Stumble It!
Jesus wept
"Woman with dead child 1903" (left) and another drawing (site doesn't give info) by Kathe Kollwitz
Drawing is the only thing that makes my life bearable.
Kathe Kollwitz
"What we have seen about the recent abuse at Abu Ghraib is a joke to us," says Ibrahim al-Idrissi, president of the Association for Free Prisoners, an Iraqi non-governmental organization that has been documenting the execution of political prisoners under the regime of Saddam Hussein, reports The Daily Star:
If Idrissi seems a bit callous about the fate of the Iraqis in US-run jails, he has probably earned the right to differ. He recalls a day in 1982, at the General Security prison in Baghdad:
"They called all the prisoners out to the courtyard for what they called a 'celebration.' We all knew what they meant by 'celebration.' All the prisoners were chained to a pipe that ran the length of the courtyard wall. One prisoner, Amer al-Tikriti, was called out. They said if he didn't tell them everything they wanted to know, they would show him torture like he had never seen. He merely told them he would show them patience like they had never seen."
"This is when they brought out his wife, who was five months pregnant. One of the guards said that if he refused to talk he would get 12 guards to rape his wife until she lost the baby. Amer said nothing. So they did. We were forced to watch. Whenever one of us cast down his eyes, they would beat us."
"Amer's wife didn't lose the baby. So the guard took a knife, cut her belly open and took the baby out with his hands. The woman and child died minutes later. Then the guard used the same knife to cut Amer's throat."
How can these moral relativists live with themselves?
[via Right Wing News via Deborah at My Little Corner of the World]
Have to go with Idrissi. What the US soldiers did was not admirable, but relatively it was a tempest in a teapot. The poor dear terrorists were embarrassed.
Posted by: goomp | June 29, 2004 at 12:38 PM
You don't truly understand moral relativism, do you? Here's a clue: YOU are participating in moral relativism right now. You're saying that the Abu Ghraib torture doesn't compare, on a quantitative basis, to Saddam's torture; Saddam's was worse; therefore, Saddam was more immoral than the Americans at Abu Ghraib. That's a dictionary definition of relativism. Friends, the point is that it's ALL bad. Got it? It's ALL bad. Torture is wrong and amoral because it infringes upon the essential liberty of the person suffering through it. It's not something you weigh to find the worst bits in the pot. Okay? Lesson's over. Impeach Bush.
Peace.
Posted by: panquin | June 30, 2004 at 07:50 PM
How poignant, panquin, that you don't see the difference between a culture that condones the worst of human nature (which we are all potentially capable of) and one that is dedicated to promoting the best of human nature.
Posted by: Sissy Willis | June 30, 2004 at 07:55 PM
Sissy Willis: honestly, which culture is the one that's supposed to be "promoting the best of human nature"? AMERICA? Please. Our dear leaders were working like mad to bend legal justifications to torture into cute pretzel shapes, so that they could torture and not be bothered by insignificant junk such as morals and ethics and the intrinsic unassailability of personal boundaries. You show me one thing the U.S. has done in the past year that exemplifies the "best of human nature"; go on, I defy you. Name one thing, oh friend. You won't be able to.
You see, you'll defend Ashcroft (a well-known trampler of civil rights), Bush (an idiot whom idiots can't see as an idiot), Rumsfeld (a warmonger of the highest order; don't tell me he wasn't erect as a flagpole when Shock & Awe was going down) and Paul "I Hate Brownskinned People" Wolfowitz (classically inept, even playfully so...and a comb-licker sick motherf**k by the way).
That's it. See Fahrenheit 9/11, my droogs, and get to know truth and freedom! That's a real patriot that made that, and I think you've forgotten what they're made of.
Posted by: panquin | June 30, 2004 at 08:19 PM
Oh, my. You've taken the KoolAid. Too late to save you, perhaps?
Posted by: Sissy Willis | June 30, 2004 at 08:27 PM
panguin still believed on June 30th, that Fahrenheit 9/11 was the "truth". By then he/she should have known better.
http://www.davekopel.org/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm
Posted by: likwidshoe | August 28, 2004 at 03:43 AM
Where faith is concerned, truth is often the first casualty.
Posted by: Sissy Willis | August 28, 2004 at 04:55 AM
Panguine,
Think about what you said. Ask the people who lived under Saddams rule what the U.S. and our wonderful President did that was good. I know if my family and I had to live in fear every day of our lives I would hope someone would step in to save us. Yes, there has been lives lost. How many lives did Saddam take for no reason or are you saying the Iraqi's lives are not as important as the soldiers of the U.S.
s
Posted by: Kathy | September 22, 2004 at 12:43 AM