For Arab press, Hussein photos reinforce view of US

[ElsewheresDaughter]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0523/p07s02-woiq.html

CAIRO – It was a damaging week for American public relations in the Arab world.
What started with deadly riots over allegations that US interrogators flushed the Koran ended with leaked photos of Saddam Hussein in his underwear.

To The New York Post, which first published the pictures on Friday along with its sister publication The Sun of Britain, the photographs were a chance to emphasis Mr. Hussein's crimes and indulge in public humiliation of the former strongman. The Sun and The Post say a US military source gave them the pictures.

But for the most of the Arab press the pictures are being treated as a small piece in an overall pattern of alleged American violations of prisoners' rights. And as confirmation, to many, of US contempt for Arabs and Islam.

Al-Hayat, one of two major pan-Arab dailies, followed the story on the front page Saturday, with the headline "Pictures of Saddam in His Cell Violate the Geneva Conventions." The paper, like many in the region, didn't show the photos of Hussein.

Al Jazeera, the dominant regional satellite news channel, which is frequently attacked by US politicians for alleged bias, has reported briefly on the pictures, but didn't show them. "The picture in itself isn't newsworthy, and we felt that it was denigrating in general,'' says Jihad Ballout, Al Jazeera's spokesman in Qatar.

<snip>
President Bush doubted that the pictures would have much impact on Iraq's insurgency. "I don't think a photo inspires murderers. I think they're inspired by an ideology that's so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the Western world to comprehend how they think."

...presidential spokesman Trent Duffy said are a "clear violation of directives and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines...
<snip>

"Saddam ... deserves what he gets, but the pictures show that if a person is behind US-controlled bars then anything can happen to him. It's clear now that America isn't very different from the Arab states in this,'' he says. "The Abu Ghraib trials were only at the level of the soldiers, not raised to the levels of the generals that permitted this to happen."



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[DoYouEverWonder]

1. So the biggest murderer on the planet

is saying that the people in the Middle East are barbaric and backwards? Way to go asshole.

[LynnTheDem]

2. Gee how could anyone have predicted such a thing???

I wonder how Americans would have reacted if Timothy McVeigh had been sitting in an Iraqi jail, and if mocking photos of him in that jail cell were blasted around the world?

As one myself, I'd have been bloody pissed off that a foreign nation was violating the GCs and taking photos just for mockery around the entire world, no matter what low-level murdering bastard that American was.

[LynnTheDem]

3. HELLO CS MONITOR! STOP LYING!!!

"What started with deadly riots over allegations that US interrogators flushed the Koran"

Does CS Monitor KNOW BETTER than the US Commander in charge of Afghanistan???

Because Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard B. Myers says the US Commander General Eikenberry, who is in charge of Afghanistan, said violence in Afghanistan was "not at all tied to the article in the magazine,"

http://www.dod.gov/transcripts/2005/tr20050512-secdef2761.html

So either CS Monitor knows BETTER than the Commanders in charge...or they're LYING...or they're INCOMPETENT.

[Career Prole]

4. "The paper, like many in the region, didn't show the photos of Hussein."

That decision didn't take much thought for them.

Here, of course, every time the talking heads discussed the story and whether or not it was a Geneva violation they'd show the pictures again. And again. And again. Makes a lot of sense. :sarcasm:

[izzie]

5. I think thi s is so wrong. DOD has really made a mess of things.

And they wonder why they can not get people to sign up?