Salon.com: Why they published new Abu Ghraib photos

Salon.com has an amazing op-ed piece on why they decided to publish a series of newly released photos from the 2003 torture scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq:

http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/02/16/abu_ghraib_intro/

I agree with their reasons completely. It sickens me how many horrible things are being done by our government and in our name. No wonder we are so hated throughout the world. If we don't stand up to this, it is exactly the same as condoning it.

Those pictures are now old news about long ago events and in most cases, the individuals responsible were and are being punished to appropriate degrees. Publishing them now in this climate with all the destruction and mania over a few drawings of some dude who's been dead for almost fifteen hundred years now is irresponsible journalism. Noone is learning anything new, nobody is being served in any way by seeing these images. The likelihood is that people will die because of their being released. This is the other side of the journalistic freedom/responsibility coin.

Actually..the people responsible are not being punished in any way. Some of those involved directly in carrying out the torture are being punished though.

It sickens me how supposedly "intelligent and generally well-respected" (or so I hear) people seemingly lose all intellectual sense of proportion and reality when something tweaks a personal sensibility as this has apparently done with the OP. To even rhtetorically assume that actions by a few are truly representative of the desires and values of a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic population of over 290 million people flies in the face of any reality I can imagine. Further, to argue, much less actualy believe, that such things are being done with your/my/our detailed knowledge and approval ---- well, what can I say?

To say that "we are hated throughout the world" and "condoning" such actions by "silence" is no less irrational. Certainly there are a number of people who hate "us", but is it really YOU or me they hate or some abstract concept that has little REAL/ACTUAL basis in reality in terms or either personal experience or knowledge?

Ranting about such things on a game-forum board, sorry.. I just don't get it.

Note: This was not directed at CM... However, the quoted post is representative of a number of posts I have read on these forums over the last year-plus I have been a resident. My comment is simply contextualized by quoting the above, not meant to be a direct, personal criticism --- rather, I am commenting on the content and context of the post only.

I <3 You

That was a great response.

I think that you're wrong. By saying we are not personally involved, that America is a "concept" and that worldwide hate of America has nothing to do with individuals, we are silently condoning the kind of offenses that occurred at Abu Ghraib and which continue to occur in Iraq, Guantanamo, et. al. We ARE responsible for these horrors precisely because we don't take the time or interest to say "NO!" We need to all say NO as loudly as we can, in letters to the editor, by posting on Salon.com, by calling our congressional representatives, and by, yes, posting in forums where we have a sense of shared community and can command some respect (as the OP does).

What especially horrifies me about your post is that you say 290 million Americans are not responsible for the actions of a few. People are a product of their culture. It is the basis for the argument WE made to invade Iraq, to hunt down Saddam and Bin Laden, because they are of a culture and political system that is not our own. Well, the products of our culture find it commonplace and even funny to torture people imprisoned, weakened, and under their protection. The whole Abu Ghraib situation only demonstrates we are not so different from the regimes other world dictators have established. We just don't have the balls to admit we are as brutal as they.

I was expecting something a bit more shocking after that long self-congratulatory "we're so brave" introduction. They're nowhere near as bad as the photos released on Aussie TV recently, showing prisoners covered in their own blood.

as someone who works in the prison system in AMERICA i do feel the need to add a few things....in terms of prisoners being naked and chained to things...they do that HERE IN AMERICA when someone is suicidal. it happens quite frequently as well.

Why arent we instead worried more about reforming OUR OWN prison system? Now granted, the naken business i understand as it is hard to find staff to monitor the cells 24/7 yet what sickens me is how the police here feel able to abuse prisoners AFTER they are arrested. I have SO many horror stories i could share and BELIEVE me this job is NO picnic but i do not condone physical violence towards the prisoners like what i have seen. At the same time you cannot begin to imagine all the horrors these cops see on a daily basis or the human waste that they have to deal with who have absolutely no regard for human life. Working here has made me be PAINFULLY aware of both sides of the coin, but it has also made me very cynical and i hope to find a job that i can be more helpful to society as a whole.

just my two cents...btw just so you know i cant count how many times in the five years of workin here ive gone home crying not only from what ive seen, but things ive had to put up with from drunk assholes.