Thursday, May 06, 2004

Pictures Shown and Pictures Avoided

I could be wrong, but it seems the networks are much more willing to show the pictures of the Iraqi prisoner abuse than they were/are to show the pictures of the murder/abuse of the contractors in Fallujah. As noted here the post-9-11 media consensus is that we should be sad, not angry. So they will avoid pictures that inflame red America's indignation, but they are willing to show those that shame us or inflame our enemies.

This is also on point:

Despite their record of complicity in covering up years of brutality and torture in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, CNN has lost no time in running endless reports on the Iraqi prison photos. Besides practically non-stop reports on the Iraqi Prisoner Abuse story, CNN's line up has been stocked with guests booked to discuss the Iraqi Prisoner Abuse story.


UPDATE: On the subject of double standards, ASV writes:

You know, I'm not really into torture from any side of any given war, but I gotta admit, there are an awful lot of people who are going apeshit over these war crimes committed by U.S. soldiers and these same people have been eerily silent about even worse crimes and atrocities committed by the very guy these prisoners are fighting for, and come to think of it, they don't say much about all that torture and criminal activity going on in Iran either.

And Bill Hobbs writes:

Not to condone the abuse of Iraqi prisonors by a few out-of-control American soldiers who, it must be said, deserve severe punishment, but where was the Arab world's sense of outrage over the treatment of four Americans guarding food shipments in Fallujah? Forget that - where was the Arab world's sense of outrage over the murderous rule of Saddam Hussein, the mass graves, the systematic torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by the Hussein regime, the gassing of civilians, the rape rooms, the feeding of dissidents into shredding machines ...

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