In regards to the videos and photos of Uday and Qusay Hussein...

[Devils Advocate NZ]

I disagree with those who believe these images should not be shown. In fact I believe they should be compulsory viewing for every man, woman and child in America!

Why?

Because this is the face of war, not some cammo'd up soldiers riding gloriously into battle, but the bloody, shit stained bodies of men women and children blown to pieces by the most devastating weapons YOUR TAX MONEY could buy!

How can you complain about the damage done to children by viewing these images? The damage done is done not by showing them the consequences of war, but by sheilding them from it.

Americans OF ALL AGES need to learn a valuable lesson: that WAR is NEVER an option, not even the final one! Until then, 400 billion dollars a year will keep being siphoned out of your pockets to ensure that more images like this can be shown to people all over the world, often in a most terribly personal way.

Americans (even many liberals) love to brag about how great your armed forces are, well this is the result. Don't bitch when the result is not to your taste.

You should NOT be disgusted that they are showing pictures of dead bodies, you should be disgusted that there are dead bodies to show pictures of!

And for those who will cry that these men were brutal murderers, and thus deserved to die, let me remind you that all you are doing is showing your own brutality, and becoming that which you claim to despise.

[sirshack]

1. Well...

Americans (even many liberals) love to brag about how great your armed forces are, well this is the result.

I don't think that's lost on many people. That's what the military does. Reasonable folk don't look at the military and wonder if all that armor and firepower is used for daisy planting and maypole dancing.....

[Devils Advocate NZ]

7. So are you saying that most Americans, including many liberals

LIKE causing death and destruction? Because that is what glorifying the military is.

Don't take this to mean that I believe the military should be eradicated, I don't. But the glorification of the the military and its prowess at the art of mass destruction and death should be. No war is glorious, no matter what reason it was fought for. Sometimes there is no option such as when attacked, but it should NEVER be a policy tool. No-one should ever choose to go to war, and I believe that many in the military would be the first to agree with me.

That is what makes this attack on Iraq so disgusting. A nation that claims to love peace, shattered it for little more than some easily disproved lies. Americans should be ashamed of what their military has done, not proud.

And if that means that blood soaked corpses are shown on US TV 24 hours a day, seven days a week, then so be it. Maybe Americans will not be so quick to accept the rantings of a madman in the future.

After all, isn't that the reason for institutions such as the Holocaust Museum? So that people never forget?

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. Americans need to get used to images like these

As the regime transitions into its next phase, domestic operations, images of death on TV and in the flesh will become a fact of life. And while the majority of the victims will of course be minorities, there will inevitably be some degree of affluent white collateral damage.

The timing of the operation is also fortuitous, coming at it does at the same time as the 911 report, which while it offers little information on the 911 events, does have the potential to spark debate that could be embarrassing to the Bush regime.

The plan has been remarkably successful. The vast majority of Americans, of all political persuasions, believe that the Uday and Qusay show is for the benefit of Iraqis, conveniently forgetting that the Coalition has liberated most Iraqis from the tyranny of electricity, and discussion of the various images of the two dead Iraqis, whoever they are, has effectively smothered any potentially troubling questions about the 911 events.

[CBGLuthier]

3. You have a point

When I flipped by a news channel last night and I and my 11 year old saw the pictures, I turned to her and said, "Your tax dollars at work"

[whoYaCallinAlib]

4. Hard to disagree.

You make great points.

[zbdent]

5. If anybody sends you that as a Bush-supporting e-mail, send them

the one of the man holding the daughter who had her feet blown off.

[THUNDER HANDS]

6. a bit of hyperbole, no?

Saddam raised Uday and Qusay to be viscious thugs and that's just what they grew up to be. Qusay's 14-year-old son who was killed was probably well on his way to becomming another Hussein monster.

Not that this excuses the killing of them, but I don't think anyone in this country will know the extent to which those two monsers inflicted undue torture and pain on an entire populace.

To equate the 18 and 19 year old kids who are over there (unwillingly, probably) with Hussein's spawn is more than a slight exaggeration.

As far as showing the dead on tv, well, I have no problem with it - the rest of the world is seeing the casualities of this war, and a small part of me hopes that someone, somewhere, who supported this war saw those photos and upchucked his or her lunch.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

10. Where did I equate anyone with Hussein's spawn?

My point is that no-one should ever CHOOSE to go to war, although soemtimes war is thrust upon us. In this case most Americans CHOSE to go to war and thus must accept the consequences of that decision.

I would be willing to bet that the military is one of the largest pacificst organisations any country could have, mainly because THEY not only have to see, hear and smell these images, but because they may become these images.

So every time someone sitting safe at home demands that images such as this NOT be shown to them, they are basically washing their hands of their responsibility to the troops, and the people of the world in general.

War makes men and women killers, and it changes them forever because of it. No-one can sit there safe at home and refuse to shoulder their share of the burden of such acts.

That is why the bloody bodies of American troops should be shown as well. This isn't a computer game and they don't get to respawn and try again, their final message to the world is the bullet and shrapnel riddled body they leave behind, and it says NO TO WAR!

[CWebster]

8. It is the spirit in which it is displayed

this is proud evidence that the posse strung up the evil doers in the public square.

Their strategy is to promote the morality of their botched mission, more likely in an effort to convince Americans of the rightness of their mission, rather than Iraqis. Judging by what I have been reading, the appearance of the bodies has been tampered with, so I can't imagine who they will convince in Iraq. It is mind-boggling what they are willing to stoop to, but even more astounding that they get away with it.

Do you think that showing actual war atrocities--children with their heads blown off, body parts littering the streets, is going to win "hearts and minds"?

[Devils Advocate NZ]

12. No, and that is the entire point!

People SHOULD be disgusted by these images, for they are the result of their actions or inactions that allowed these images to be created in the first place.

The sooner people become disgusted with seeing images such as these, the sooner they may DEMAND that their military not be used as a policy tool. Then peace may actually have a chance to break out, and the warmongers be removed from the seats of power.

Call it mass aversion therapy.

[CWebster]

15. Well, I haven't seen the video

but I know what wavelength they are operating from. It's supposed to appeal to prarie justice by taking down the villians and triumphing in the name of all that is protecting the good - not to appeal to higher moral humanitarian concerns. That is why they sanitize war coverage so you don't see the maimed bodies of innocents - but they see it as acceptible, desirable even to parade the bodies of what they would like you to think as the heart of evil, so they can appear the victors. It is the old good vs evil drama.

[ArkDem]

9. But you said they weren't dead

.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

11. That's right, I did. Which makes my post even more meaningful...

as that begs the question: so who are they?

Are they just same random men picked off the street to be murdered as "proof"? Or are the prisoners of war selected for execution in a bloody propaganda ploy? Does it really matter who they were?

They're still dead at the hands of American troops, and the consequences of that act should be there for all Americans, in fact ALL the worlds people, to see.

[ArkDem]

13. We didn't see it happen. Those troops could have been

infiltrated Iranians used the firefight to kill Dissident students. I think the bodies are Iranian students. I'm not sure how our government is connected.

[Melinda]

14. No. Desensitize us all and all is lost.

We would become like so many of the walking dead we see in the middle east or African nations. They have experienced so many atrocities, so much death and destruction that its become almost acceptable to them to walk past dead bodies in the streets or to watch as bullets fly - for many it's their reality, it has become part of their existence.

Desensitize us all; share the graphics of death and destruction with our children?

I don't think so. I don't want to get use to it. I want to rise up against it, and I want to protect my children from it.

The resultant damage to all our children and their emotional well-being would have long lasting negative implications. My lord, look at how violence in the movies, video's, music etc has permeated and impacted our culture - remember Columbine?

Buried deep within his grave, Thomas Hobbs must be rolling in self congratulation.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

18. What point is being sensitised to images of death and destruction...

if you NEVER SEE THEM? Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying goes.

If you want these images to stop, stop the war. It's very simple.

By the way, anyone who believes that violence in the movies creates violence in reality should wonder why some of the most violent places on Earth don't show movies!

The violence that is in movies is a reflection of violence in culture, not the other way around. I have watched violent movies all my life, I have seen all the violent TV programmes, I was even in NZ's military, and yet I am not a violent person. How come it didn't happen to me?

What you are saying is akin to saying children should not be taught about sex so that they are not damaged emotionally. This is plain wrong. The lack of teaching about sex causes far more damage when they are eventually exposed to it. Violence exists, and by pretending it doesn't, we do no more than prevent our children from learning that it is wrong, and we inadequately equip them with the knowledge they need when they are confronted by it.

[Robbien]

16. These pictures of Bush's trophies

may be part of the reason the market is struggling to stay black today. Mangled bodies have a bad effect on one's psyche.

[Clete]

17. Our government, whom the majority of Americans don't

associate themselves with, is as brutal and nasty a regime as any previous ones in history. They haven't had time yet to rise to the full extent of the brutality that they are capable of. This is only the beginning. If the loyal, but brain-dead American people, who support these scumbags, don't wake up and see that it is not unpatriotic to defy them, we are headed in in the direction of the cliff, which they are attempting to push us over and into the abyss.

More than that, all the nations of the world, who are standing back and watching, or trying to accommodate our government really need to put the brakes on these people until we, the American people get a chance to either impeach or vote them out of our government. In WWII, all the Western European nations, stood by and some even helped Hitler raid and conquer the Eastern European nations of Austria, Czhechoslavakia, and Poland. When Hitler turned around and headed west in his conquests, they woke up, but it was too late to prevent the horrors that followed.