The New York Times has posted a photo gallery of dead or wounded marines, soldiers and civilians killed in Iraq, with the following story as a fig leaf:
BAGHDAD  The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war.
Ah, yes — the ubiquitous “some.” To get a sense of how dishonest this piece is, consider that one of the counts in the NYT‘s indictment is that “the Department of Defense, citing prisoners’ rights, has recently stopped” allowing detainees to be photographed. The NYT knows full well that the DoD faced a firestorm of criticism for releasing such photos in the first instance, but now wants to club the Pentagon for applying the Geneva Convention to detainees in this regard.
But it gets worse:
And while publishing photos of American dead is not barred under the “embed†rules in which journalists travel with military units, the [Zoriah] Miller case underscores what is apparently one reality of the Iraq war: that doing so, even under the rules, can result in expulsion from covering the war with the military.
In fact, this is not clear at all. The Marines barred Miller from embedding in Marine Corps-controlled areas of Iraq because he published pictures of dead US Marines that allegedly violated sections 14 (h) and (o) of the embed rules, which state that no information can be published without approval, including material about “any tactics, techniques and procedures witnessed during operations,†or that “provides information on the effectiveness of enemy techniques.â€ÂÂÂ
An anonymous official in Baghdad tells the NYT that a preliminary assessment showed he had not violated MNF rules — but that Miller was still credentialed to work in Iraq. Several anonymous military officials told the paper that no military unit would accept Miller, though the paper does not consider that the way in which Miller refused to work with the Marines in resolving the issue might have something to do with it.
Miller’s case is not yet resolved, but it is telling that the NYT bases the rest of its case on reporting that looks shaky at best when compared to other media accounts:
New embed rules were adopted in the spring of 2007 that required written permission from wounded soldiers before their image could be used, a near impossibility in the case of badly wounded soldiers, journalists say. While embed restrictions do permit photographs of dead soldiers to be published once family members have been notified, in practice, photographers say, the military has exacted retribution on the rare occasions that such images have appeared. In four out of five cases that The New York Times was able to document, the photographer was immediately kicked out of his or her embed following publication of such photos.
The New York Times cannot be bothered to tell readers that the new rules issued in 2007 were prompted by the misconduct of the New York Times in the case of Army Staff Sgt. Hector Leija, though they base their case in part on their own distorted account of the incident:
Two New York Times journalists were disembedded in January 2007 after the paper published a photo of a mortally wounded soldier. Though the soldier was shot through the head and died hours after the photo was taken, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno argued that The Times had broken embed rules by not getting written permission from the soldier.
The Houston Chronicle reported an independent account of the incident, from which it is clear that the NYT violated a signed agreement not to publish photos or video of any wounded soldiers without official consent. Moreover, this independent report has New York Times foreign editor Susan Chira telling a story about trying to reach out to Leija’s family that was disputed by third parties. The paper also fails to mention that Timesmen Daniel Cave and Robert Nickelsberg protested being disembedded and were allowed back with a different unit.
The NYT claims that the first incident they checked was that of “Stefan Zaklin, formerly of the European Pressphoto Agency, [who] was barred from working with an Army unit after he published a photo of a dead Army captain lying in a pool of blood in Falluja in 2004.” The paper does not mention that Zalkin told the New York Observer in 2007 that the soldiers “were O.K. with me taking that picture,†and that he blames US editors for generally deciding against running such pictures.
The third case cited by the NYT:
Chris Hondros, of Getty Images, was with an army unit in Tal Afar on Jan. 18, 2005, when soldiers killed the parents of an unarmed Iraqi family. After his photos of their screaming blood-spattered daughter were published around the world, Mr. Hondros was kicked out of his embed (though Mr. Hondros points out that he soon found an embed with a unit in another city).
Editor & Publisher reported a quite different account of the incident in 2005:
It was Chris Hondros, a photographer for Getty Images, who took the photos of the Tal Afar checkpoint shooting while embedded with a unit of the 25th Infantry Division. He encountered some anger from the military last January after Getty chose not to agree to the military’s request to delay sending them out. “They never asked me to censor,” Hondros emphasizes, “they asked me to delay.” But delay can sometimes mean the photos arrive too late to ever be used.
Though he had not violated any ground rules, he chose to leave the next day. “Even if I had not sent those photos, I would have left that embed,” he says. “The incident had been a high stress one, and it didn’t start me out on a good footing with these particular soldiers. It’s impossible to be operating under hostility in an embedded situation.”
The other two cases the NYT “documents” are situations in which the military has kept photographers back from the midst of battle for their own safety.  If the paper’s “documentation” included getting the US military’s side of these incidents, it was left out of the finished story. Nor is it clear from the story that either reporter was kicked out of an embed.
In sum, what the magical “some” claim is a “growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war” turns out to be a handful of cases over the course of several years. The New York Times starts with the claim that even following the rules can result in expulsion from covering the war with the military, when only the Miller case comes close. The remainder involve disembedding at most — and those cases look fishy when checked against other press accounts.  What remains is the US military’s tightening of the embed rules in 2007, which was the fault of the New York Times.
Oddly enough, one can search the New York Times website and never find any in-depth coverage complaining that the US media does not show enough pictures or video of Islamic terrorists torturing and beheading their helpless victims.
Update: Newsbusters has obtained the full letter that Capt Esteban Vickers, one of the officers quoted in the New York Times story, sent the NYT. Near the end of that letter Capt. Vickers notes that in the Zoriah Miller case, publishing the pictures not only of dead US soldiers and Iraqi sheikhs damages the relationships the US has worked so hard to build with Iraqi tribesmen, both in terms of common decency and in terms of the local cultural sensitivities.ÂÂ
(h/t Memeorandum.)
****
Jeff’s update: Courtesy of Chris Muir comes a .pdf of the media ground rules as of Feb 2007.
Your headline is too long. I suggest the following:
“The New York Times Wants More Dead US Soldiers.”
Snappier, and more accurate.
Fuckers. Lying fucking fuckers, they are. Karl is committing an act of journalism here. When the Times is not gobbling Baracky’s knob, they are spitting on the military.
and
The guy’s an asshole.
If he was left embedded, he would’ve been on permanent point. He became a liability. There’s enough stress on the combat Marine’s plates without having to deal with an opinionated prick who carries a ‘weapon’ that might be used against them, or if one of them were killed, used to horrify their families.
Cheer up, it won’t be long.
“it didn’t start me out on a good footing with these particular soldiers”
Working as an enemy propagandist rarely does.
*sigh*
How firmly embedded in hubris and an inflated sense of your own importance do you have to be to want to argue about the “right” to show dead and wounded soldiers? Apparantly, in addition to any pretense of objectivity, the NYT has also lost their basic humanity.
The Gray Lady is not only senile but also mean as a junkyard dog, firmly rooted in their own puffed up image of their “calling.”
If there is such a thing as a beehive of assholes, the NYT fits the bill perfectly.
I refuse to read it, even when I don’t have to pay for it.
What a huge gathering of immature little twatwaffles…
BJ – Their level of concern is inversely proportionate to their disdain of the political party in the White House.
I am so glad I cancelled NYTimes subscription a few years ago
It’s a comforting thought that more people will read Karl’s fisking of the NYT at PW than will read the NYT story itself.
May their stock plunge further………..
Whenever the media reports on the media, the media comes out looking bad. I really don’t care about the media’s feelings getting hurt when they enter agreements with military units and then find the agreements to be not-entirely-conducive to the media’s wishes. Every time that happens, a little boy in a newsie hat sheds a tear.
Funny how they try to use Vietnam as a model to allow them greater access to troops and to show how free they were there, when Vietnam is regarded by military people as the reason not to trust the press and to restrict access and use of images. The press used their access in Vietnam to conduct psy-ops for the anti-war left and Communist North Vietnam trying to force a US withdrawal by turning the public against the war.
That is the real unspoken in all of this. That the 4th estate has become a fifth column for enemies of the US.
William Kristol writes Op-Eds at the NYT. Twatwaffle!
Hmmmm.
Considering the complete lack of coverage I’d kick all embeds out.
Seeing bodies would cause Americans to question this phony-balcony war for oil, period.
Great, now you can return to the DU for the impeachment rally.
Pictures of dead Marines? Hey, it’s all part of the meme. If they’re not murderous, baby-raping mentally and morally defective tools of an illegal imperialist regime, then they’re naive, low-IQ hillbillies and ghetto-dwellers forced into being cannon fodder, ignorant victims of a failed administration, dying in some foreign land we have no right to invade in the first place, because they lack the skills to get a job.
Piss me off? You bet!
Just one illustration: The coverage of the fight in Wanat, Afghanistan, where nine soldiers died fighting a Taliban assault on their OP. What do we glean from the NYT and other MSM about this incident? That the resurgent Taliban is slaughtering our poor, misled troops like wolves among the sheep, overrunning them at will. Therefore, we must be losing, we deserve to lose, because of the evil stupidity of the administration in charge. Contrast that with the accounts of the troopers who were actually there. You’ll have to hunt for the account, but you can find it — if you know where to look. Those troopers (and their chain of command)did everything right; Hell, they kicked the ass of an enemy force three to four times their size. Yes, nine good men died. Soldiers, even good soldiers, die in war. But there were American heroes there that day, who, if they’d performed the same acts in WWII, would have had their faces pictured and their deeds displayed on Page 1 of every major newspaper in the country. Today, though, they’re just victims. And their bravery and skill won’t even be acknowledged. Why? To fit the narrative.
Feh.
that’s another good reason NYTimes deserves it’s fate, thor
I wouldn’t mind seeing the heaps of dead “insurgents” and terrorists. There are thousands of them, yet some kind of embargo is in place. Or the bottom-feeding “photojournalists” are too teary-eyed to frame shots of their dead heroes. And it must rankle that the “Minutemen” lose pretty much every engagement.
Cordially…
“Phony-balcony”…?
Spell-check is not always your friend, David. ;-)
The fact that you document 1) rules violations, 2) agreement violations and 3) delays “too late to ever be used” shows you that there are at least three ways the Pentagon is trying to keep photos of dead or injured soldiers from being published. They know a ban will come across as heavy-handed censorship so they’re looking for other reasons to keep them out. And they want them suppressed for a very good reason: Images show a graphic truth of war that recited body counts cannot. But if we’re going to be adults about this we have to be willing to postulate that reality and not squeal like stuck pigs when it disturbs our morning coffee.
How about pictures of al Qaeda beheading journalists?
@ #22: Then why aren’t we seeing graphic photos of dead terrorists?
The leftoids love ‘joking’ about soldiers fragging their leadership. Would it be ‘unpatriotic’ of me to ‘joke’ about soldiers fragging embeded propagandists? The media would still get juicy photos of dead bodies. Although, I doubt they’d publish them with as much relish.
So, Dan and David, what I got from your comments is that the importance of hammering home the political view that this in an unjust war waged for profit and imperialistic gains trumps the dignity of the soldiers fighting and dying as well as the emotions and heartaches of the families of those soldiers.
I’ll try to remember that the left is the “caring” side of the political square. You could find a friend in Phelps and his gang of messengers.
They aren’t American. We don’t feel the connection to them that we do with our countrymen. With soldiers it’s happening to us. If outlets did it with foreigners it might come across as gratuitous, though keep in mind Saddam’s hanging and the photos of his sons got wide circulation (the sons in particular had the news value of verifying their identities).
#22 Dan
You do know the story of the blind men trying to describe an elephant, correct?
How about just tweaking that story where it is a reporter describing only the elephant’s tail to a blind audience while deliberately refusing to report on any other part of the elephant?
Then why aren’t we seeing graphic photos of dead terrorists?
That ruins the “we’re killing innocent civilians” meme.
Which really tells us all we need to know about why you think the media should be showing us dead Americans.
Fuck off.
@ #29: No, they’d just claim the terrorists were innocent civilians murdered by bloodthirsty American killbots.
No, it means that people who are in favor of its continuing should be expected to not object to photos like that, or flag draped coffins, or funerals at Arlington. War is always done in everyone’s name and in previous wars photographs weren’t censored so heavily. In a more mature era the populace could understand that they were a reminder of the price we are paying, and possibly a reason to reflect on if it is worth continuing to pay.
Darleen, I take your point – but the fact that this has caused such controversy is because it hasn’t been a part of our war reporting so far. To use your metaphor it’s like the tail has been ignored to this point.
“…In a more mature era the populace…”
A seed of fantasy, Dan. Deal with the “era” you are in.
Uh, just to be entirely clear my “They aren’t American” here refers to the terrorists McGehee refers to here.
This is sick.
“In a more mature era the populace could understand that they were a reminder of the price we are paying, and possibly a reason to reflect on if it is worth continuing to pay.”
And if we had one iotum of trust that the photos were being used to induce that, rather than to score cheap political points, we might soberly accept such.
As it happens, though, the New York Times can scarce be trusted to inform us of the date without screening not-narrative data to A27. It’s not the coffins, old sport, its the asshole using them. The saints of the Fourth Estate will never understand this.
Oh please Dan. The parade of dead and injured across the pages of major papers like the NYTimes and WaPo is ubiquitous to the point that they have to gin up the coverage with gore-p0rn. Just where has been their coverage of individual bravery or where are/were the front page stories of medal winners?
The military’s goal is to prevent enemy psy-ops. The press earned the military’s mistrust in Vietnam. The press did not learn their lesson from this. That the press is actively cheerleading for the political party that wants to surrender in Iraq ias quite telling as to how naked their partisanship and even what could be called disloyalty to the country in a time of war, in support of a political party.
The military runs the war. Part of the war is the information battlefield. The press isn’t some sacred priesthood of Democracy, it is a corrupt institution that is the effective PR firm for the Democrats. They don’t deserve access to the battlefield if they are corrupt and will use the information they gain for a political psyo-op campaign to undermine public support for the war by ignoring victories and heros and pimping our deaths while portraying the Islamic terrorists as plucky freedom fighters standing up to the giant USA.
Not all embeds are corrupt though. I read guys like Michael Totten and Michael Yon and others who give better reports than the billion dollar DNC PR firms who call themselves the press.
My direct experience with how Abu Ghuraib went down and seeing the BS that the media was peddling has earned my mistrust.
I love playing the absolute moral authority card. :D
It was very clever of the NYT to have printed all of those 2002 stories about how Saddam definitely has an advanced nuclear weapons program, because, of course, they were just hoping to trick the public into supporting the war so that lots of American troops would die when the administration inevitably screwed it up – the deaths of American troops being the NYT’s ultimate goal, as I’ve learned from all of your awesome and well-supported arguments here today.
War is always done in everyone’s name and in previous wars photographs weren’t censored so heavily
Um… either you know you’re peddling bullsh*t on that or you are woefully ignorant of “previous wars”. Look at WWII.
SGT Ted, you give them too much credit. They aren’t that smart. Remember that you should never ascribe to malice what can be explained adequately by sloth and ignorance. It’s quite true that you have people like David and his mentors who are exploiting the situation, not to mention a concerted effort on the part of our enemies to bend the coverage to their advantage, but as far as American journalists are concerned it’s strictly a case of the drunk by the lamp post — “Th’ ligtsh better here.”
In the heydey of the newspaper business there was the “special edition”, later adapted for the TV “special report”. In both cases the “specials” were immensely profitable — people would line up to buy special editions, and special reports (the Kennedy assisination, Katrina coverage) attracted a lot of eyeballs to the Depends ads. The lesson is clear: extraordinary events generate interest, and therefore revenue for the people who tell us about them. Add to that the corporate bean-counters. You have a commodity business, routine news, and an occasional high-interest business, specials. The former is modestly profitable in the best case; the second generates lots of revenue. The business case is clearly to de-emphasize the routine and spend most of your effort on the extraordinary, because that’s where the money is.
The “journalistic” part of that has been with us for a long time — “man bites dog”; “good news is no news”. I put “journalistic” in scarequotes because the original journalists were for all practical purposes spies; their patrons wanted information about the price of kumquats FOB the other guy’s docks, and were interested in scandal only to the extent that it might give them leverage for blackmail. What we have today isn’t journalists; it is pamphleteers. The reinforcement of the tendency from the “business case” is largely new, though.
Pictures of dead American servicemen will attract newspaper readers and TV watchers, who will avidly observe the outrage (for different reasons, depending on orientation) and sit still for the lingerie ads and Depends commercials afterward, and therefore make money. It’s true that there are people around who will exploit that, but from the point of view of reporters, editors, and publishers/producers it’s as simple as the burning need to attract eyeballs. Pictures of violently tortured Iraqis have no such resonance, and are much harder (and more expensive) to gather. It’s a little ironic, of course, that they would also concentrate on denouncing the Vile Profit Motive in others, but most of them are too ignorant to even recognize that the irony exists.
Regards,
Ric
Other than going online on Sunday morning to print off William Safire’s weekly “On Language” column is there really any reason for The New York Times to exist? I guess I should add that it makes available free archives back to 1987.
I seem to recall that photogrphers were quite a bit more willing to show enemy casulaties as well as Amerivan ones during Vietnam than they are in this particulat war. However, you have crafted a rather closed circle argument that, I’m sure just coincidentally, serves your particular point of view.
The American people must be hammered with the raw details of American suffering and death beacuse that allows them to clearly see the cost while being denied that other, inconvenient aspect of war, the fruits of viotory. Thus any humanistio concerns with the feelings of either the troops or the families are far less important than the cost.
One must never spend too much time observing the positives when one is engaged in promoting the narrative of unjust war. I’m sure that the world of media should morph itself into this play along concept just to suit your desires.
Or .. perhaps there is a middle ground where we allow our humanity to err on the side of our side in the middle of a conflict despite your concerns. A bit radical, I suppose, but a bit more merciful.
I’d probably post something on my disgust with the times except I lack the vocabulary to do so in socially acceptable terms.
Guess we’ll just have to say fuck off, NYT.
Darleen, there have been lots of articles on the war but not many pictures of the cost in American blood. And as for WWII, from the NYT article:
LIFE magazine was a mainstream publication with huge circulation, and the picture is wrenching. Don’t call it bullsh*t.
Images show a graphic truth of war that recited body counts cannot. But if we’re going to be adults about this we have to be willing to postulate that reality and not squeal like stuck pigs when it disturbs our morning coffee.
No Dan, adults don’t need pictures to understand what the words mean.
BJTexs, I think there’s some room between getting “hammered with the raw details” and never showing anything.
“It was very clever of the NYT to have printed all of those 2002 stories about how Saddam definitely has an advanced nuclear weapons program, because, of course, they were just hoping to trick the public into supporting the war so that lots of American troops would die when the administration inevitably screwed it up – the deaths of American troops being the NYT’s ultimate goal, as I’ve learned from all of your awesome and well-supported arguments here today.”
Not bad, Sarcastro, but the fact that you’re re-hashing the “Bush Lied, People Died” routine so you can plonk it into your “What Liberal Media?” defense valve is ultimately tiresome. Once more for the cheap seats: nobody doubted that Saddam had ’em in 2002: Not the Democrats, Not the French, Not anybody. What you will see from NYT in 2002-3 is an insistence that despite Saddam’s danger, we shouldn’t go to war, because of destablization/international consensus/war is bad, mmkay. In this, the NYT mouthed the shibboleths given them by Daschle and the rest of the loyal opposition.
As soon as we got to Baghdad and found the story different from what we’d been expected, the Greek chorus wasted no time in reminding us all of that fact. The quantities of yellowcake uranium just shipped from Iraq to Canada? A26. Coffins of dead soldiers? Front page, above the fold.
But go on, tell me again how objective they are, and how I should just believe there protestations of innocence.
“…in September 1943, LIFE magazine published this image of three dead American soldiers and their landing craft on Buna Beach, New Guinea…”
We search, we learn this pic was taken in Feb, 1943. In a time with no satellites with which to beam the pic back to the US in near realtime.
B Moe, there were reports of what was happening in Abu Ghraib before the pictures were released. But it wasn’t until people saw what the reports were describing that scandal ensued. Adults ABSOLUTELY need pictures to understand what the words mean. It brings home reality in a way the written word cannot.
#39
SGT Ted, that deserves a standout. Perfectly said.
No, it means that people who are in favor of its continuing should be expected to not object to photos like that, or flag draped coffins, or funerals at Arlington. War is always done in everyone’s name and in previous wars photographs weren’t censored so heavily. In a more mature era the populace could understand that they were a reminder of the price we are paying, and possibly a reason to reflect on if it is worth continuing to pay.
In a “more mature” era, by which I take you to mean an era like World War II, the photographs of American casualties did indeed remind us that there is a price to be paid in war, but they were not used exclusively as propaganda to deliberately portray that price as too high to pay, or to deliberately paint our casualties as unknowing, unwilling victims. If there is another reason you can cite for the eagerness of our “journalists” to publish them, please enlighten me.
If you tell me it is “to honor their sacrifice”, I will puke all over my keyboard.
B MOe, BJTexs, Darleen and McGehee thanks for your comments. I have to step away for a couple hours so I won’t be able to respond to new comments immediately…
But it wasn’t until people saw what the reports were describing that scandal ensued.
Wrong.
As revealed by the 2004 Taguba Report, a criminal investigation by the US Army Criminal Investigation Command had already been underway since 2003 where multiple recruits from the 320th MP Battalion had been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with prisoner abuse.
slackjawedyokel, publishing them shows what is happening. It’s important that we be able to look unflinchingly at that. Now I really am going AFK.
“B Moe, there were reports of what was happening in Abu Ghraib before the pictures were released. But it wasn’t until people saw what the reports were describing that scandal ensued. Adults ABSOLUTELY need pictures to understand what the words mean. It brings home reality in a way the written word cannot.”
Horse balls. I read the first reports of Abu Graib in the WaPo. The story, as then written, was “U.S. Military announces investigation into mistreament of prisoners.” The brass was on top of it before the press was, and with that, no story. Page A26.
A month later, pictures make it a whole new story, and the first one gets dropped down the memory hole faster than you can say “gulag”. Front page, with mention of the investigation in the last paragraph, if at all.
Adults don’t need pictures to understand. Journalists need pictures to sensationalize and attack.
[…] and there are those who wonder why I’m not too fond of the New York Times. The New York Times has posted a photo gallery of dead or wounded marines, […]
slackjawedyokel, publishing them shows what is happening. It’s important that we be able to look unflinchingly at that.
No, Dan, it shows part of what’s happening. In the context of their narrative.
I’m trying to think of any other news stories that are accompanied by pictures of dead bodies.
Car crashes, murder scenes, suicides, 9/11, fires….they rarely have the photo of the dead person, do they?
I recall one photo from Lockerbie of a man, dead, still in his seat on a building. That photo drew outrage.
So why are the military photos so much more desirable for the NYTs?
“Not bad, Sarcastro, but the fact that you’re re-hashing the “Bush Lied, People Died†routine so you can plonk it into your “What Liberal Media?†defense valve is ultimately tiresome.”
I’m not sure where you’re getting all that. I never said that Bush lied about this matter. I did imply that he is incompetent.
“Once more for the cheap seats: nobody doubted that Saddam had ‘em in 2002: Not the Democrats, Not the French, Not anybody.”
Not technically true; Hans Blix doubted it, for one thing, and some within various intelligence communities also seem to have had their doubts, to say the least. But I get the thrust – it was commonly believed that Iraq had WMDs.
“What you will see from NYT in 2002-3 is an insistence that despite Saddam’s danger, we shouldn’t go to war, because of destablization/international consensus/war is bad, mmkay.”
Those silly rascals with their wacky daydreams about destabilization! Incidentally, I didn’t say or imply that the NYT was operating with the goal of getting the war launched, but rather that certain editors over there have no problem in helping to make the case for war if one of their all-star reporters is making them look good.
“In this, the NYT mouthed the shibboleths given them by Daschle and the rest of the loyal opposition.”
If it’s your intention to claim that Daschle and the Democrats were literally providing the NYT with their cues, I’d love to see your evidence. Otherwise, you’re not really saying anything.
“As soon as we got to Baghdad and found the story different from what we’d been expected, the Greek chorus wasted no time in reminding us all of that fact. The quantities of yellowcake uranium just shipped from Iraq to Canada? A26.”
[Citation needed]
“Coffins of dead soldiers? Front page, above the fold.”
Well, they had to fill the front page with *something* after people stopped getting the NYT for its fantastic, front-page aluminum tube stories. Also, [citation needed].
“But go on, tell me again how objective they are…”
Uh… I don’t remember saying that once, so doing it “again” will be tough. Let me get drunk first
“… and how I should just believe there [sic] protestations of innocence.”
Which protestations of innocence would those be? I don’t think the paper has felt the need to address the constant accusations of treason. They probably gave up on you guys after you accused them of trying to get Rumsfeld killed by doing a profile on his house even though he cooperated with the profile.
In addition, if Dan can hop out of his ideological jacuzzi for a moment, he might want to read the NY Observer piece linked in the post. That article — like most on the subject — end up pointing to US editors — not the US military — as the people most responsible for the lack of Iraq war corpse photos not appearing in US media. Mostly for the reasons suggested by MayBee in #60. The NYT here is acting in part on its bias, but in at least as large a part in pursuit of a petty vendetta over the bad PR the NYT got in the Leija case.
I actually agree with MayBee at 60.
And was it Dan who compared this with pictures from Aby Ghraib?
Dan, those people in prison were alive, and the pics were descriptive regarding the treatment they got in prison..
I still do not understand the desire to see the dead bodies…
Bottom line, Barrett, that’s old news. Wer are trying to deal with the here and now rather than rehash 5-6 year old memes.
B Moe, there were reports of what was happening in Abu Ghraib before the pictures were released. But it wasn’t until people saw what the reports were describing that scandal ensued. Adults ABSOLUTELY need pictures to understand what the words mean. It brings home reality in a way the written word cannot.
I would use AG as an example to support my case. As noted above, the military was already on the case and the matter was being handled when the pictures went public. All that happened then was a completely irrational, totally emotional response cultivated and by the anti-Bush anti-war segment of the left to be used as a propoganda bludgeon against their enemies.
The words had been telling the story perfectly adequately for months, all the pictures did was distract from what was actually happening and inflame emotions. Rational adults don’t make decisions based on emotional responses.
Barrett Brown: “I’m not sure where you’re getting all that. I never said that Bush lied about this matter. I did imply that he is incompetent.”
Unduly delayed is more like it, Barrett — there was eighteen months in delay prior to the invasion of Iraq. Given that amount of time, it was small beer for the Iraqi gov’t to dismantle and destroy their programs, retaining blue-prints for later reconstitution… or are you the sort that actually believes that Iraq labels its “baby milk factories” in clumsily made English signs?
I don’t mind having them publish the pictures as long as there is counterbalance. What happened to the enemy in that engagement? Were the pieces so small that they didn’t show up?
And if the brutal truth of dead soldiers is so necessary to the debate back home, why does that reasoning not apply to more milquetoast items like the Mohammed cartoons? Why is it okay to expose families of american soldiers to brutally explicit photos of loved ones, but we have to tiptoe around delicate sensibilities of religious fanatics?
Hadlowe: Well said.
#67: Please note the new update to the post, as I think it relevant to your last point.
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Anyone got a count of the number of pictures of people jumping to their deaths from the burning WTC that made it into the Copperhead Times? There must be dozens and dozens of them – otherwise people might lose track of the reason that American soldiers and Marines have been dying.
NY Times whines.
Here comes another Bruce Springsteen’s shallow Vietnam war song.
slackjawed, point well taken.
Dan, you’re an ass. I’m a soldier. I and my family are looking “unflinchingly what war is.” I’m living in a ‘more mature era’ I don’t know what metrosexual coastal pesthole you live in.
I’d at least like to know that if I had the bad fortune of getting shot in the head in Tal Afar that my wife and kids won’t have to see the picture of my blood-spurting head in color in the NY Times with slow-mo of the shot and blood spray on CNN!
How much would it suck for a soldier’s last thoughts to be “Oh, shit. I hope my wife won’t have to see this.”
Dan supports the troops as long as they are in technicolor, dead and lying in a pool of their own blood.
Fucker.
Dan obviously supports the use by pro-lifers of graphic pics of aborted fetuses, too.
Car crashes, murder scenes, suicides, 9/11, firesIn some cases (murder, suicide, fires) it’s tragedy of/by private citizens so there’s no “news” value. If the NYT occasionally showed pictures of crash victims – I believe there’s around 40k+ deaths per year – it might better show the price we pay for having so many cars. (I’m not saying we shouldn’t have them or restrict them, but let’s face it – that’s a lot of deaths.) And yes, showing some of the 9/11 victims would have been appropriate too. We shouldn’t look away from what Osama & company did to us.
I believe there’s around 40k+ deaths per year – it might better show the price we pay for having so many cars.
Yeah: There’s misanthropic Left on display. How can the dirty, dirty leftists say they ‘are for the little guy’ when all they want to do is show pictures of dead little guys as a warning to all the other little guys.
If I end up as road-kill on my motorcycle, I don’t want my wife or kids seeing that either.
“Have you no decency. At long last, have you no decency.”
Murder and fire are more private than war? huh.
They want to run pictures on dead and wounded soldiers, but they won’t even run a picture of a live John Edwards and his mistress.
Gray, I don’t recall saying I was in favor of “blood-spurting head in color in the NY Times with slow-mo of the shot and blood spray on CNN”. Occasional pictures of the more distressing/gruesome part of what is happening is necessary. If we don’t see them, then as a country we will get complacent and distracted. As a soldier you have no option to look away. Tell me, do you think the rest of the country has? As I write this here’s the “Latest News” section of CNN:
CNNMoney: Senate passes landmark housing bill
Obama, Brown discuss ‘special relationship’
Ticker: McCain: Feeling ‘a little left out’
Detroit mayor swore, shoved me, detective says
CNNMoney: Gas prices dip below $4
Investigators seek cause of gash in plane
Dumped fiancee wins $150K in court
WAVE: Car fleeing cops hits, kills 2 girls
Army puts football star’s NFL dream on hold
Man shoots his lawn mower, police say
CNNMoney: Nike pulls ads after complaints
Mardi Gras still segregated in Deep South
Is marriage for white people? | Black in America
‘Last lecture’ prof taught others how to live
Four siblings prepare for Olympics
CNN.com road trip tests biodiesel | Blog
iReport.com: Comic-Con draws thousands
Ed McMahon returns to work as pitchman
What McCain would do if he caught bin Laden
Departure of Ebert, Roeper ‘end of an era’
I won’t go to Fox or MSNBC but I suspect they’re politely ignoring the subject at the moment too.
Which is why you’ll never see a murder, a suicide, or a fire as the top story on your local “news.”
Gray, I don’t recall saying I was in favor of “blood-spurting head in color in the NY Times with slow-mo of the shot and blood spray on CNNâ€Â. Occasional pictures of the more distressing/gruesome part of what is happening is necessary.
Necessary for what?
Tell me, do you think the rest of the country has?
Not the country I live in. Just CNN and the weird leftist enclaves are ‘looking away’. Strangely enough, ‘cuz less of us are getting killed.
Fox has war news on all the time.
I won’t go to Fox or MSNBC but I suspect they’re politely ignoring the subject at the moment too.
The subject being….what? War in Iraq? Dead soldiers? Zimbabwe? Obama’s trip to Europe?
WAVE: Car fleeing cops hits, kills 2 girls
Were there pictures of these 2 dead girls?
MayBee, more private in that it is not the result of a government program or policy. And Gray, don’t you think we are rather complacent about the huge number of highway deaths every year? We seem to accept it as an act of God or something. Maybe being more shocked about it would be a good thing.
Or, maybe, nobody’s been killed in the moment you refreshed CNN’s homepage. I’m just saying is all.
Sean, don’t even get me started on that. :)
If we don’t see them, then as a country we will get complacent and distracted.
What you mean is, “If we don’t see them, then as a party we will get complacent and distracted.”
So, let’s have more graphic photos of the victims of car crashes in the papers and on the network news, right?
This being the “world-wide-web” and all, isn’t it actually the case that if someone wants to see photos of war dead, whether of Americans or Jihadis, they can search for them in publications abroad which are not governed by US law and regulation?
And Gray, don’t you think we are rather complacent about the huge number of highway deaths every year? We seem to accept it as an act of God or something. Maybe being more shocked about it would be a good thing.
I can cut highway deaths in half overnight:
Instead of seatbelts or airbags, mandate that every vehicle have a sharp iron spike sticking out of the steering wheel at the drivers’ chest. Instantly everyone becomes better, more cautious and courteous drivers.
I’m a soldier and I ride a sportbike. You presume to lecture on war and highway deaths?
Fish in a barrel, Gray. From foxnews.com Latest News at the moment:
Oil Plunge Spells Relief at the Pump | GAS TRACKER
Canadian Teen Dies After Being Buried in Hot Asphalt
Space Race Heats Up as More Players Jump In | PICS
Drew Peterson Attacked by Pal Who Says He Wore Wire
SPECIAL REPORT: Family Honor Killings in America
Police Kill Gunman Headed to Christian Radio Station
– Judge Tosses Radio Host’s Islamic Group Lawsuit
Iraq War Price Tag Nearing Cost of Vietnam
Angry Man Shoots Lawn Mower for Not Starting
Florida Woman Attacked by Fox, Then Shot By Husband
Bear Killer Charged With Shooting Endangered Animal
Security Guard Confirms Edwards L.A. Hotel Incident
FOXBusiness: FCC Approves Sirius, XM Merger
Salmonella Scare: FDA Says Avoid Mexican Jalapenos
Gay Bias Alleged in San Diego Bay Shooting Death
– Nike Pulls ‘That Ain’t Right’ Ads Seen as Homophobic
Doctor Son of Bermuda Leader in Jail on Sex Charges
Missing Girl’s Family Argues in Jailhouse Call | PHOTOS
Note the “Iraq War Price Tag” has a dateline of Washington, not Baghdad. Maybe if we could send some bear killers over there….
Maybe Dan’s not even a lefty, maybe he’s just a ghoul….
I like the iron spike idea. Gray for President!
For my money, the impact of a U.S. serviceman’s death is far greater if it’s the son of someone you know — someone from your hometown.
We don’t need the New York Times or CNN to show us those. The only interest they would have in the issue is in trying to convince people that, even if they think things aren’t so bad where they live, OMGWTFBBQ IT’S HORRIBLE EVERYFUCKINGWHERE ELSE!!!1!!ELEVENTY!
Screw the NYT and CNN. They’re no better on this than Fred Phelps.
@ 92: I think #93 supports your point.
Canadian Teen Dies After Being Buried in Hot Asphalt
However, I would like to see photos of that.
Fox news network has war news on all the time. I was watching it at the gym last night….
Adults ABSOLUTELY need pictures to understand what the words mean
No, adults do not “absolutely need” pics to understand words. What you are talking about is not “understanding” but that pics can evoke unthinking emotion. THAT is what the NYTimes wants with dead American troop p0rn.
And many times, pictures LIE. Or rather, the words accompanying the picture are a lie. A picture is a hangnail on the elephant.
Sean:
If one of my kids was killed by a drunk driver you can be damn sure I’d want the world to see what had been done, and then ask why drunk drivers don’t get their asses thrown into jail on the first offense. The point is, if there are policy implications to a tragedy, then yes – show the pictures. If there aren’t – like a house fire – then no.
What is a tragedy Dan?
What about the charred body of a firefighter that died trying to put out a house fire?
If one of my kids was killed by a drunk driver you can be damn sure I’d want the world to see what had been done, and then ask why drunk drivers don’t get their asses thrown into jail on the first offense.
So you’d even use the death of your son as propaganda to flog your pet issue? I wouldn’t be too proud of that.
pics can evoke unthinking emotion. Darleen, you and others have made that point. I think they are definitely more provocative, but I don’t think they necessarily bias or distort the coverage like you imply. I think just the opposite – that plain text descriptions sanitize too much and seeing actual pictures is a corrective.
AFK to fininsh cutting the lawn. And Gray, damn you for beating my post by 1 minute. It would have been perfect, too.
I believe there’s around 40k+ deaths per year – it might better show the price we pay for having so many cars
Dan, just getting out of bed in the morning. But without accepting risk in our lives, we cannot live. Or live as humans should…
I’m sure Nannystatists look at life aboard the Axiom in Wall-E as utopia.
I think just the opposite – that plain text descriptions sanitize too much and seeing actual pictures is a corrective.
Have you just never actually seen the gory results of violence or accidents? I’ll take the plain text, thank you….
Now I gotta go. I gotta get my shit together for my national guard annual training in Alaska this year. Should be weird, and fun.
If one of my kids was killed by a drunk driver you can be damn sure I’d want the world to see what had been done,
I’ve no doubt that if one of the families of the soldiers wanted his dead body photographed and used for such a purpose, they could have that done.
I think just the opposite – that plain text descriptions sanitize too much and seeing actual pictures is a corrective.
Dan, you’re under 30 y/o, am I correct?
I’m 54… I grew up in an age of transistion when people received the vast majority of their information either from print or word of mouth.
I am alarmed at people who believes images are superior to text, even as I understand that a generation or two of those suckled on the teat of television “news” might find images superior because they have a hard time connecting with unembelished information.
First of all, in your original quote, you didn’t say anything about drunk drivers. You mentioned that “we are rather complacent about the huge number of highway deaths every year.” So, if your kid was killed in a freak accident where, say, someone swerved to avoid a loose tire or an animal that was crossing the road, would you still want the pictures of his or her bloody, broken body published/broadcast for everyone to see? After all, those are some of the circumstances behind “the huge number of highway deaths every year,” right?
Oh, wait, no. There aren’t any “policy implications” behind circumstances like those, are there?
Gray
Have you just never actually seen the gory results of violence or accidents?
I get the distinct feeling he has not.
Dan: “If one of my kids was killed by a drunk driver you can be damn sure I’d want the world to see what had been done, and then ask why drunk drivers don’t get their asses thrown into jail on the first offense. The point is, if there are policy implications to a tragedy, then yes – show the pictures. ”
Then you’d be in favor, say, of requiring the news networks to televise, at regular intervals, images of aborted fetuses and the aftermath of botched abortions since, as you would have to agree, there are policy implications?
Dan: “I think they are definitely more provocative, but I don’t think they necessarily bias or distort the coverage like you imply.”
As demonstrated by, say, the Rodney King “tape,” where the media excerpted only those portions that damned the police and left the rest of the tape on the cutting room floor? The media are, at their lowest common denominator, ghouls — if it bleeds, it leads. The media has already demonstrated it’s bias, Dan. For someone who demands visual stimuli, your blindness is impressive.
Y’know, Dan, I would agree with you IF the photos were presented in such a way as to maintain proportions. It’s quite true that, in many cases, dead soldiers have been simply graunched by the system — but it isn’t always true, and that’s the way it’s always presented.
Islamist bombers are always presented as having died doing something they believe in, and American soldiers are always presented as young lives tragically cut short by futility.
The poster child for that is Casey Sheehan. Casey Sheehan despised his mother’s political philosophy and her associates, and left home as soon as he was able in order to pursue the philosophy he believed in. When he was killed, his mother immediately started painting him as a baby unable to make adult decisions, and the Press and leftoids enthusiastically supported her pissing on his grave. The character of the coverage of later deaths hasn’t varied, except to get worse.
Yes, we need to keep the costs in mind, but when it’s presented as all cost and no profit, it turns into something quite other. If I were in charge of Army Public Affairs, I would tell the reporters, “F* you. American soldiers, dead or alive, are not props for either your political vendettas or your sacred right to sell soap.”
We do agree about the spike on the steering wheel, though. I’ve been suggesting it ever since the idea of air bags was first floated.
Regards,
Ric
That’s like seeing a flasher at the train station and wondering, “What’s wrong with all these people, looking at that dude’s dick?”
No one, with a handful of exceptions who are outside the flasher’s considerations, wants to see it. He wants to show it, obviously, but even that’s secondary to his desire to be seen showing it.
What “it” is doesn’t really matter much. As long as it somehow emotionally violates the people who see it, or who avoid seeing it but know what it is, it statisfies his mind-rapey urges. A dick works, but it’s just a prop. A Drunk on the Pope’s Blood t-shirt would work at the Vatican gift shop. A dead American soldier works in the Times.
The analogy would be better if there were a flashers’ union giving each other Most Violating Display awards, and peer appoval was added to their incentives. But flashers are more independent-minded, self-motivated types — better people. With their dicks out.
Barrett: If you dislike this place, you can always change the channel. Feel free.
Then there is this first para from AP, July24, 2007:
“Traffic deaths in the United States fell to their lowest total in five years in 2006, and the rate of deaths per mile traveled dropped to a record low, a federal safety official said yesterday.”
This is the thinking that gets us the “Obama has looked great in Europe. He’s really shown he is qualified to be Commander in Chief” stuff.
We’re not allowed to be outraged b/c we’re not Lefties. NYT owns teh Free Speech, not the public.
“Obama has looked great in Europe. He’s really shown he is qualified to be Commander in Chiefâ€Â
All the nutritional value of cotton candy.
Hubris…..Nemesis, MayBee. Old as the hills formulation still lurks in the heart of men. The higher he goes, the more he strives to go higher. The more he strives, the greater the risks he will take. He will be his own undoing. The higher he climbs that steep rockface, the farther he will fall, an the greater the horror, Nemesis driving home her lessons for the edification and entertainment delights of the audience.
Darleen, way off on the guess. I don’t think it’s an age thing though. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? That saying has been around forever, and images have an immediacy to them that descriptions don’t. I don’t think it has anything to do with a generation bred on televison or anything like that. Pictures let people empathize at a very visceral and immediate level, and I think that can (CAN) lead to a better appreciation of a situation. And I’m not saying we should try to avoid risk but simply acknowledge it. There’s a lot of deaths on the highway right? I don’t know what the statistical breakdwon is for the deaths, but if any substantial number is caused by drunk drivers isn’t that a neglected scandal?
DC, since highway accidents are by definition on public property it’s possible to get footage of it in a way that’s impossible WRT a clinic. That said, I think a news organization that felt there was a policy implication would be in theory justified in airing it. In practice I think any outlet that did would be immediately and almost comprehensively condemned for it. In other words, go ahead – but don’t complain when your audience shrinks to a miniscule pool of true believers.
– Excerpt from one of Obama’s final interviews just prior to returning home:
Reporter: “Just to be clear…none of your views have changed as a result of your trip….”
Obama: “Well as I said, it has shown that all of my strategies have been correct.”
– “Which” of your ever changing “strategies” would you be referring to Senator?
– You could not make up that kind of fecklessness if you tried.
– Now that Iraq is a massive loser for the Left, suddenly its all about Afghanistan. They need very desperately to shift the public focus away from the “lost” war. They did everything they could to lose the Iraq war, and bring about America’s surrender, and now that things are succeeding in such obvious and undeniable ways, it needs to go away. The NYT hasn’t gotten the memo, and so labors on with dead soldier pictures, still trying anything it can do to paint a gloomy picture at the expense of the families who lost loved ones, as the partisan old lady grinds toward its final end.
– The 300,000+ greater contributions the Left biased MSM gave to Obama over McCain was a bad investment.
– The Left, and their empty suit candidate, will lie ’til they die.
Ric, what’s your take on the NYT photos? I don’t think there is anything like the infantilization you comdemn with Sheehan. And they are presented in the context of a story about how there have been unusually few pictures for this war. I understand the point of view that the pictures are unnecessarily inflammatory. I disagree and think not showing some pictures sanitizes it too much, but I’m willing to file that under “reasonable people can disagree.” But it seems like some folks regard the pictures as inherently political and I’ve got a big problem with that. I think this is a case where it is appropriate and not sensationalized.
The media has decided that it’s job is to show us what we must care about. They want to print picutures of dead Soliders and not firefighters of roadway accidents, because the former is something that we must care about (and cara botu teh “right” way) and the latter is not important.
– Dan, you arguments are profligate propagandist dissembling. The photos are an obvious attempt to continue the Lefts “Iraq war bad” screed, and your efforts to rationalize same just amplifies the lengths your side will go to try to win the ideological war.
– Theres nothing more cowardly than putting party above country, and nothing more unprincipled than lying about it when you do.
Hey checkit!! Dead soldiers! Ooh look at this one… he’s still clinging to his gun.
He looks bitter.
I remember when Anderson Cooper was in New Orleans just going crazy that he couldn’t show the dead bodies. Dead bodies dead bodies dead bodies, it was all he complained about for a few days. Then I guess they finally got brave and showed one. It was an old lady floating in the street. What you gonna do with that? It isn’t like the Coast Guard hadn’t done a mighty job of rescuing people from their flooding homes.
So then they just kind of stopped showing those pictures and didn’t talk so much about it again.
I think Anderson was probably really sad when there weren’t dead bodies in the Convention Center freezers to show us and WAKE US UP.
I also remember when some reporter was shot in the head and Larry King had Christiane Amanpour on and they were talking about the tragedy of this reporter and his/her injuries and how brave he had been to even be in Iraq.
Then a soldier’s family member called in and said, “You have a whole hour about this reporter and you hardly ever talk about our troops over there” and Christiane said, “Well, the Pentagon won’t let us show dead soldiers or even caskets.”
It was interesting to me that was her idea of ‘talking about the troops’. I also don’t think CNN ever showed pictures of the injured reporter.
…don’t you think we are rather complacent about the huge number of highway deaths every year?
You know, that is a good point. Somebody ought to start a National Highway Safety organization and draw up about a fucking million or so rules and regulations on how to build safer cars. Maybe we could mandate seatbelts and airbags and lower speed limits and some stuff like that.
Hey, that’s a good idea, BMoe. I’d add that after we do all that stuff you suggested and see 45 years of progress lowering fatality rates, we can start demanding more concern from the public, since not enough is being done because, see, people are still dying in their infernal automobiles. Maybe one day we can put an end to all that terrible waste and tragedy.
– If there was any way humanly possible to do it the Left would blame Bush for all of Clinton’s mistakes.
– As it is they still manage to cover Clinton’s do nothing cowardly administration by blaming Bush for 9/11.
– I guess they think Bush should have called Clinton from Texas and demanded that Clinton take out Bin Laden when he had the chance.
I want some pictures of some dead junkies, too. Like dead Heath Ledger would have been good. Or that one dead Kennedy. Amy Winehouse so far only looks dead.
You know, every year, especially around the Summertime, little kids drown in swimming pools. Let’s see some photos of those corpses, people! You know, to raise awareness of pool safety.
– I would settle for some pictures of dead SecProgs when they went over to Pakistan to “negotiate” with the Talibon and al Qaeda, and their headless bodies got shipped home in a box to their families.
– That would be worth 10 billion words for the Left to be forced to finally start dealing with reality.
#98
Nomatter what policy decisions are/were made, the dead are not yours or the New York Times to use as you see fit.
– Oh wait. That probably wouldn’t work since the SecProgs and al Qaeda are on the same side against America.
– Never mind.
…don’t you think we are rather complacent about the huge number of highway deaths every year?
You may be complacent but I think about traffic danger every time I buckle my seat belt or put on my bike helmet.
And many times, pictures LIE. Or rather, the words accompanying the picture are a lie. A picture is a hangnail on the elephant.
Like the famous photo of the napalm burned naked Vietnamese girl. It’s used to condemn American military involvement in Vietnam, but the truth is that the only Americans around that village were the reporters. Those are ARVN soldiers in the photo and it was a South Vietnamese plane that dropped the napalm.
Or like Eddie Adams’ famous “Saigon Execution”. Adams regretted taking the photo because of how it was later used to portray the S. Vietnamese general as a war criminal when in fact he was a hero who was summarily executing someone who just killed innocents.
I want some pictures of some dead junkies, too. Like dead Heath Ledger would have been good. Or that one dead Kennedy. Amy Winehouse so far only looks dead.
Would the NYT run photos of dead Sulzbergers on the front page?
A picture is worth a thousand words, right? That saying has been around forever
Do note that the saying says nothing about whether the “words” being told by the picture are, in fact, true. And I mean “true” as in factual, not as in Truth(tm).
Everything needs to be weighed in context with everything else. A factoid berift of context can be used ignorantly or maliciously.
Pictures out of context can viserally incite … they are easily manipulated and be used TO manipulate. Adults will still feel the emotional pull, but if they are reasonable, sober, rational actors then they will never take a picture and its “thousand unspoken words” in toto.
But what they really want is to do the Clockwork Orange thing I think. Baby steps.
Dan and Barrett, you do know the only reason the Black Dahlia reverberates in our national/cultural consciousness is the fact that photos of her bisected, mutliated, hideous corpse were splattered all over the front pages of newspapers, yes? Without the photos, it’s just another dead whore. And there are hundreds of dead whores found every year. Are dead whores an inssue to you? Would you like the NYT to show pics of dead mutilated or dessicated whores each week?
Matthew Brady dragged around and reposed dead soldiers after Gettysburg to make his photos. Sure, they “show” what happened at Gettysburg. Kinda sorta. Right? Much better than the Gettysburg Address at showing and honoring the dead, yes?
Also, plastering Abu Graib photos all over the place had the opposite effect on me than I think you would both hope. All I could think was, “I know frat initiations that were more humiliating than this stuff.”
Bingo. I no longer trust The New York Times — or, rather, I do: I trust them to propagandize, to slant, to innuendo, and to lie through their f*ing teeth when it suits their political agenda. In short, I expect them to have a political agenda and to tailor what they print to suit it.
In an ideal world, one in which Pinch Sulzberger’s propaganda organ was in fact a “newspaper” which “reported” the “news”, the pictures would be unremarkable, simply another datum to help appreciate a very complex situation. The NYT has long ago abandoned any such ideal by their own admission. Personally, I have long thought that a big factor in that is that Kat Graham has the head of a President on her office wall, and Sulzberger has no such trophy to show; another is True Belief — there was nothing that would predict George Bush would be anything other than a John Kerry clone when he grew up, but the guy took up with those awful Texans, and there’s nothing that challenges a True Believer more strongly than an apostate.
Whatever the reason(s), the fact is that The New York Times has published nothing since the 2000 campaigns started that wasn’t slanted to establish the existential vileness of George W. Bush and all who sail in her, bar perhaps some of the more explicit tire-store ads in the sports section. That being the case, I am strongly disinclined to give them the benefit of the doubt in anything, and most especially I am inclined to expect that any coverage, including pictures, of dead American soldiers will be carefully slanted to conform to the paper’s worldview. Whether or not they’re soldiers is in a way beside the point — I do not grant anyone the right to use the shock value inherent in people dead by violence for the simple purpose of inflating the bottom line; the fact that they’re soldiers simply adds to the value, from a bean-counting point of view, and that infuriates me.
Regards,
Ric
Oh. The for real New York Times is dead. This one is a zombie I think. It has no free will, the Narrative is its master now.
“Also, plastering Abu Graib photos all over the place had the opposite effect on me than I think you would both hope. All I could think was, “I know frat initiations that were more humiliating than this stuff.â€Â
I’ll bet this guy was pretty feeling humiliated!
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/04/abu_ghraib_death/img/abu_ghraib_ap.jpg&imgrefurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/04/abu_ghraib_death/html/img.stm&h=410&w=350&sz=41&hl=en&start=9&sig2=1PlTc_hGqcSbx2N6XhYOAQ&tbnid=f0sQE3dZFyEOIM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=107&ei=T6eLSKStNo7OeL–mPIP&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAbu%2BGhraib%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
Ha, ha! Boy, is his face red!
http://djiin.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/abu2.jpg
Go Kappa Gamma Delta!
Every news story that ‘downs’ America seems to come from the ASSociated (with terrorists) Press, A foreign source, or the NY Slimes. No surprises in this post.
Gotta another fucking genius on our hands, looks like.
“Gotta another”
Genius is relative. I don’t seem so smart on the libertarian blogs.
Putz.
You might want to have a look at tinyurl, unless you like being an annoying fuck up.
“You might want to have a look at tinyurl, unless you like being an annoying fuck up.”
Oh, come now. Having to catch a brief glance at a long URL is nothing compared to a frat initiation! But I’ll look into it, thanks.
I used to be a SGT in the Army and if anyone took pictures of my soldiers dead and put them on a magazine I would personally skull drag them and urinate in the empty remains of their eye sockets.
BB
do you read captions?
“believed to be taken at Abu Graib” and posted by BBC
Would you like me to pass you a box of salt?
well, and sometimes people die from frat pranks. I’m just sayin…
Keep your salt, Darleen. Here’s one involving the exact same scenario, except, you know, worse, and which is confirmed to be from Abu Ghraib and which, to my knowledge, has yet to magically be rendered a fraud by sheer virtue of the BBC having posted it on their website.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/AbuGhraibScandalGraner55.jpg
so, um, what happened to people involved in the Abu Graib thing?
Speaking of, I was a little mad at Dr. Weasel’s asphalt link. That was very painful to read. Thanks for sharing.
“so, um, what happened to people involved in the Abu Graib thing?”
Well, one of them was eventually fired from his job as Secretary of Defense, but for different reasons.
oh, you’re so cute, Barret. others were convicted and spent time in jail, there was also a General that was demoted and now spends her time making speeches to adoring moonbats.
but I’m sure it was just the pictures that did that. nope, no investigation going on before that.
Ma’am, you seem to be under the impression that I’m making several arguments which I am not actually making.
I don’t think anyone is under the impression you are making an argument at all.
look is that a rabbit over there!?
Oh? And confirmed to be the result of “frat initiation”?
Dear Barrett,
As you know, Abu Graib was used as a prison in Saddam’s time. In fact, the bodies would be buried in the prison grounds so that the new prisoners would know they were walking on the corpses they were soon to join. Saddam’s favorite methods, besides death, of “discipling” his captives were amputations.
In any event, are you suggesting that the photos of corpses are part and parcel of the naked pyramid/Lynndie England Abu Graib “atrocities” that the NYT plastered everywhere? Really? You do know England and the rest of the morons who took part in the naked pyramid/mocking/dogphotos were tried in a military court of law, sentenced, and served time? Yes?
Is that the point, if any, of your conflation of corpse photos and naked pyramid photos?
Oh, and if the corpses were of Iraqis killed by American troops, were they bad guys, or was everyone in Iraq at the time never in the service of either Saddam or of the…ahem, Minutemen/insurgents/terrorists? Really?
You are a very silly person.
Oh, and avoid breaking the page. Dipshit.
Dan, you’re an ass.
Dan has been nothing but scrupulously courteous and civil. I don’t know how he does it with the people who comment here, but he has my respect and admiration.
With all due respect to your service, Gray, YOU are the ass.
Because, Kathy, you’re such an objective commenter and all.
No, KATHY, YOU ARE!
man, that’s fun.
I mean, really, Dan just wants to use a few dead people without their permission. what’s the harm in that?
BB
And what was the context of the photo? I see a “thumbs up” over a corpse. It is morally neutral.
If it was gangbangers over a little girl shot by them, then it is the celebration of a moral evil.
If it was soldiers/police/etc over the body of a terrorist, then it is the celebration OVER a moral evil.
Do you eschew moral structure?
Objectivity is not the issue, Darleen. Civility is.
Because using pictures of dead soldiers is so civil.
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