Guest, you reflect the sentiments of the American male-controlled media: the penis is off-limits for mainstream publication, though just about anything on a woman may appear, as long as a movie rating is in place. [this is called a double-standard] Your sensitivity doesn't do you any credit, and dulls your ability to look at those images and see what is clearly there.

It isn't pornographic in the sense that it is over-the-top sex, it is obscene in the sense that it is rape. I hope that the men whose pricks are in view torturing those women have to face charges, and that the women they abused are still alive and are able to confront their torturers.

This is such a depressing time. Thanks to George W. Bush and this obscene "war" of his I sat at breakfast with my children this morning discussing torture and rape, and how rape is so different from healthy sex. The photos are out there, and my kids at 12 and 15 need help to interpret that "news." They're healthy normal kids and images that look like "sex" are going to catch their attention. The networks play and play and play the images, and it's impossible to watch the news and void the images. And we are told a new batch is coming. The link above goes to some of those images--various angles of two separate gang rapes of two distinct Iraqi women by a group of American soldiers, may be the same men in both occasions--and those are liable to end up on tv next. I told the kids that some may not, because American men consider images of the penis off limits, so any photos with men's penises, even when they're torturing a woman, will not be shown. Anything else will appear. The women will appear with agonized expressions, as long as American (and in this instance, white) hands and penises aren't in the picture.

I didn't think it was possible to be any more disgusted with George Bush than I have been since he started his defacto personal war against the Moslem world. But he's reached a new low. He turned loose apparently untrained and unsupervised soldiers on that country who are not only brutish, they're so stupid that they take souvenir photos of themselves brutalizing Iraqis.

The radio is on. The senator just asked for Taguba his assessment of the situation. The soldiers had "no training whatsover, and a lack of supervision" he answered. Duh. Two other Pentagon officials are there and interrupt his testimony with their approved views of the war.

Another senator has come on and started his statement by complaining about these "human rights do-gooders." He suggests that because Saddam's torture was so much worse that this is nothing in comparison.

SRS