A Spanish Inquisition

[xoxoxoBruce]

Fargon, don't forget the Iranians you spoke to, came here, so I would expect them to be pro Shaw. The ones that weren't, stayed there.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by fargon

Lest we forget that these wonderful and peaceful people cut the heads off people they kidnap.

That's true. We of course prefer 'waterboarding' and attaching electrodes to testicles, which is the 'compassionate conservative' approach.

Still, by some reports, we have only killed about 100 prisoners in 4 years, so I guess we're the good guys by comparison.

[Happy Monkey]

And up to 5% of our prisoners are even terrorists, too! Very few of their prisoners are terrorists.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by fargon

Lest we forget that these wonderful and peaceful people cut the heads off people they kidnap.

And by torturing, we look more and more like them. The difference between torturing and muder is only degree.

Yeah, we only do cool stuff like zip people up into sleeping bags and strangle them with electrical cord.

[FallenFairy]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

And by torturing, we look more and more like them. The difference between torturing and muder is only degree.

Absolutely - makes it a lot harder to continue to fight the "barbarians and heathens" when we can't tell the difference between "them and us".

[Undertoad]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/18/in...=1&oref=slogin

Cited as Symbol of Abu Ghraib, Man Admits He Is Not in Photo

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/in...tors.note.html

A front-page article last Saturday profiled Ali Shalal Qaissi, identifying him as the hooded man forced to stand on a box, attached to wires, in a photograph from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2003 and 2004. He was shown holding such a photograph. As an article on Page A1 today makes clear, Mr. Qaissi was not that man.

The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph. Mr. Qaissi's account had already been broadcast and printed by other outlets, including PBS and Vanity Fair, without challenge. Lawyers for former prisoners at Abu Ghraib vouched for him. Human rights workers seemed to support his account. The Pentagon, asked for verification, declined to confirm or deny it.

Despite the previous reports, The Times should have been more persistent in seeking comment from the military. A more thorough examination of previous articles in The Times and other newspapers would have shown that in 2004 military investigators named another man as the one on the box, raising suspicions about Mr. Qaissi's claim.

The Times also overstated the conviction with which representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International expressed their view of whether Mr. Qaissi was the man in the photograph. While they said he could well be that man, they did not say they believed he was.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I thought the original story was, they hooked wires to whoever was on the box, told them they would be zapped if they didn't stay on the box, but the wires were a ruse and not actually hooked to any power source.

[slang]

Originally Posted by Undertoad/NYT

.........The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph.........

I wonder if anything else might not have been researched or just assumed correct from that story.

[richlevy]

Well, from the story it appears that he claims more than one person was hooded, placed on a box, and photographed. It does seem illogical that a person who is hooded and being 'strenously questioned' would know if they were being photographed.

Of course the Army maintains that only one person was ever subjected to this specific treatment. Unfortunately, their credibility in this is as questionable as that of Mr. Qaissi.

Certainly, he was at Abu Ghraib, and appears with a hood over his head in some photographs that Army investigators seized from the computer belonging to Specialist Charles Graner, the soldier later convicted of being the ringleader of the abuse.However, he now acknowledges he is not the man in the specific photograph he printed and held up in a portrait that accompanied the Times article. But he and his lawyers maintain that he was photographed in a similar position and shocked with wires and that he is the one on his business card. The Army says it believes only one prisoner was treated in that way.

[slang]

Originally Posted by richlevy

......It does seem illogical that a person who is hooded and being 'strenously questioned' would know if they were being photographed............. their credibility in this is as questionable as that of Mr. Qaissi.

He must have felt confident that he was the one. How did he know he was being photographed? Who knows?

If the NYT writes a story that backs their template, that Bush sucks and should be impeached, then they look less critically at the facts and the personalities.

If there is a story that might even suggest that Bush was not at fault for the story's subject, they dig in to question and verify everything. Same thing for subjects that are favorable to Bush policy.

Would that be accurate? I'm sure that you disagree.

The military may very well have done the same. I've not read through all the articles and background on this.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by slang

If the NYT writes a story that backs their template, that Bush sucks and should be impeached, then they look less critically at the facts and the personalities.

If there is a story that might even suggest that Bush was not at fault for the story's subject, they dig in to question and verify everything. Same thing for subjects that are favorable to Bush policy.

Would that be accurate? I'm sure that you disagree.

I would say that the NYT has shown bias both ways. They certainly did not question the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Are they as biased as Fox? No. I have never heard the NYT use the word 'treason' once. Someone on Fox seems to use it every two weeks.

I would say that the administration's dominance over the press seems to have diminished as it's approval ratings drop and each new revelation of hidden policies is made. It's especially galling when the press is deliberately lied to. They tend to take it personally.

[slang]

Originally Posted by richlevy

I would say that the NYT has shown bias both ways. They certainly did not question the decision to go to war in Iraq.

In the interest of my own personal curiosity, I'll make it a point to read and digest more from the NYT in the coming months.

It seems pretty remote that they are biased in both directions but I'd like to evaluate that for myself. It seems to me that in order to be equally biased they would lose the majority of left leaning people that seem to love the NYT. I've not heard anything biased toward Conservatives but I'll make the effort to look.

Can the "gold standard" for print news and a "hillbilly" TV news channel be compared on the level? I dont watch TV, dont know about that.

[Griff]

The Times is biased towards State power but they prefer the State be run by Democrats. They supported the war because they, like most of the left, support a powerful Executive and unfortunately with the advent of 911 the administrations template.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by slang

Can the "gold standard" for print news and a "hillbilly" TV news channel be compared on the level? I dont watch TV, dont know about that.

I only wish that Fox was considered a "hillbilly" channel. Unfortunately, they are being considered mainstream. Since their idea of 'balance' is to counter what they see as an overall liberal bias with a deliberate 'conservative' bias, I wish they were thought of as non-mainstream.