Would anyone care if there weren't pictures/video?

[Mattforclark]

=

[gottaB]

1. I dunno

The people who wouldn't care, do those people really care now, or are they just titilated?

[Mattforclark]

3. I think you're write

Some people are just made horny. For the sake of faith in human nature, I would like to imagine that it's only a very small minority.

[gottaB]

9. oh, I meant titillate primarily as in

"to stimulate by touching lightly"

--although I also meant to superficially brush upon the erotic sense, ironically and sincerely at once. Those are the connotations.

Really it's the shallowness that strikes me.

[SEpatriot]

2. Other...

There would be some with courage like Rangel or Harkin and some in the anti-war movement or some in the military who would pick up on the reports and demand accountability and investigation. They would be dismissed as part of the tin-hat and/or anti-Bush crowd and life would go on.

The pictures are the smoking gun that changed the playing field, as it were.

[Mattforclark]

5. If there weren't pictures

and there were just background noise about maltreatment of prisoners, in all honesty, I personally would probably not really have believed it fully.

There is a lesson - never overestimate human nature.

[SEpatriot]

8. There's a whole underbelly that's not been exposed yet.

Background noise is probably right. We don't want to think about these things and 9/11 is skewing the public's view. The storm was already brewing sometime ago,however. We don't want to hear...but now we must be skeptical.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,736324,00.html

[ant]

4. the story's been out for a while

It wasn't until the pictures that people started being outraged.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_05/003848.php

[DrWeird]

6. Define "anyone".

We would care, people overseas would care, but most Americans wouldn't care.

[Mattforclark]

7. polls

defy definition...

[oblivious]

10. How much play did these two deaths get, for instance, without pics?

Afghan prisoners beaten to death at US military interrogation base

'Blunt force injuries' cited in murder ruling

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Friday March 7, 2003
The Guardian

Two prisoners who died while being held for interrogation at the US military base in Afghanistan had apparently been beaten, according to a military pathologist's report. A criminal investigation is now under way into the deaths which have both been classified as homicides.

...Former prisoners at the base claim that detainees are chained to the ceiling, shackled so tightly that the blood flow stops, kept naked and hooded and kicked to keep them awake for days on end.

...The commander of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, General Daniel McNeill, said ..."Our interrogation techniques are ...in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,909294,00.html