May 09, 2004

• So, he's not angry that these events happened, but he IS angry that someone blabbed. Am I reading this right?
• I was not incredibly surprised at these pictures because I half expected it. What surprises me is that the US media is acting so surprised with so much outrage. This article is particularily interesting because here the internet has affected international relations in a way that has never happened before. We have already seen the power of the internet with Howard Dean's campaign. Rumsfeld's comments are strange, but perhaps they are taken out of context. I can imagine his frustration, but surely a way to prevent problems like this would have been to make the American people feel compassion for Iraq, rather than paint them as evil? The US administration has made the situation much more difficult to handle because they did not express the right attitude from the very start. Perhaps a way to encourage democracy is to encourage internet access?
• That's exactly what I tought when the media outrage began: 'It's all S*ny Corp.'s fault. If it wasn't for their damned gizmos, this would have never been known'. Next: strict ban on any kind of recording equipment for soldiers. Limited and highly monitored net access for them. It'll be easier than getting those frat boys to behave. A couple things keep bothering me: this, from a PR viewpoint, is catastrophically bad for Bush & Co. How come they let this happen? Is this a proof of a bumbling, incompetent campaign, as opposed to the conspiracy-based 'evil masterminds' image many qualify the whole administration with? Or is this damage control for even worse stuff that's liable to get exposed? Or, in a reverse-psychology way, a subtle warning and fuel to the fire: 'Ok, Mohamed, you play hardball, we play hardball. Keep bringing it on'. And: the hooded guy with outstrechted arms... that image keeps haunting me. For its' raw graphic impact, and that somehow it feels like it's based on something else (apart from the obvious crucifixion reference). Like we've alll seen it before.
• How much do you want to bet that soldiers won't be allowed to carry digital cameras anymore?
• This is a fiasco utter and entire. And the Arabs will never forget it. My heartiest congratulations to all concerned.
• I'm surprised, to be honest, that soldiers (particularly US soldiers) don't have their internet access monitored already. That is why I take those "I'm a soldier in Iraq!!" blogs with a grain of salt. Do they still censor letters home at all?
• I doubt if there has ever been a war where soldiers of either side have never humiliated the enemy in an way like this. This is what wars are like, for every John Wayne there is at least one miss England. If you are cynical enough to accept this, then, yes, this is just a problem of camera's.
• I was listening to Rummy on the wireless when he said that, so I can say, well, not out of context, exactly. The article does a fair job summarizing that aspect of his testimony. He did express regret and various shades of negative emotion that the 'abuse' (a weasel word, IMHO: it's torture, OK?) happened. Disgust and so forth. To my ears, though, he didn't get all excited and angry sounding until he said the words cited above; I certainly came away from the listening with the impression that he was, in fact, really mad that pictures had leaked, while only sorta pro forma mad that prisoners had been roughed up. NPR should have a link to the audio, as well as some other good stuff on the issue.
• "..for every John Wayne there is at least one miss England." John Wayne never served in a real war. He only ever fought on celluloid.
• That pesky internet.
• But- but- but- Mr Wayne won WWII all by himself... I have seen him, with a cigar! Damn camera's!
• And: the hooded guy with outstretched arms .. that image keeps haunting me .. somehow it feels like it's based on something else .. Goya, perhaps?
• dunno about the censoring - my brother's emails seem to come through with nothing that looks edited; he may be watching what he does or does not say, but the way in which he describes things isn't being modified. seems that being over there has changed his perceptions some; he uses some phrases that i don't expect he'd use here at home, referring to the locals who deliver his water as "Hajis" and using quite a bit more vulgarity than is the norm for him. seems to drop a lot of f-bombs. guess that's what happens when you're in a hostile place surrounded by like-minded individuals, as we all already knew. anyway the excess cussing and ethnic slurs are what lead me to believe he isn't being censored. mostly when something bad happens they just cut off all communications access until the families have been notified, then the good old email flow starts again from his "technology bunker" (= tent with computers inside).
• Ah, well, Dick's men in Iraq have the answer. No more Internet for the troops!
• How much do you want to bet that soldiers won't be allowed to carry digital cameras anymore? drivingmenuts: the ban's probably been put into effect a couple yesterdays ago. BUT! Any soldier that really feels a need to document abuse or wants to send a picture of the company cat home to ma can get hands on a camera and head to the local intarweb cafe. This is a fiasco utter and entire. And the Arabs will never forget it. My heartiest congratulations to all concerned. Wolof:You said it all, fella. Let's flush the Geneva Convention right down the toilet. Pretty hard to take the moral high road when you've been caught with your pants down pissing on human rights. What a proud day for Amurkins. Rummy is an ASSHOLE, plain and simple. (gee, have I said that before) He's pissed that it was documented, plain and simple. Doesn't give a rat's scaly ass that it happened. RAH for the intraweb! Let truth be told.
• Only wanted to rough them up a bit.
• Those of us who are in the US should email president@whitehouse.gov and vicepresident@whitehouse.gov to let them know if this decision by their contractor will convince us to vote for them, or not. After all, Haliburton has to take orders from its customer on how to do the job in Iraq. In an election year, with lots of scandals, they might actually pay attention.
• / confused... is there a difference between haliburton and the white house? i just live in the wrong country, i guess. i get these folks all mixed up.
• Haliburton is the company Cheney worked for before becoming Vice President, and it's been given contracts in Iraq on a non-competitive basis.
• How exactly is freedom the problem? Idiots who don't respect the Geneva Convention are the problem. Court martial them and find out what CO ordered the code red. Now when are we going to see the photos from Hama?
• Tolerance of this kind of abuse appears to be a systemic problem, not the work of a few individuals. The buck stops here. --Harry Truman Oh, to be sure./sarcasm
• >Perhaps a way to encourage democracy is to encourage internet access? -nicollo Amen.
• I'm surprised they had cameras in those prisons. Really, really surprised. You give the matter about 3 seconds of thought, and you wouldn't want to have any lingering proof of you violating the Geneva Convention. Unless the soldiers with cameras *wanted* the pictures to go public?
• That's another angle to consider: were some of the soldiers depicted on pictures actually taking them to denounce what was happening? Did they had to 'play along', pointing and smirking in order to not be suspicious to others? There has already been some reports on the person thought to have taken some of the pictures, and they're gonna use whatever they find to smear and paint them as monsters (I'm not implying they may *not* be such, btw). Who knows if the only faces being shown turn out to be of whistleblowers?
• It doesn't really matter what the intention of the photographers was. William S. Burroughs once wrote about 'casting a magic spell' via photography, one of sahme. Everyday, he claimed, he returned to a restaurant where he'd been ill treated and took numerous photos from across the street. He would return and display the prior day's photos on a posterboard, so that people entering and leaving the restaurant could see that he was so doing. Business fell off, and the business closed. In his own witty way, Burroughs was demonstrating that in the age of mechanical reproduction, the panopticon surrounds all of us, and all of us are the ever-watching eye at the center. It sahmes, as it did the prisoners, and it shames, as it is currently the grunts and officers who created the policies and conditions that led to this.
• panopticon There's still, in Jeremy Bentham's invention, (not to mention in Foucault's spectacular exegesis of it!), an inside and an outside, a viewer and a viewed, whereas you seem to have made a device planned for the efficient exercise of power into a M