's at least not unexpected. Dying is an occupational hazard that soldiers face in war.

But you sure don't want it spread all over the fuckin' globe.

 

[shereads]

Yeah. I feel for that soldier's family. I feel more sorry for them that the guy's death was videotaped and splashed all over worldwide news. Now everyone knows how he died.

The death of a soldier is, while not necessarily expected, it's at least not unexpected. Dying is an occupational hazard that soldiers face in war.

But you sure don't want it spread all over the fuckin' globe.

Just fyi raphy, Nick Berg was a civilian who was in Iraq to try and get a contract to rebuild cellular towers. He disappeared in April, having been last seen by the clerk at his hotel when he checked out and said he was going home.

 

[hiddenself]

People who are willing to strap a bomb to themselves and die are DESPERATE. Why would they respect another's life more than they respect their own?

Innocents get killed all the time -- from Paestine and Israel to Afghanistan, and from Kossovo to Sudan and the Congo. Have you forgotten Madrid already? You see Berg's slaughter and think that those masked people must be subhuman, criminals, mad. Some are. But most are simply at the end of their rope. They have absolutely nothing to lose. In their minds, they are already dead.

How can you fight dead people? How can you reason with them? "Bring them on" will not do the trick. The only way to stop the spiral is to give some meaning back to their lives. And certainly that's the first and only goal of GW Bush and Co. Sure. He's got it.

Do read how Berg's father placed the blame. And think about it very carefully before you pass judgements on those subhuman terrorists, uncivilized Iraqi people, and the millions of others (even past friends) who are coming to hate not only the US policies but also Americans themselves now.

The danger is real. And it is our own behavior, moralizing self righteousness and self absorption.

 

[cantdog]

Thank you, Hiddenself.

 

[raphy]

Just fyi raphy, Nick Berg was a civilian who was in Iraq to try and get a contract to rebuild cellular towers. He disappeared in April, having been last seen by the clerk at his hotel when he checked out and said he was going home.

Thanks for that information shereads - That makes it even worse. I had thought he was a captured US soldier.

 

[rgraham666]

Raphy when it come to war I prefer the word 'opponent' to 'them'.

'Opponent' is someone we must defeat. This may not include destroying them utterly or even destroying their power. There are many ways to win a war.

'Them', to my mind, automatically pushes the people so designated outside the bounds of humanity. Their destruction then becomes a necessity which severely limits your perception and ties you to a narrow range of options.

Once your opponent realises what those options are, they can avoid or neutralise them, making victory unlikely.

And the moral cost of destroying 'them' is high. Plus it never stops. Once 'them' is destroyed, a new 'them' is created, with the same results.

And you may become part of the new 'them'.

 

[CharleyH]

I have watch several dozen cable television news/talk shows, the ones I can stand...about the 'prisoner abuse' issue and now, the 'murder' of an American citizen as 'retaliation'.

That took a while to sink in...the full meaning...

I am considering a 1 Billion dollar law suit naming Dan Rather, his television network and the person that provided the photographs that were aired on national and then international television.

Quite frankly, I am of the opinion 'freedom to the press'. Think there is no propoganda in the states? The media surrounding vietnam was abhorred so much that worldwide, embarrassing, soldiers came back to be boo'd and pissed on.

The media, my friend, is not to blame. The media get their info from people like me, carefully and very cleverly releasing what needs to be, after target marketing , what will get the results one wants. Its all game. Sue Dan Rather? Why? He is just a puppet to the message

 

[cantdog]

Rather, phooey

Used to be a journalist. A talking head now, and he's on record saying he'd volunteer to be a propaganda man now that the Towers were hit.

He's got no more to say than you do what goes on his damn program if any pressure comes down.