Rumsfeld on 'kill team' photos: 'Much worse' than Abu Ghraib

Unless I'm missing something, it seems obvious why no one's pouncing on this.

It's embarrassing for everyone.

The "we-shouldn't-be-there-in-the-first-place" crowd had no problem screaming about Abu Gharib as an example of how our presence there was doing more harm than good.

But the left isn't going to attack this because it's happening on their guy's watch. And the right isn't going to go nuts because it strays from the "our brave men in uniform are beyond reproach" narrative. Both sides just look at it and go, "Oh, fuck" and just hope it goes away.

A shame, because it really is a story that deserves attention.

 

That's actually probably pretty close to the truth.

 

The war on terror isn't political anymore, which makes it less sexy. It's bullshit, but it's also true.

Detailed accounts of Calvin Gibbs, et. al., made the front page of the New York Times. No one raised a fuss because the right doesn't want to bring up a war effort that kills its reputation and the left doesn't want to demonize Obama. With no one willing to blab about it on CNN, this very important story doesn't get scooped up into the 24-hour cable cycle, doesn't become what everyone is talking about and doesn't beget more newspaper stories because it's not the word on the street.

A shame for sure, no matter your political affiliation.

By the way, I think a story about civilians killed in Afghanistan and war prisoners being tortured in Iraq are not "apples to apples."

 

There are other differences in the two cases besides who is POTUS.

 

Amazing that it took so long for someone to make this common sense observation.

This time neither side has an incentive to politicize the story. If the Right wanted this story to become a firestorm, it could easily make it so. A little Fox firebreathing, a couple Coulter and Krauthammer columns, they could have it there by the end of week. They won't because they don't want the world to know about it either.

It IS an important story that HAS been seriously underreported (I'll confess that I missed it completely until reading that Rolling Stone piece), but it won't blow up unless somebody wants it blown up. So far nobody does. Combine that with the fatigue factor, and a story that should be huge withers away.

 

A good point. "News" isn't news anymore unless there is conflict. If a news story happens and there aren't two sides to argue about it does it even make the air?

 

Not if a tree falls on it.

 

Okay, HuffPost, Rolling Stone and the New York Times have liberal bents. Also, water is wet, fire burns and ice is cold. Why do these threads always turn into this? Remember the political section, and how it was eliminated because of the lack of civility? Well, how long is this section going to last?

This is a HUGE news story and, yes, since there is no real "right vs. left" shitting going on it is going to not get the attention it deserves. Which is a damn shame. Maybe it isn't just SportsJournalists.com where nothing can be reported or commented on without both sides going apeshit on each other, and if there is no fighting the thread/story just kind of withers away. Maybe that's just how the media works these days because the conflict is where the money is.

Anyway, a renegade group of soldiers running around killing civilians...this is something out of a James Patterson novel. It is amazing that his actally happened, and all anyone really seems to care about is Charlie Sheen, The Final Four and LeBron James not being there for introductions in Cleveland.

 

Is he not allowed to go to the restroom?

 

I'm glad there are finally others here who seem to agree about the significance of this story.

My jaw dropped damn near the floor when I read that RS piece last night, couldn't believe I'd not heard of this before, and assumed others reading it would feel the same. But then thought I must've missed something when this thread largely drew just the usual snarky political BS nonsense at first.

I suspect this topic's discussion would've gone quite differently if the thread had been started by someone else and not in a manner calculated to derail it from the start.

 

Posted without comment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/21/AR2006122100124.html

http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?DocumentID=3554&from_page=../index.cfm

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5529884

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/01c77220-016c-11db-af16-0000779e2340.html#axzz1IAfjDbVj

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/15/army-soldier-guilty-iraq-detainees-murder

 

IBTL!