Politics As Usual

[Not Me]

Originally posted by dtb
Good on her, then. I just know how I would feel, and I wouldn't like it (I don't think; and God willing, I won't ever find out how I would actually feel in such a situation). Clearly, it's not an outrageous view, as the photographer was concerned about it. Or maybe he [the photographer] and I are the only two loonies on the planet.

Well, I posted that quote for the part about how the mother felt about the picture. The concern the photographer, however, was for the commercialization of the photo, which the mother did not like. After he saw her say that on the news about the legitimate uses of the photo, he started putting it on fucking T-shirts and stuff and she didn't like that at all.

• Permission granted, Lester thought to himself. He started making deals.
  A photo distribution company wanted to market the picture to other publications. Why not? A company wanted to sell 18-inch statues of the image. Done. His wife suggested T-shirts, with some of the profit going toward a downtown statue of the image. Sure.
  
  The T-shirts had been in the store only a few days when the shop owner called. The baby's mother is here, he said, and she's livid.
  
  Lester had been trying for weeks to reach her. He wanted to offer to pay for Baylee's funeral, or at least the headstone, but couldn't find out where Aren was staying.
  
  He hung up, jumped in his van and raced to the store. When he got there, Aren was gone. When Lester finally saw her, it was on TV. She was complaining bitterly about Lester making money off her tragedy.
  
  Gas company executives thought the controversy was bad for public relations, and they let Lester know it. What kind of unethical, immoral profiteer was he?
  
  Lester was shocked. He had done a good job for this company for 32 years and now they were making him out to be a crook.
  
  At 10 a.m. on Sept. 6, the boss dropped a document on Lester's desk and gave him a choice. Sign over the photo rights to the company, which would give all the money to charity, or get fired.

There is more to the story. But the point is that as long as the picture was being used for its news value, she was OK with it and even thought it was a good thing. When the photographer started selling it on T-shirts, etc., she wasn't OK with that.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
Ty, my point was that I don't need to see the pictures to know and to remember and neither should anyone else. Unfortunately, not everyone is like me.

This is unmitigated horseshit, and you lie like a rug. You posted that picture in response to a post by the Gin Rummy sock in which he posted the pictures from Fallujah. You introduced the picture by saying:

Originally posted by Not Me
Here is another example of torture for those of you who throw that word around so carelessly:

Gin Rummy was apparently "responding" (I use the term loosely) to this post from Sidd Finch:

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
The Convention on the Prevention of Torture defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind..."

The Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners spefically prohibits "humiliating and degrading treatment."

Given this, your suggestion that anything short of rape or murder does not violate the Geneva Convention is dead wrong. Equally dead wrong is your psycho-brethren's argument that the Geneva Convention does not apply here because the prisoners in Abu Ghraib are "illegal combatants." The Bush Administration and the US military have specifically rejected this contention as to all persons captured in Iraq, regardless of whether they were uniformed or non-uniformed.

Grinning over a dead body is not a violation of the GC, I believe. Making the body dead in the first place is. Photographing yourself with your victim tends to suggest that you did not believe that you were violating orders.

Sidd wasn't saying anything about 9/11. He defines "torture" by quoting the Geneva Convention, and you "respond" by posting a picture of someone falling from the WTC. You have absolutely no basis to say that Sidd needs to see that picture to "know and remember" 9/11, and if you said that to him in person you would be at some justifiable risk of physical violence. You disgrace the victims of 9/11 by using them in this way. The conversation didn't have anything to do with 9/11 -- you gratuitously introduced that angle to score cheap points, and you are simply bullshitting about it now because you don't have the grace or common sense to give it up. If you had any sense, you'd slink away, abandon this sock, and come back later with a better act.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by dtb
Are they not? If so, then maybe it does matter.

I don't believe they are reading this board and don't believe that man can be identified from that picture.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Now who are we going to invade? Ty, you should start a pool. I'll take Mexico.

Berkeley

[sgtclub]

http://www.moveonpac.org/goreremarks052604.html/

[Al Gore on GWB]

Based on his history of ridiculously bad timing, I would bet that something positive for the president will happen shortly.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
you'd slink away, abandon this sock, and come back later with a better act.

Yawn. I posted the picture for the reason I said I posted it - this ridiculous exaggeration of some of what went on at Abu Gharaib. If the murders and rapes occurred, as I have repeatedly said, that is different.

No such luck about me leaving for the short term. After I get married I will probably leave because my b/f will be traveling much less, but I will be for sure writing down this log in in case I come back.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

[edited because what's the point?]

[sgtclub]

A first-hand report of a soldier currently on leave from Iraq - courtesy of Andrew Sullivan:

Anyway, he said that he refuses to watch the news coverage of what's happening over there. He said that the things they show are true but that the media blows everything out of proportion and makes it look like it's total chaos all of the time. He said that for the most part it's quiet and boring. And he has been in downtown Baghdad for a year in the middle of it all! He said that it's really like an inner city that has a lot of gang activity. The people that live there are happy that the troops are there and are very friendly and supportive (women and girls always blowing kisses, men waving and smiling!) They point out the "bad guys" and call them "Ali Baba"! He said that so much has changed for the good over there. Kids are back in school, adults suddenly have internet access and telephones where before they had no way of knowing what was happening in the outside world. Businessmen are tearing down old falling apart mud and stone buildings and building real businesses. J has learned some basic Iraqi including writing their alphabet (which is basically symbols written from right to left) and he has in turn taught English to some of the Iraqi's. As much as he doesn't want to go back, he sees how much the Iraqi's need help and wants them to be successful. He said that he can see them becoming a thriving country within the next 10 years. He said that all of the troops that he knows are very supportive of what Pres. Bush is doing but that Donald Rumsfeld is another story. No one seems to like him at all for a lot of different reasons.

[edited to change title]

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by sgtclub
A first-hand report of a soldier currently on leave from Iraq - courtesy of Andrew Sullivan:

edited to change title

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by sgtclub
A first-hand report of a soldier currently on leave from Iraq - courtesy of Andrew Sullivan:

. . .

J has learned some basic Iraqi including writing their alphabet (which is basically symbols written from right to left) and he has in turn taught English to some of the Iraqi's.

. . .

[edited to change title]

That is so cool that their alphabet is, like, symbols.

Who wrote that summary? The 8-yr-old child of the soldier?

And I'm really curious what your original title was.

Edited to note that the fact that our alphabet is not merely symbols, but letters, is but one of a million things showing how much more evolved we are. Our numbering system is way better too. Those Arabs. Savages, scratching symbols in the sand.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
And I'm really curious what your original title was.

"Prospective" which I quickly realized was spelled in correctly. Went in a different direction after that.

[LessinSF]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
[edited because what's the point?]

I am reminded of when I was in the student senate [scroll now, war story coming] and I could make a snarky comment about a bill that was solely intend to rile the other "senators" up. Inevitably, they took the bait, earnestly expousing and excoriating, several of them speaking with vim and vigor, letting no comment with which they disagreed go unrebutted. They would waste 30 minutes responding vehemently, before outvoting me 27-1 (or whatever). Then they blamed me when the meetings ran 4.5 hours (or whatever) as I drank my (student-group boycotted) Coors beer and ate my (student-group boycotted) table grapes with a Coors-drinking, grape-eating grin on my face. The odd "senator" with a brain would occasionally ask others why they bothered to respond, but your type (and by that I mean not just you Ty, but all of y'all) is congenitally incapable of letting the comment pass, as if somehow that will make it true. Thus are born twelve page letters responding to eight page letters. Try"ignore" - it works wonders, and you will get to wipe the grape-eating grin off someone's face.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by sgtclub
"Prospective" which I quickly realized was spelled in correctly. Went in a different direction after that.

It would be really hot if you changed it back.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by sgtclub
A first-hand report of a soldier currently on leave from Iraq - courtesy of Andrew Sullivan:

• He said that all of the troops that he knows are very supportive of what Pres. Bush is doing but that Donald Rumsfeld is another story. No one seems to like him at all for a lot of different reasons.

What are the troops upset with Rummy about? Not enough troops or not enough equipment or both?

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Not Me
What are the troops upset with Rummy about? Not enough troops or not enough equipment or both?