Abu Ghraib, Salon, Cartoons, Pictures

Salon.com, which never published the infamous Mohamed comics, has now published a bunch of previously unpublished, and possibly top secret, photos of Abu Ghraib. I wish I was as able to comment on these acts as well as this letter that was posted on their web site:

You have published new photos of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, conducted by U.S. military personnel at the scene. You have claimed this abuse and torture was "done in our name," implying that it was a part of official administration or military policy, despite the fact that (I quote from your own main essay) "No high-ranking officer or official has yet been charged in the abuse scandal that blackened America's reputation across the world." That these things were done in our name is certainly a theory, but it has yet to be proven as the assertion you make.

You should now publish photos of restored public works in Iraq, of rebuilt cities and towns, of opened schools, of emptied prisons, of a nascent democratic process, as these things also were "done in our name." To do otherwise is rank hypocrisy.

You should publish the cartoons which have fueled riots in Europe by those who believe their existence has blasphemed their religious leader, since you have published reports on the riots and the unrest and we have a "right to know" what started this mess. To do otherwise is rank hypocrisy.

You should publish images or video released by terrorist groups in the Midde East who have kidnapped and murdered Westerners as well as their own people, including the scenes of beheadings which are included in communications from those groups. You should also publish images or video of the aftermath of the many attacks terrorist groups make in the region, not excluding the dead and injured, young and old alike, because we have a "right to know" what's going on in the area besides those things done by US troops and to know that US soldiers are not the only targets of these criminals. To do otherwise is rank hypocrisy.

In my opnion, that's what you should do. What you will do is, I'm afraid, something else entirely.

-- Brett

The cowardice that, to my mind, is being displayed by most journalists is pretty shocking. I'm not even going to go into whether or not they've got a bias left or right, but they are abject cowards. Let's face it, in publishing these photo's, what do they risk? Losing a subscription or three (I may let mine lapse)? But if they had actually published the infamous comics of Mohamed, they might have risked actual physical harm for the publication of drawings. I used to honestly believe that journalists were brave individuals who did risk their skins in order to get to the bottom of a story. Not any more. I find it interesting that fear of physical harm will shut down a free press in a free country, not just in horrifying despotic third world countries. Clearly, our ability to avoid becoming one of these nasty places is about as wide as one or two beheaded reporters with a few death threats tossed in. I do find this back door loss of our First Amendment freedoms to actually be scary.