Gruesome Iraq Images Could Shake U.S. Opinion

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=716&e=13&u=/nm/20040401/ts_nm/iraq_images_dc

<snip>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Graphic images of Americans being mutilated in Iraq (news - web sites) could powerfully shake U.S. public support for the occupation and may play into the presidential campaign, pollsters and media analysts said on Thursday.


After initially hesitating, U.S. TV networks began showing the images of cheering Iraqis in Falluja celebrating the murders of four American security contractors whose bodies were burned, mutilated and strung up for public view.

Newspapers carried front-page pictures showing charred bodies surrounded by exulting mobs.

"These pictures speak volumes. It's just what the Bush administration did not want. Americans are seen here as real victims, not just statistics," said pollster John Zogby.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. The American people need to see these images. They supported.....

this war and they MUST now see the results of their support.

I opposed this war from the start and see this whole charade as a horrible tradgedy!!!

[Just Me]

22. Especially since the horrors of war separates the humans from subhumans.

Suddenly, the subhuman extremists who do an automatic "nuke 'em" are spotlighted as the abominable fringes of society that they are,...and the rest of the Americans rediscover their humanity.

My only complaint is that we are still sheltered from the charred bodies of thousands of innocent who were subjected to Bush's war.

[bif]

2. Huh?

"They could play into the presidential campaign."
and:
"It's just what the bush administration did not want."
Which is it? Am I missing something?

[salin]

4. not contradictory

it doesn't state "the president's campaign"... but the presidential campaign and the second statement indicates that the way it could play in is negatively.

[saigon68]

5. No the Savage "Weiner" has them on his web-site.

http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/index.html

The Puke Pricks are attempting to whip up support to nuke the bastards etc.

I think most of this is ALL talk ----as we all already know most of these pukes are "draft avoiders" and their children at the ivy league schools will not sully their hands on this mess it is beneath their dignity when thousands of men of color will join the U. S. armed service to obtain citizenship.

[Just Me]

24. I am a non-violent advocate. BUT even I would like to kick Savage's ass.

He is a brutal bully that only responds to being brutally bullied. He is one of those abominations that I would allow myself to let go of non-violent principles which would not work,...and punch his lights out.

[robertpaulsen]

3. I doubt it.

I think that this type of incident only reinforces your prior position. If you supported the war, your response is, "Look at those barbarian Sadaamites! We've got to keep fighting to put them in their place!" If you were against the war, your response is, "Look at the cycle of violence we've created! We've got to get our troops out of there ASAP!" Or some similar response.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

6. It worked that way with Viet Nam for a short while

then it didn't. The clearer it becomes that Saddam was no imminent threat to us OR his neighbors...the worse these images will register.

[robertpaulsen]

15. I agree with the Vietnam analogy.

But my knowledge of history is that it took several years for the tide of public opinion to turn against the Vietnam War. On the other hand, it took longer then for Americans to start seeing horrific images like the ones we witnessed yesterday. I just hope America wakes up before the election.

[THUNDER HANDS]

8. I think you're forgetting about the vast majority

of Americans who just shrugged their shoulders at this war and said "yeah okay" because they figured it would be another easily-won war like Kosovo or Iraq I.

Now with the images of the dead being mutilated, I'm sure that some of those shoulder shruggers are gonna be shrugging their shoulders again, going "man this sucks, we shouldn't have done this."

I'd expect support for the war to be around 40% by next month.

[robertpaulsen]

13. I hope you're right.

Probably 40% of the people in this country are entrenched in their belief that Bush is infallible and can do no wrong. But I don't expect numbers to get that low until after June 30 when we're supposedly tranfering power to the Iraqis. Then there will be more incidents like yesterday in Falluja and most Americans will say, "What the hell are we STILL doing there?"

By the way, I love that Holy Grail pic!

[cosmicdot]

7. Is this because of the 911 testifying?

I declare, I don't know what to believe, or who to trust anymore.

I just know I don't put anything pass the BFEE to do Jessica Lynch-Saddam statue-tipping type staging ... I don't care if it's :tinfoilhat: time or not


and, the Media is forming advanced public opinion with forward expectations re effects on the campaign

we shouldn't be there in the first place

what are the contract 'terms and conditions', and statements-of-work for outsourced soldiers?

[demdave]

9. Are you implying that the attack was staged by powers in the U.S.?

[Go Eagles]

10. it needs to be seen

I feel bad of their families but Americans need to see these images and understand what most of them supported one year ago. As the news anchors were commenting with revulsion, I remarked to my wife that this is war, we started it without provocation and despite the best predictions, war always unleashes consequences that can't be conceived (most of us here had a pretty good idea that this is what we would be facing). Our media has done a good job at packaging war as an entertaining sterile and antiseptic video game. How many graphic images/stories of innocent Iraqis being murdered/incinerated by thousands were covered by the US media last year? How many coffins or body bags of soldiers do we see?

[callous taoboy]

11. This is

pissing me off. Team bush goes in and screws it all up, now we all get to use it as a political hot-potato. Meanwhile, the slaughter continues, poll numbers rise and fall.

[saigon68]

12. You forgot to add that Halliburton has made Billions of $$$$$$

Or Bechtel or any of other of the BFEE enterprises

[callous taoboy]

14. I'm not

excusing the misadministration by any stretch. I'm just saying that the fact that this situation, which is getting uglier by the minute,
helps jigger poll numbers. Don't you think that the whole thing is rather sick?

[saigon68]

16. I agree its sick alright

And it isn't going to get better soon. Good post you are correct.

[cliss]

17. I'm going to disagree

This is not good for the BeelzeBush Administration. It is not good for Bush's election campaign. It bodes only ill. While Americans have been spared the ghastly images, the rest of the world did not. If the Evil Incarnates might think that they can salvage some bravado from this horrific act, they would be wise to think again.

Just as the Election campaign started up full swing, Bush's Number One platform was that he kept Americans safe and had succeeded in combating terrorism. With the emergence of Clarke and this latest atrocity, we see that neither one was true.

It completely defused his One Asset. They're scrambling, as we speak, to salvage his campaign amidst the bloodshed.

It destroys everything that they have worked ceaselessly to brainwash Americans into thinking: that the war in Iraq was a success.

Not good.

[dArKeR]

18. The worst one I saw is here:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/photo/2004/04/01/2003117893
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2004/04/01/2003116190

And I agree with the CNN reporter. The one who CNN International had an advertisement with. It played at least for 3 months back last year. It was a photographer in, Chechyna, I think. He said he had been taking pictures of war for so long and that the Media Editors/Managing Directors were sanatizing what war and killing really was. He was lost in it too. Then a shell fell on him and wounded him. His leg was bad. Didn't know if he'd die. Then he realized how bad it is to pretend war is like a video game. (As I would swear in court, I believe Bush and the rest of the Republican leadership believe.)

Santatizing the killing, amputees, torture is in fact preventing the truth from being known;what a reporter, in fact, is sworn to do.

[leftchick]

20. you are right...

that one is the worst I have seen also. War sucks, bring our troops Home!

[jobycom]

19. Yeah, great. 100K dead Iraqis don't bother us, but 4 dead Americans do?

Anyone else literally feel queasy?

Worst, is now that we've had the courage to blow up all these unarmed folks and destroy their government, we are going to get cold feet and leave, so that the Iraqis can fight it out Rawanda style. Hussein was a bloody dictator, true, but often that is better than total anarchy.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

23. I doubt that very many Americans have seen the pictures of...

...the dead and wounded Afghan and Iraqi civilians, including children. IMHO, if they had, the outcry against the war would be much stronger today.

[jobycom]

30. No, they saw.

Americans saw the pictures of the dead Iraqi children. Those pictures were some of the most searched and viewed photos on the web during the first phase of our invasion. Americans just turned away, feeling that America is always right, and that those kids were better off because of us, and that we had to "support" our troops, and that those pictures were just disgusting. Thank God and Toby Keith that we were there to kill them rather than let them live under a man we were told to despise.

I heard a Kim Commando episode (a computer advice show on the radio) about Al-Jazeera. Kim had visited their website preparing for her show, and said she was horrified by the pictures of dead children and civilians. She described being in tears as she flipped through the pages, seeing picture after picture. Her point was not that we shouldn't be over there doing that, as you would expect a rational person from a rational nation to conclude. Al-Jazeera had just been hacked, and had an American flag posted on their home page. Kim said that while hacking should be punished and she did not condone this act, that if the hackers were caught we ought to give them a free pass this time, because what they did was understandable.

Americans saw the bodies, just as the Germans knew what was happening in the concentration camps. We just didn't care. (And by "we" you know I don't mean people here.)

[Cronus Protagonist]

21. Here's a link to some of the images

Just be warned - they are graphic.

http://bushspeaks.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=73

[llmart]

25. Am I missing something here?

I thought the war was Over? At least that's what the idiot in the WH told the American public who collectively wet their pants over a statue falling down. Let's face it folks, the American sheeple bought into this lie and made those of us who protested (yes, I was one of them anti-war protesters in Washington DC)feel like we were "unpatriotic". Well, let me be the first to say, "I told you so."

[NewYorkerfromMass]

26. Since 9-11 it's been violence met with more violence

now there's violence for everybody and then some. Who could be disappointed amongst the warrior crowd?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

27. Shielding the people from the consequences of the lie...

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."
Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, Nazi Germany

"What good fortune for those in power that people do not think".
Adolf Hitler

[SOS]

28. Interestingly

Goebbels directive to the newspapers in Germany at the start of WW 2 was that they were forbidden to ever print a photo of a German military or civilian war casualty.

"The truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."

[malachi]

29. "Americans are seen here as real victims, not just statistics,"

said pollster John Zogby. Tremendous statement. Perhaps, the more the great flock sees the actual and total brutality of war they won't be so anxious to support a trumped up tragedy as Iraq.