cnn poll: should we withhold abuse pics because of beheading?

[spanone]

First of all this is a total bullshit question. Secondly 52 to 48% say we should withhold. Whatever you say about this, the timing is highy suspicious.

[LittleApple81]

1. link? n/t

[goddess40]

2. Link

http://www.cnn.com

What does one have to do with the other?
We know that two wrongs don't make a right but does a second wrong negate the first wrong?

[Claire Beth]

18. i agree! n/t

[WI_DEM]

3. the beheading doesn't excuse what happened

involving our troops who were running that prison. We should continue to be on top of the prison abuses and not let this defer us. Due to what happened at that prison and the administrations attitudes we probably will see more innocent Americans executed.

[chimpymustgo]

4. Some smart DU'ers already called this one. Damn.

They give out the marching orders pretty quickly. And of course, they are taken even faster.

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. Something tells me

That if this had happened on Clinton's watch, nothing would be withheld, quite the opposite, in fact. Hypocrites!

[cspiguy]

6. no - but show the beheading too so we can all cringe at war

n/t

[forgethell]

7. No, it's call a free press, people's

right to know. But the beheading videos should be shown, also. so the American people can know what is happening, and think about what caused it.

[City Lights]

8. Withholding the pics is appeasing the terra-ists!

Shouldn't that be the chant from the wingers?

[Guy_Montag]

9. He would have been killed without the pictures,

they were just a handy excuse at the time. He would have been killed for some other "reason", if we had never heard anything about the pictures.

[Mike Daniels]

11. Precisely

The prison photos made for a convenient excuse to make this look like it was a revenge killing.

Unfortunately, there are a lot on this board who seem willing to buy it lock, stock and barrel. This guy was dead the moment they captured him which was before the photos came out.

[zanana]

10. It's funny...

Something always happens to save Bush's ass.

[Lou_C]

12. It's called freedom of speech & they want to take that away from us

* doesn't want the truth to come out because he would be charged with war crimes. We need to fight for our rights to see those pictures.

[MadHound]

22. Take freedom of speech away? Hell, many people in this country

Want to give freedom of speech away! There's a stat floating around out there(I saw it in my latest copy of Mother Jones) that aprox one third of Americans think that we have too much freedom of speech, that there should be limits on it:wtf: Of course, that is also about the same percentage of the population that voted for Bush in the '00 selection.

Combine that with the fact that you have RW pundits, talk show hosts, and politicians who are blaming the "liberal" media for showing the photos, for reading the names of the dead live, for showing the coffins, it all makes me fear for the future of the first amendment, not to mention the rest of the Constitution. Right wingers will dig their own grave, just so long as they can get anything even remotely critical of this misadministration off the air and out of the spotlight.

Hell, if we get a "terrorist" attack this fall(like I fear is most likely going to happen) don't be at all suprised when a large part of our population welcomes martial law with open arms, and turn violently on those of us who will oppose such a move. They have been well conditioned, their hated of the left and American values is at a high boil. All that they are waiting for is the word, and it had better come soon, otherwise we these hateful souls start acting on their own.

[Lou_C]

28. * & Co's next step is to call for martial law

I feel like we live in a country that we use to feel sorry for. The little dick..tator needs to go.

[quinnox]

13. Contrary view

I agree that they should withhold more abuse pics. I would vote yes, in light of recent events.

[Delano]

16. So you'd like to excuse the government from any scrutiy

should it happen again? Sorry, cutting off info from the public only encourages worse and worse corrruption. Bushco's legendary secrecy is a perfect case study in that phenomenon.

[Delano]

14. No, we should see to it such abuse doesn't happen anymore

And even if you believe *some* very special cases merit such treatment "to get answers", it should NOT be photographed and passed around for kicks. The fact that this is being blamed on the left or the media is ludicrous. THESE SOLDIERS TOOK THEPE PHOTOS FOR FUN, and showed them off to friends, who spilled the beans.

[AP]

15. This raises the question, why would anyone who wanted the US out of Iraq

cut off a guy's head now, just before these pictures might come out, which could possibly turn public opinion against US foreign policy, just as pictures from Vietnam turned public opinion in the 70s.

And it raises another question: do we hide the truth from Americans (when the truth could save save thousands of lives by getting us out of Iraq) just to save one or two Americans from retribution for a specific act?

It just makes no sense. So Americans don't see the torture photos, we carry on in Iraq, and people keep shooting each other. That's supposed to be the better alternative?

Man, Americans are stupid. Or, I should say, man are Republican talking points stupid.

[Vladimir]

19. They beheaded him

to provoke a response in the hope that further Fallujah/Najaf style heavy-handedness will swing the local population even more against the occupiers. I doubt the insurgency gives a damn about American public opinion - its their domestic support they worry about. The more people in Iraq dislike the occupying forces, the more impossible it will become for the occupation to continue, whether the US wants it to or not. I think the timing is absolutely perfect - Iraq is full of outrage over the abuses in Abu-Ghraib, and so any coalition retaliation will fan the flames even higher.

[AP]

26. I see it as there being two models: Israel and Vietnam.

If you want perpetual conflict, use the Israel model (outrage and retaliation; revenge) and if you want the imperialists gone and if you want to move towards autonomy, try the (late) vietnam model (let the pictures come out and show the world the ugly face of imperialism without creating distractions).

It just looks like there are some people (and who knows who they are) calling shots that result in perpetual conflict, which serves the interests of both sides of the fascist coin, rather than helps people move towards "freedom" (is that what we're calling it?).

[Vladimir]

27. I'm not so sure

The beheading is only one event in what I see as a wider strategy - the plan being to make Iraq ungovernable from the inside. The US can win any military conflict, but it can't govern a country if everyone in the country refuses to co-operate. So from that point of view if you can go about fostering a climate where people will not work for the US-appointed government, where soldiers in the new army will desert in numbers, where the acting government can't show its face outside Baghdad without getting killed... you've made the country ungovernable. And then sooner or later the occupiers will leave because it will become too expensive to run a country the size of Iraq at gunpoint.

This is to my mind exactly what we have been witnessing over the past month and a half. Around December time, things weren't too hot, but the US could argue that they were moving forawrd. Now it is clear to everyone that Bremer, Chalabi and co run nothing, and wouldn't exist without the occupying forces. So I think the purpose is very much to get the US out, but without relying on US public opinion for the accomplishment of said goal.

[ze_dscherman]

25. Learning from Afghanistan

It is not in the interest of AQ to kick the U.S. out of Iraq. The longer the U.S. stays there, the more soldiers it sends there, the bigger its losses will be - politically, economically and morally. This is what the U.S. did to the USSR in Afghanistan.

[supernova]

17. No, just because individuals

make the choice to see or not see them, the stills or the video, doesn't mean they shouldn't be available in the first place.

[LoZoccolo]

20. 50% to 50% now

:kick:

[napi21]

21. Tied 50/50 at 10:51am. You need to vote.

I don't think we should withold anything! That's the only way the public and the media will be motivated to uncover what's really going on. Any media outlet airing the pics should announce before they who them so anyone who doesn't want to look has that option.

[quinnox]

23. wow, a close one I just voted

yes, it will be interesting how this turns out.

[IronLionZion]

24. 50/50 now