Was I wrong to post photos of the burned "contractors?"

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

I wanted to provoke discussion on a board I sometimes participate on (topics political and not). I posted (directly, not links) pics of the burned "contractors" from foreign media. Headed by a warning with scroll space to view pics. I then wrote a followup message asking for discussion on 2 topics.

Topic 1 - use of propaganda, i.e. Uday/Qusay pics vs. Somalia/Blackwater pics, is there any real or moral difference aside from our propaganda vs. theirs.

Topic 2 - use of corporate military aka mercs in Iraq, not subject to law or military justice, expensive... did anyone else have a problem with this.

The first few posters were so outraged by the pics themselves that they just expressed their outrage (at me) and of course didn't really address the topics of discussion.

Does anyone think it's wrong to post such pictures (available in public domain), and did it defeat my purpose of provoking discussion since the initial focus is just on the emotional response evoked by the pics? I'm considering going back and changing the pics to links to the pics instead.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. as long as you warned people there were graphic photos, then no

You were respectful of their wishes to NOT see them if they didn't wish to.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

4. Aside from that issue, did it defeat my purpose to provoke

discussion on the topic points since the initial respondents just focused on their outrage about the pics themselves?

[Rick Myers]

2. While I NEVER want Americans to die in combat

I have MAJOR problems with privatizing the role of the military! As you cited, no law or justice, and the cost alone shouls terrify any American.

What happens when the Private Cops come knocking at your door???

[Ripley]

3. No you were not wrong.

Those pics should be shown unblurred on TV. Americans might wake-up if they see real reality once in awhile.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Americans close their eyes to the misery our government causes

around the world.

The entire world got to see the gorier pictures of Hamas founder Yassin's head (or what was left of it) caused by an American made rocket, fired from an American made helicopter, under orders of an American supported regime.

Remember when the Iraq invasion began? Some of my co-workers left work early so they could catch our "Shock and Awe" live on their TVs. Nothing like watching a poor country being pummeled by our bombs as we munch on chips and drink beer.

[DenverDem]

6. Sheeple can't handle the reality of war brutality.

The sheeple are happy to jigoistically wave their flags of idiocy, but when confronted with burned corpses of Iraqi "collateral damage" or the American killers for hire, their cognitive dissonance overmodulates and they react adversarially with the truth teller.

There should be graphic images of the casualties of the day every evening on the news so that The People could begin to understand the unimaginably counterproductive destruction we pay the Carlisle Group war profiteers to execute on our behalf.

In our name, with our money, building a massive debt of bad karma for us, whether we choose to live in denial about it or not.

[DRoseDARs]

7. Absolutely not....

...without such pictures (which you'd almost certainly not see in the Media) we never see the true costs of war and other sufferings: the Human cost. Without a Human face, we cannot connect to the devastation in real-life anymore than the faux violence in a video game. What if we hadn't seen the little girl running and screaming in pain, her flesh seared from napalm burns? What if we hadn't seen the Vietgong soldier murdered in cold blood at pointblank range? What if we hadn't seen the emmaciated bodies of children starving in African famines? Without such pictures, these things never "really" happened...and will continue to happen unrecorded and undealt with.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

12. I guess I have mixed feelings about this.

I thought it unseemly the way our government crowed over the bloated corpse photos of Uday and Qusay. There was all kinds of rationalization like "they'd never believe they were dead if we didn't show this" (though it was pretty damn difficult to recognize the bloated dead corpse faces anyway), but I thought the real reason was to send the grim propaganda message "this is what happens to our enemies." Kind of like putting a bunch of heads on pikes around the Tower of London or London Bridge.

Likewise the photos of Saddam Hussein getting his lice and dental inspection were obviously intended to send a message of humiliation throughout the Arab and rest of the world, "see here how low we will bring those who oppose us."

I guess my true feeling is that we should have access to all of this information good and bad. That all of the images, whether those of the Blackwater operators or of Uday/Qusay, should be available to those who want to see. So people can get a better idea of the true nature of war and killing.

[FL4GORE]

8. No one has to look...

if they don't want to.

[acmavm]

9. Not at all. People can hear about an incident, and as long as they don't

see what actually happened, it remains semi-real to them, sort of an abstract concept. But faced with the visual reality of an event, it can not longer be denied. There is a lot of truth in the phrase 'seeing is believing'. That's why, during Viet Nam, as soon as the pictures started hitting people in that face, they couldn't deny or soft peddle the reality. The picture of the girl running naked down the street after the napalm attact, the execution of the viet cong fighter by a vietnamese army officer, the pictures of the dead in Mai Lai, those images will stay vivid in my memory as long as I live.

So will the pictures of the burnt bodies hanging off that bridge outside Fallujah. And along with those images will be a everlasting knowledge that the bush* administration is responsible for those deaths.

[The Katts Meow]

10. If you posted a warning with some scroll space then I don't see a problem

These pics are public domain, as you point out. I didn't see them and don't care to, but you provided ample warnining IMO.

[BillZBubb]

11. You did nothing wrong!

What is going on in Iraq is disgusting, you just posted graphic information that underlined that point.

No matter what you do in a political forum, you'll probably offend someone. Don't let it bother you.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

13. I remember when the Uday/Qusay death pics were being promulgated

on the news and CNN.com etc., a woman where I worked was watching the news with the photos in the same lounge area where I was. I said nothing (I work in an almost homogeneously RW environment), the woman said "It must have been great to be those soldiers (who did the killing). I wonder what it felt like. I bet it felt great to kill those guys!" She seemed to almost be getting wet with the thought of it. I wanted to knock her freaking teeth out of her head.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

14. I half expected shrub himself to be on TV sawing the heads off

and holding them up for the cameras with a big grin on his face like some kind of fisherman or something.

[Ripley]

15. Know exactly whatcha mean...

When the war started I was outside gardening. My neighbor ran outside screaming to her two sons (pre-teens) "Cal, the bombing started!!! C'mon in!!!!!!!" She was elated. I was sick.

[mtnester]

16. I have to say again

As long as the press and the WH keep this war dehumanized (i.e. no pictures at all of our troops wounded and killed, no press on the front lines, no funerals, no grieving mothers), then we HAVE to show the human part of it ourselves, no matter how distasteful it may be. Someone loved those men, we SHOULD be horrified!