Areku said:
When you say 'held' what exactly do you mean? I bet it's a bit of a step away from being paraded around with blindfolds on, or told to read messages to your home country to try and get them to pull out of the country. Or being executed.
From the reports I've read, the conditions of detention in US facilities are truly abominable. It is a lot more than just humiliation (which is bad enough), beatings are a regular occurence and the US military is currently investigating the deaths of at least 37 prisoners at the hands of guards.
Areku said:
However, the mere fact that they show some of the tape with the terrorist's demands on it is cooperating with them anyway.
This makes no sense. Western news agencies are showing the exact same tapes with the exact same demands, does that mean they are cooperating with the terrorists too?
Areku said:
Also, if it's true that they haven't shown the videos of the westerners being executed, yet are happy to show the deaths of Iraqis, it shows double standards on their part. They claim not to have shown the death of the Italian security guard because it was 'too gruesome' but I suspect the real reason is because he struggled to get his blindfold off, said something similiar to 'you want to kill an italian? I will show you how an italian dies...' to stare the terrorists in the eyes before they killed him.
You can't have it both ways here. First you were saying that the fact that they showed western deaths proved they were sympathetic to the terrorists, now you are saying that the fact that they don't show the deaths of western hostages shows the same thing. Doesn't this strike you as being contradictory? And even if it weren't contradictory it still doesn't bear up under scrutiny because the Arab networks do report on western deaths (ie US soldiers killed in Iraq), they just decline to broadcast gruesome images (much like CNN, the BBC, FOX, CBS, etc did). Their (al Jazeera and Al arabiya, the two Arab satellite networks) standards are the exact same as those of western media outlets and I really think the argument that these stations are supporting terrorists is absolutely absurd. The bit about why the Italian hostage being executed wasn't aired is just nuts, western media outlets were given the same tape and they chose to censor it too, including networks that supported the war.
areku said:
Europe and the US aren't backward, religion-inspired cultures, on the whole (I can't say that for the Bible Belt) and this is evident from more than just what we show on TV. I fail to see the racism or bigotry. If I said 'all Iraqis are scum because they are Iraqi' then that would be racism.
Well, lets look again at what you said,
areku said:
...a perfect example of the difference between the US/UK and Iraq, and a perfect example of their primitive, backwards, religion-inspired culture.
Might not fit the textbook definition of racism, but it certainly sounds pretty bigoted to me. Blanket statements about how primitive other people's cultures are made by people who obviously have no idea what they are talking about certainly don't deserve any respect.
areku said:
I'm aware that the first lot of pictures had REMF's in them but not the more recent ones. Still, I don't see the big deal over it. Unless you're telling me that the Iraqi's in the photos were innocent people. And I've yet to see any evidence of actual torture on UK TV/newspapers. How do you know they were beaten to death by those people?
So beating people to death is OK in your book? Well, I guess if you support genocide its not that big a deal by comparison. 37 prisoners have been killed by guards in US facilities. That figure doesn't include cases where guards were subduing dangerous prisoners or doing other things that fell within their rules. These are all being treated as homicides by the military.
areku said:
I doubt it, but nevermind.
Not that it makes any difference, but Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same god. Look it up.
It's my opinion, and I told you allready that you don't have to agree with it...
