Since the release of the pictures showing the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners featured on 60 Minutes II, we have been reminded of this catastrophe every day by our friends in the media.
Certainly the actions of a small group of service people were abhorrent. What was done in this Iraqi prison does not represent the U.S. armed forces in general. However, you would not know this from the reaction from the media. They are obsessed with the prisoners’ abuse, repeatedly showing the photos, describing the occurrences in detail, and questioning every one in sight. Make no mistake, the actions of these few military personnel are inexcusable and should be dealt with severely. Yet, there is an obvious double-standard in the journalistic community — and we should be reminded about it as well.
While it is natural for the media to question this prison abuse, we are warned by the media of their reluctance to show the mutilated bodies of the four American civilian contractors who were murdered outside of Fallujah, Iraq. Not only were these Americans brutally burned and murdered, some of their bodies were dragged through the streets by a group of chanting thugs and then hung on poles.
Yet those same media groups were quite anxious to show us the images of the Iraqi prisoners who were forced into terribly compromising positions while under the watch of American troops. Yet they were reluctant to distribute, and in some cases would not show us, the graphic images of those Americans who were brutally killed and paraded around in Fallujah. Why?
Jonah Goldberg makes a similar point in this article.
One Comment
First let me comment that I am in the Military, currently a called up Reservist doing a year of active duty and the actions of the few abusers at the prison in Iraq are illegal, unlawful and will soon be punished as the wheels of justice move their way.
But while the media is going into a feeding frenzy over the prisoner abuse in Iraq, why don’t they get out of their journalistic bastions and check on the some of the abuse in their own local communities. I am sure that if they were to do true ‘investigative journalistic reporting’ in their own home towns they would turn up abuses just as ’schocking’ and scandalous as those in Iraq.
Of course it could be that those State and Local abuses could not then be blamed on the evil Bush administration might have something to do with that. // sarcasm tag off