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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Jim McCallan BS: Photos here of Iraqi prisoner abuse (83* d) RE: BS: Photos here of Iraqi prisoner abuse 11 May 04


I think we are in the era, now, where we cannot tell with 100% certainty that any 'image' we see is genuine....
This wave of photgraph releases I'm sure, will give the 'morphers' more material to work with, and I think we have to accept that.

The Pentagon, however has admitted that there is 'worse to come', (they are not putting too much emphasis on alleged 'doctored' images), so in a way whereas any photograph or, for that matter, video we see from now on, can have it's authenticity questioned, we have to keep in mind that the Pentagon has confirmed photographs like these ones, exist.
In which case, at the very least, the photographs from the site above can be viewed as 'representations' of the images Rumsfeld has already alluded to; though in fairness, one of the women in one of the 'rape' scenes does look decidedly 'oriental'.

The taking of the photographs in the first place (the real ones, I mean), or the making of 'home-made' porn, and snuff movies, has set in motion a chain of events where everything from security within the prison (in that, for one, images could be 'smuggled out') to issues regarding who condoned or, perhaps, ordered the human rights abuses that the photographs and video have been admitted as having represented, is being (or should be in the process of being) scrutinised in a lot more detail. And that, I believe is the 'good' that can come out of this.

I know that I have no intention of 'flicking' through every 'photograph' that comes out of Iraq from now on; I'm not voyeuristic, and in any case, the damage has already been done by the first revelations. Everything that gets circulated now, will have it's authenticity questioned. The internet is out there, ladies and gentlemen. It's authenticity is always brought into question.
Just as we filter out what we see and hear in the mass media, on a daily basis, I'm sure most of us have a capacity for healthy scepticism, when it comes to 'information' relayed to us via the internet.

Thankfully no-one yet has taken it upon themselves to cut certain sections of my morning newspaper out, before I get a chance to disregard the information that might have been there, myself, and if we are all 'people of the World' here, I think we all can be given the benefit of the doubt that we can seperate the 'genuine' from the 'suspect', to a certain degree.

Jim


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