Tim Blair

The looters are honest in that they are unabashed thieves. The journalists aren't honest, not even to themselves.

." They were, he wrote, "a product of the regime that has shaped them - poorly educated, hungry for revenge after decades of oppression and unable to appreciate the damage they are doing to the country that is theirs."

Which makes them different to journalists ... how, exactly?

Journalists get big whopping salaries? And it's not their country, so whoops if stuff comes up missing?

And substitute "decades of oppression" with "they picked on me at school" and I think it's spot on.

I didn't read this near close enough...

unable to appreciate the damage they are doing to the country that is theirs

Oh yeah, these journos are doing that, clear enough.

Everyone should view the videos so they know what we're up against.

http://home.comcast.net/~incubus52/lestweforget.html

Richard Perl already forgotten? What of those pesky Russian videos showing the same images? This makes some frat boy style torture seem just that.

hi tim. thank you for showing me that journalists are thieves and torture is no big deal as long as those aren't my balls in that dog's mouth. some people say you are a clueless jerk but with this post you have proven them wrong. bye.

Anon? I seriously doubt you ever read anything Tim wrote.

Anon

Are you sure the dog didn't make off with your balls?

What kind of mother names her kid "anon"? Does he have a sister named "Hither"?

hi quentin. if you have nothing to say perhaps you should just shut up. thanks.

and andrea, it's a nickname. remember when the kids at school called you 'fatass' or whatever it was. same deal.

Yes, shut up. It's my ball and I'll just play how I want to...and if you don't like it I'll just go home to mummy and tell her how all the big boys pick on me. Then you'll be sorry.

Ang guess what? I'm a journalist.
Oops! Forget I said that.

Tim Blair is a shithead

some people say you are a clueless jerk"

Yeah but its only clueless jerks like you that don't have the ability to argue with him that say it anon.

Ang guess what? I'm a journalist.
Oops! Forget I said that.

What, in the Micahhawk sense of the word?

Why do trolls never use their real names? Are they ashamed of the rubbish they post here? Hmmm...

Ang guess what? I'm a journalist.
Oops! Forget I said that.

Bye bye credibility.

What about the recent images of an American chopper shooting a wouned Iraqi crawling on the ground? Did anybody see that? Nope, not me. Not on the media anyway.

What about the endless images of crushed babies, split heads with brains on the floor, etc. etc. that the hated Al Jazeera shows. Do you see any of that on the media that only shows 'American evil' and glorifies the Arabs (as is suggested here).

The fact is the media seems to have a 'gore line' that it won't cross and the Abu Ghraib images fall just on the right side of it. They are sensational enough to provoke mass attention. But they aren't so repulsive as to make you lose your lunch.

I am not sure of Tim's point, should they show all the gore, none of the gore or just the gore that is perpetrated against the Americans? And lets face it the Americans have the weaponry to produce the most gore if they want to.

Margot?

"And lets face it the Americans have the weaponry to produce the most gore if they want to.

Posted by: Rick at May 12, 2004 at 10:16 PM"

Why, yes. Yes, we do. I wonder, then, why we don't.

This letter, from today's Sydney Morning Herald, caught my eye. The dictator Saddam has been deposed and will be punished. Somehow, arguing now over whose atrocities were worst and whose should get the most media coverage seems to me beyond the point.

The photo on the front page of your paper ("First solid evidence of torture", Herald, May 11) of the naked prisoner - tied and surrounded by dogs - brought back horrific memories of Nazi Germany's Buchenwald concentration camp treatment of prisoners. Please stand up and raise your voices in protest. It shames us all, as human beings.

George Grojnowski, Former prisoner, Buchenwald 116530, Sydney, May 11.

This letter, from today's Sydney Morning Herald, caught my eye. The dictator Saddam has been deposed and will be punished, and so too will the soldiers who committed these atrocities at Abu Ghraib. Arguing over whose actions were worst and whose should get the most media coverage achieves nothing. Let's not lose sight of the big picture here while trying to push ideological barrows.

The photo on the front page of your paper ("First solid evidence of torture", Herald, May 11) of the naked prisoner - tied and surrounded by dogs - brought back horrific memories of Nazi Germany's Buchenwald concentration camp treatment of prisoners. Please stand up and raise your voices in protest. It shames us all, as human beings.

George Grojnowski, Former prisoner, Buchenwald 116530, Sydney, May 11.

Perhaps the point of Tim's post is just that the 'gore line' shifts, depending upon whose the 'gorer', whose the 'goree', when it happens, and who reports it.

Folks like me aren't bright enough to understand the shifting line and need an explanation of the thought process involved. Another good example of where some of us need more information is how someone arrives at the conclusion that one person is a clueless jerk and another is a fatass.

zzx375: Projection??

The next time that Kingston, Adams, Fisk, Pilger et al have the gall to criticise the custodial conditions and ensuing treatment of prisoners by the West, I challenge them to repeat the slur after watching the full vision of Mr Berg being murdered by the lowest scum of mankind who do not even have the guts to show their pathetic faces.

It is weird saying this, but there could be an argument to show this (with the appropriate caveats/warnings) so that the public knows the filth we are opposing.

May your sould rest in peace, Mr Berg.

The truth is that many big-name reporters today don't have any desire to present a story for the public. Their reports are meant for their colleagues. The aim is to maintain their membership of the Credible Correspondent Club (CCC) whose rules were drawn up in the Nixon era and haven't been sighted since.

Their version of sophistication (ie: anti-Americanism) and metropolitanism (ie: anti-everyman) are the veritable chinos and navy blazers that identify them as CCC members to one another. It's an ensemble:

1) event that demonstrates American hypocrisy and perfidy, with a little help from CCC member - check; 2) 'growing crisis' - check; 3) 'they would deny it wouldn't they?' moment - check; 4) simple victims of circumstance who've been good enough to pin it all on the White House - check; 5) non-white folks of some kind who are both victims of racism and also, from a CCC man's perspective, ill-equipped to understand the true evil of the West - check; 6) 'what did the President know and when did he know it?' moment - check. 7) orgasmic Bernstein & Woodward 'gotcha' moment -here's hoping.

The prisoner torture story is currently at stage five but won't get to stage six or seven, no matter how much it's pushed. The Nick Berg tragedy, to the immense delight of some journalists, would appear to be at stage four.

The CCC phenomenon is partly a function of ageing: Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and others are hanging on by their fingernails to any deep understanding of the present world - a situation exacerbated by their absurd salaries. It's also partly cowardice: it takes character to risk becoming 'one of them' - namely, a right-wing know-nothing. Eek!

Moqtada al-Spud: Mr Grojnowski's experience makes his a voice that must be respected but reducing Buchenwald to a dog-bite is banal. Solzhenitsyn had equally horrific experiences but I doubt if he'd be inclined to give anyone the impression that there was any moral or practical equivalency between Saddam's methods and the Coalition's. And what's wrong with ideological barrows anyway? That we can push them at all is the greatest thing about being in a democracy. Hitker and Saddam didn't think so. I do.

People did stand up, peopledid raise voices. The first of these were the Pentagon's own investigators who uncovered the abuse and were in the process of addressing it.

What we have today is journalism as therapy. The participants at this 24 hour group-hug session are rich, vain, intellectually frightened mediocrities.

Amen to that concluding sentiment Chris. And may 'perpetual light shine upon him...'

The next time that Kingston, Adams, Fisk, Pilger et al have the gall to criticise the custodial conditions and ensuing treatment of prisoners by the West, I challenge them to repeat the slur after watching the full vision of Mr Berg being murdered by the lowest scum of mankind who do not even have the guts to show their pathetic faces.

So our standards exist only in relation to the barbarism of our enemy, rather than as some form of moral absolute?

Can our ethics really be summed up as "not as bad as the next guy"?

Fair enough Jethro. You want to hear it? Our values are not comparatively but absofuckinglutely superior to those of the enemy.

The trolls are out in force now.

It's a sign that Tim is having an effect.

Jethro,

its a matter of degree - I will play the moral absolutism card against those individuals when all you heard from them was a deafening silence regarding: the barbarities of Sadam's regime; the treatment of women and prisoners in many Muslim nations; the cries to jihad from Muslim clerics in Western countries; a pathtic refusal to acknowledge that the UN has been at best a lame duck in its involvement in world affairs, to the detriment of millions.

Furthermore, does the murder of Mr Berg qualify as part of the resistance that has been so enthusiastically supported by Pilger and Moore - if not, when can we expect to hear their opposition to it?

At no stage do I condone the appalling treatment of the Iraqi prisoners; its just that I suspect I will go blue in the face waiting for the aforementioned individuals and the leaders of most Mulsim communities to condemn the actions of the murderers.

EvilPundit, I think you hit the nail on the head.

It's not just Tim; I suspect Berg's murder is viewed as a horrible setback by the terrorists and their anti-anti-terrorism allies. It looks like there's a LOT of trolling going around, so as to distract us from the evil committed in the name of Islam.

Buchenwald? Buchenwald? Someone compares Abu Ghraib to Buchenwald?

When I hear such things I am sickened that the horror of Buchenwald could be trivialized.

Against my better judgment, I watched that horrible video of Nick Berg's murder. There can be no explanation, no prevarication, no justification for those men standing there with hoods over their heads, or the man behind the camera filming it. They are damned for all eternity, as is anyone who could make an excuse for something like that.

And the worst that Americans do is make some sexually repressed thugs take their clothes off so they can be ridiculed? Somehow this is equivalent? Perhaps only to those people who fear exposing their nether regions would subject them to the same ridicule.

What about the recent images of an American chopper shooting a wouned Iraqi crawling on the ground?

What about them? He was a combatant, although likely an unlawful one, engaged and destroyed in a perfectly legal manner by US forces.

Rick-

Here's a mental exercise for you: imagine the US military having only AK-47s, RPGs, and white Toyota pick-ups. Imagine Arabs with M1 Abrams, B-52s, Apache helicopters, and nuclear weapons. Now imagine what the world would be like.

FoxNews has a news article on the Arab reaction to Berg's murder. A number of Arabs have condemned the murder, but not always for the right reason. Still, it's a little better than the Palestinians dancing in Gaza after the 9/11 attacks. A little, that's all.

I mention this because Robert Crawford is exactly right about the perspective here. A few quotes from the article (please read it completely for full context) are:

"We were winning international sympathy because of what happened at Abu Ghraib, but they come and waste it all," Sahar said of the Islamic militants responsible.

"Such revenge is rejected," Bakri said of the execution. "The American administration will make use of such crimes just to cover their real crimes against Iraqis."

Doubtless the left wingers are upset by this; their nasty little terrorist friends crossed a line even our home grown moonbats won't cross, and the world saw a brutal murder of an innocent man ([sarcasm] other than he was a white American male, I mean [/sarcasm]). It is no surprise that the trolls were out in force again.

I wonder how Micah Wright, Michael Moore, and Kos are going to spin this one back under control. If they can. Nick Berg was a communications technician, not a security contractor.

On the plus side:

"This shows how base and vile those who wear the robe of Islam have become," said Abdullah Sahar, a Kuwait University political scientist.

I can only conclude that we are going in the right direction in Iraq, in spite of what the left wing moonbats and their terrorist bed fellows say.

Rebecca: '...damned for all eternity." That's how I felt too, of those low-life devils.

Dave S., The Real JeffS: Both your perspectives have enlightened me and renewed my hope a little. Thanks for that research JeffS.

Just wondering if the King of Jordan is going to apologize to President Bush for the slaughter of Nick Berg?

>What about the recent images of an American
>chopper shooting a wouned Iraqi crawling on the
>ground?

So, they should have let him get medical attention so he could recover enough to saw some Jew's head off?

You do realize this is war and not dodgeball, right?

I wonder how Micah Wright, Michael Moore, and Kos are going to spin this one back under control.

To my disgust, I think I've seen the first try. Berg was Jewish and worked in the telecommunications industry. Apparently some antisemites think some Israeli telecom companies are Mossad fronts. Therefore, they think Berg was an Israeli spy!

I see. They will blame this on the JJJOOOOOOOSSSSSSSS!!!! A classical use of misdirection and lies of the left and terrorists.

Okay, anon, Rick, and Jethro have all been banned. I am sick of every creep, backbiter, and moral equivalencer spreading their crap around on my dime. I'm going to not only ban from commenting but also block via .htaccess from even so much as viewing this website. You trolls can go back to wanking off to your videos of naked Iraqi prisoners or whatever it is that turns you on.