8th May 2004, 8:12 PM
Quote:Ya know ABF, I know what you mean about anti-arab sentiment. It's really a sad state of affairs, but it's not THAT widespread. The fact that you think that alone proves there is a large group, indeed the dominant part of America, who isn't hating the arabs right now. Personally, I just have a problem with those who do these acts. I'd have to look into the religoin to decide if that really does encourage violence. At any rate, hating everyone from that nation certainly isn't a good solution. Fortunatly, most people here at TC I believe don't have such an attitude.
It isn't? Read that article. Or Weltall's post. Or what you read soldiers saying. Or plenty of other conservative writings. They hate the Arabs! Not just because of this, of course. American religious conservatives have detested Islam for a long time... envy because unlike them Islam actually HAS control over the political side in those nations, perhaps? :)
Now, the Arabs did raise American hate by their acts of hate, but we incited much of that hatred by our total failure of a post-war plan in Iraq! Combine that with latent anti-Americanism and you have a recipe for disaster that was well followed...
As for showing the pics, they absolutely had to. It would be utterly irresponsible to squelch such an important story. As Rumsfeld said (yes, me quoting him! wow...), you have to see them to really understand -- words do not do the job. And this IS a major, major scandal -- a long term record of severe bad practice in Iraqi jails, condoned by just about everyone who knew it seems. The worst action by far in the scandal was the military "asking" CBS to hold the photos and not show them for two weeks.