Regarding the graphic photos of dead children...

[cigsandcoffee]

...from the war between Israel and Hezbollah - isn't using them to shock and horrify people the very same tactic used by the (self-proclaimed) pro-lifers who paste pictures of aborted fetuses anywhere they can? I'd have a hard time seeing the difference being more than a person's bias.

As one of the folks who these photos are targeted at (I support Israel's current attempt to defend her cities by using aggression against Hezbollah), I can tell you that I find them very sad, but not position-altering. I see them much as I do the tragic photos from WWII where innocents perished by the millions - an unfortunate consequence of a just war.

If your attempt is to change anyone's mind who supports Israel's fight, then you've failed. Maybe it convinces some folks who don't want to undertake the difficult task of looking beyond the results of war to give fair appraisal to the causes, but I can't speak for them.

[movonne]

1. Except fetuses are not childeren...I think that makes a big difference...

[cigsandcoffee]

3. Indeed. But they sure look like real babies in those photos.

I think that's their point, and I don't see how the sentiment varies in the slightest from anti-war folks slinging around photos of war dead for the same shock value.

[EFerrari]

2. "Maybe it convinces some folks who don't want to undertake

the difficult task of looking beyond the results of war to give fair appraisal to the causes, but I can't speak for them."

No, you can't, although you attempt to both define those people and invalidate them in that sentence.

I hope the countries in the Middle East where these images are being beamed nonstop are as unmoved by them as you are, although I suspect sadly this won't be the case.

[cigsandcoffee]

6. No more moved than I was by the photos of 9-11.

If those photos didn't (and shouldn't) make me hate all Muslims, why should photos of Israel's war make anyone hate me?

[QuestionAll...]

20. Is that you, Danny Gillerman?

[malaise]

17. Maybe the world's outcry is linked to those photos

and the killing is not supported by civilized people.

[cigsandcoffee]

19. I think the debate is better placed on the justifications...

..than the results.

War makes death, without question. But some wars are justified and some are not.

[lumpy]

43. No wars are justified but human

beings can find reasons to justify war. The reason given for this 'war' was justifiable because Israeli soldiers were captured in the attempt to bring about release of captives held by Israel. Some here do not believe that it is justifiable to decimate a whole nation because of this event. It appears to be a convenient excuse for the bombing of civilians and destroying Lebanese infrastructure.
Knowing of the Israeli 17 year occupation of Southern Lebanon and continuing border conflicts, it is not surprising that forces in Lebanon would be grouped to fight against any further incursions into Lebanon by the Israelis. It seems reasonable that Israel should have created a buffer zone inside the Israeli border instead of trying to create a buffer zone in Lebanon territory.
Of course the subjugation of Palestinians in their own territories heavily influences public opinion, moreso perhaps in Europe than in the US.

[EFerrari]

26. I've lost whatever little rational ability I ever had to talk about

those images. So, I will just stop now.

[malaise]

35. I make my point and

put them on ignore

[EFerrari]

36. Yep.

[Poll_Blind]

4. Most of us are aware that NO amount of evidence, photographic or...

...otherwise will dissuade someone who supports Israel, unconditionally. By definition it, in the least, is a very unlikely proposition.

  Moreso, if knowledge that Israel's current conservative government is not enough to give an Israel-supporter a moment's pause why should pictures of the Israeli bombs do much more to jog allegiances?

  No, those pictures, news stories, videos of the carnage all serve to illustrate to the rest of the world who, generally, does not have a horse in this race, those crimes which Israel is perpetrating on the Lebanese people in the name of security.

  I haven't even seen a single post from unconditional supporters of Israel acknowledging that a Liberal government for Israel would have responded in a more considerate manner when it came to civilians.

PB

[uppityperson]

5. pictures of "aborted fetuses" are not usually accurate.

Usually they use ones that are older than most abortions are, not accurate. Major difference between what there is at 10 weeks and 26 weeks and showing picture of a 26 week old fetus is not accurate for 1st trimester abortions.

[cigsandcoffee]

9. Well, whatever they use, you get the point as to why they do it.

I don't support their repulsive tactics anymore than I do the folks who parade around war dead to make their points.

[uppityperson]

12. They do it because they want me to think I am killing a baby.

They want me to think an abortion will result in "that". It won't. Showing pictures of the result of war is ok because too many people think war is like a video game or movie where the 2 sides soldiers shoot at each other. And it isn't.

[cigsandcoffee]

15. The lifers think too many people view abortions...

...as a non-viable mass of cells, and hope to shock people in to seeing their point with graphic photos of later-term abortions. It's a very similar sentiment used only for a different purpose. Which purpose you agree with has no bearing on the morality of the tactic.

[baldguy]

7. What about graphic photos of dead adults?

movonne is right - fetuses are not children. The problem comes when those who killed them cease to think of then as human beings.

[cigsandcoffee]

11. The very point is that it's difficult not to see those anti-abortion...

..photos as being little human babies. They have arms, legs, toes and all that. If they didn't, the imagery would be useless to them.

In a way, you're making my point. Apparently, you're able to look past those photos they weild to see that they're not really of a viable life. So who are the lifers hoping to convince?

[sui generis]

8. wars are fought between stupid old men

by the children of other men.

Hizbollah kidnapped two soldiers. Israel "defended itself" by killing people.

I am utterly unswayed by the "has a right to defend itself" meme, without once seeing a dead kiddo of either nation-state.

Both sides are utterly despiccable - the ones who hide behind children AND the ones who don't give a damn who's between them and their "enemy".

And that word, collateral damage . . . so famously used by Timothy McVeigh, has no place in a battle where any side is claiming moral superiority. No pictures required.

but pictures are required when moral superiority fails us, to remind us that real humans and real lives pay the price for the feuds of those stupid old men.

[PA Democrat]

10. I've seen many posts with pictures of dead Iraqi children.

Did you complain about those as well?

[cigsandcoffee]

No, I haven't complained about it until now.

But I've always felt the same about the use of those photos, whether they're taken in Iraq or Lebanon. Sorry for not speaking up sooner.

[lpbk2713]

13. If it weren't for pics like these .....

the Boosh regime would still be telling us how great the fight for democracy in the Middle East is going and how we are winning hearts and minds everywhere we go.



Yes they are horrific and I am repulsed by them but they are a part of the truth.

[malaise]

14. Beyond the results of war?

Those are people's children and killing innocents is a war crime. Everyone's kids have the same right to life.

[cigsandcoffee]

16. But you're focusing only on the deaths.

It does not appear that you want to go beyond that to consider the causes (whether you decide Israel is justified or not).

For you, it appears that nothing can justify the results of war as illustrated by these photos. Is that true, or have you really considered the causes and decided on the justification (or lack thereof)?

[SaveElmer]

18. Yes it is the same...

As much as many want to say it is not...

[PA Democrat]

21. This Pulitzer Prize winning photo of 9-year-old Kim Phuc

shocked and horrified many Americans. This Vietnamese girl was so severely burned by US napalm that doctors did not think she would survive. She had 17 surgeries and spent 14 months in the hospital but she did live. Richard Nixon tried to prove the photo was a fake because of course warmongers do not want the citizens to see the fruits of their labor.

[cigsandcoffee]

25. Nobody is dead in that photo, though.

I think that's a large part of its power.

[PA Democrat]

32. We'll have to disagree then.

Not everyone is firmly committed on one side or another in any conflict. We've seen how the support for Bush's war in Iraq has dropped as people see first hand on their TV screens the deadly results. The same thing happened with the Vietnam War.

And you have to ask yourself just who most adamantly opposed the pictures of those wars being shown to the US public? Why do supporters of Bush's Iraq disaster keep screaming about all of the gory media coverage? Why did Nixon attempt to discredit the photographer who took the photo of that young Vietnamese girl? People changed their opinions on both wars when they SAW the resulting carnage.

I do believe that the more graphic material should be shielded from children, but even children should be taught at an early age about the true consequences of war and that the dehumanization of the "other" that can enable us as humans to do unspeakable things to our fellow humans.

[McKinneyIsAHero]

22. I thought dead children might not affect someone who supports the killing

It didn't make much of a difference to the people who supported attacking Iraq, and now Gaza and Lebanon.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. Oh no we musn't play the same game as the right

They have managed to take over this country and those pictures of dead babies are just one tool in their bag of tricks. But no, we shouldn't do the same. We shouldn't borrow any of their techniques. We must not show anyone that we value life as much or more than the right.

Yeah good luck with that plan. Personally, I am willing to do anything it takes, including using gross pictures of dead children, to win back my country.

[tnlefty]

24. Well, then, let's just sweep it under the rug so we don't have to bother

our beautiful minds with it all then. And while we're at it let's remove the images of victims from the online site of the Holocaust Museum. Let's erase the photos from Korea, Viet Nam, etc. so that we may console ourselves that warring is just a necessary, neat and tidy business. Erase the images of mankind's cruelty to fellow human beings and all will be peachy from now on.

And I don't think that your comparison is valid at all. I know too many women who have terminated pregnancies when the fetus was incompatible with life. If some nuts in the so-called pro-life camp decide to use those photos it doesn't alter the fact that incompatible with life is what it is. I would like to know just how they get these photos and if they know or care at all about the circumstances surrounding the reasons for the abortions.

[PA Democrat]

27. When I was in high school, a friend shared photos that his father had

taken in Dachau, I believe. His father was among the first US troops to enter the camp and took pictures that haunt me to this day. In addition to photos of the emaciated survivors, there were also photos of piles of bodies that had not yet been burned.

I think as humans we have to document man's inhumanity to man in an attempt to stop trivializing the death of the "other" side in any conflict. War has become too much like a video game played from a distance. There are too often innocent lives that are destroyed at the other end of a rocket or a smart bomb fired from afar. It has to stop.

[leftchick]

30. best post on this thread

we must never forget what war does to human beings. The photos are the only way to reach people out of touch with the reality of war.

[Spazito]

31. Excellent response! n/t

[sui generis]

33. my grandfather was one of those emaciated faces

and my 14 year would-have-been uncle, his son, was one of those bodies in the pile.

collateral damage - I hate the basic dishonesty of that word.

If it was the OP's kid that was "collateral damage", I wonder if the opinion would remain the same. It is ironic that many of the blind supporters of Israel's "rights" feel that way precisely because of pictures like Dachau and Auschwitz/Treblinka and Bergen-Belsen.

[PA Democrat]

37. Isn't it amazing, sui generis that there are people that can

suffer indescribable horror and yet somehow go forward to break the cycle of violence and revenge. Those people are my heroes.

[tnlefty]

34. Exactly, just as the photos of lynchings (I cringe at that word) shouldn't

be erased either. I'll add to that the film footage of police dogs and water cannons being unleashed on blacks in areas of the south during the 60's. Rwanda, Darfur, any and all places where injustices and killings are going on need to be documented and not ignored. I keep hoping that we'll learn the lessons of dehumanizing segments of humanity, but sometimes I truly wonder when it will occur.

Somehow, someway it has to stop.

[lumpy]

44. Great post. tnlefty

truly

[tnlefty]

45. Thanks, lumpy.

I don't get that type of response very often.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

28. Did you complain when it was Iraqi children's pictures?

I don't recall seeing you protest in those photo threads. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. After all the death of any child is horrific no matter who is doing the killing.

As for it being the same as showing dead fetus' as far as I can tell they have the right to do that, also.

[leftchick]

29. aborted fetuses are not living, breathing human beings

with moms and dads, brothers and sisters, grandmas and grandpas that they LOVE and have made a connection with.

Some even wear very cute designer jeans that they were probably very proud of before being murdered. That would be Iham Rmeity 5 yrs old in this thread......

I am sure you can imagine it is grahic like war crimes are...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[NVMojo]

38. nope, not the same thing ...these are/were living humans

[Karenina]

39. Part of the Israeli "siege mentality"

is that the children of "the other side" are no more than nits. They are Üntermenschen who only understand violence. We MUST keep them in their place and make sure they understand. 10 thousand of them are not "worth" one Jewish fingenail. Many in Israel have been brought up with this mantra.

[LostinVA]

40. I know... it's disturbingly reminiscent of some earlier bad times *sigh*

[Karenina]

41. In psychological terms it's called

identification with the oppressor...

[LostinVA]

42. Interesting...

[Tsiyu]

46. And your point is?

It worked for them - amazingly well.

We do ourselves no good by hiding from reality or by claiming some elevated moral or social status that would inhibit us from staring at the cold, hard truth.

You need to know the reality that others are facing because of our policies, using our money. It's nasty, disheartening and surreal. This is the reality others face in their own streets in their own towns. They can't look away because they have to clean up the bodies or identify charred or lifeless relatives.

If that reality seems too intense to see in a photograph, imagine how intense it is to live it every day.

Cry me a river if a mere image shatters your world.

You are not the victim, nor is it "over the top" to show the truth. It's the only ethical thing to do at this point.