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Compare and Contrast

The New York Times comments on the "Saddam in his under-roos" :

It was unclear how, if at all, Sunnis in Iraq or the wider Islamic world would react to photographs. Al Qalaa, an Islamic Web site with ties to the insurgency, briefly showed the picture and condemned its publication. But then it took the picture down after the administrators of the site apparently concluded it was forbidden under Islamic law.

Now since there is no clear link in which to blame the "western imperialist capitalist multinational robber barons", George W. Bush, or Israeli Zionists Occupation Forces, Al Qalaa and the New York Times have no comment about this picture taken of victims of a mustard gas attack in Halabja Iraq.

Apparently killing civilians with mustard gas is not forbidden under Islamic law, and neither is taking a picture of the victims and posting it on a website. But a picture of "duddy fudnuts" parading around in his underwear and its "fatwa" time. I mean why would the New York Times run a picture like this anyway? If I remember my multicultural sensitivitity training this qualifies as "Insensitive", right? It will just justify the "Evil Bush Regime" in its fascist imperialism, and we cant have that, can we, eh comrade?

You know what the real difference is between a blogger and a journalist? As a blogger, I actually feel ashamed at my exploiting a picture like that just to make a point against people I oppose politically. A journalist would feel no such shame. Most Bloggers feel that pictures of insane megalomanicial mass murderers being humiliated for all the world to see is a good thing, with the dictators also being made the guest of honor at a public hanging an even better thing. Journalists feel that showing pictures of the victims of 9/11 falling to their deaths from the Towers or American flags flying over what were once the former palaces of filthy murdering bastards or pictures of Islamic women voting for the first time as just being good examples of western cultural insensitivity and another example of the Bush administration trying to inflame an already rocky relationship between west and east. This is something I as a blogger simply do-not-understand but if I were a journalist, I suppose it would be completely clear to me.

For example, a Journalist will work every day in the forlorn hope of securing an interview with the Warden of Cuba (cough, Fidel Castro, cough ) so they can fawn over his supposedly progressive enlightened social programs in Havana Cuba, while in almost the same breath they will curse George W. Bush and his horrible treatment of al-queda prisoners in Guantanamo Cuba. Why is that? What the hell happened to the left and its "solidarity with the oppressed"? Now it seems that the only thing the left feels solidarity with anymore is its own fat ass.

"Arise ye prisoners of starvation"? Whoops, I guess they didn't mean you, Haji. So sit down and do what comrade commissar tells you to do, ok?

Whats the difference between Guantanamo and Havana? If you are in Guantanamo, you are fed regularly, bathe regularly, have easy access to religious reading material and you get to go free one day. In Havana, you have none of those things and freedom only comes when you enter the grave. My guess is if we had Cubans vote what side of the fence at Guantanamo they wanted to be on, most would willingly trade places with any al-queda terrorist incarcerated in Guantanamo.

Ive said it before and Ill say it again, Guantanamo prisoners PUT ON WEIGHT AND LEAVE THE PRISON IN BETTER HEALTH THAN WHEN THE WENT IN! In the history of mankind, can you find me any other country that accomodates its prisoners with such care and protection from exploitation? Ever? and yet thousands of man hours are spent chasing the biggest nothing story of all time.

This is my way of saying that I'm sick to death of the "The US is mistreating Islamic prisoners" meme. To date, I havent seen any evidence that any Islamic prisoner in our care is treated any worse than the overnight denizens of the Cook County Jail. Jeez, has anyone ever seen OZ? Whats the "Message" from OZ: Correctional Officers are bad. Prisons are bad. Prisoners are Bad. Try to avoid them at all costs. It's very simple.

Oh, feel free to print out that picture of the poor Kurdish woman of Halabja and hand it to the next leftist pinhead that says "Bush/Blair lied about WMD's". Maybe they need a picture to "get the picture".

Posted @ May 22, 2005 11:15 PM | Current Affairs