Okay, I have a question. In light of the video and other information on this sight, why is it that the American public doesn't see this stuff? Especially the information concerning the Russian massacre? That is what it was after all. I watch the news before work every morning and I am inundated with useless crap. I am not in the least interested in celebrity "news".

Anyone. Why?

I suppose it's too mature to point out that airing these kinds of things will only produce more of them?

We in the west learned a few things in two world wars, and one of those things is that it is desirable to have certain minimum standards for conduct, even in war. The USA has been the most ardent supporter of the Geneva Convention for a good reason. We, more than any other country, have had citizen armies, and the Geneva Convention protects primarily the lower ranks in war, as the generals are usually well out of the line of fire in rear areas. The fact that Bush chose to ignore the GC is the thing, more than any other, that tells me he is an elitist pig and doesn't care if the average guy gets brutalized for decades to come, his little campaign against terrorism is more important to him than a minimum standard of treatment for combatants.

I find such videos have no news value at all. They add nothing to the process of reasoning one's way to good solutions to problems. They are the "Springerization" of news and do nothing but degrade the media. The GC protects combatants from most of the mindless gore on Al-Jazeera because the rest of the world learned a few things after killing off 90 million people in two world wars. The Arab world is living in the 8th century and will learn all of the brutal lessons of mass war the hard way. I’m afraid one of those lessons will be what massive destruction it like. The first time a terrorist group succeeds in carrying out a nuclear attack on the west, as a proxy for a state like Iran, 50 million Arabs will die, and after the fallout settles the Arab world, and the larger world along with it will change. It’s a frustratingly wasteful exercise in cultural learning that millions of people will die to teach these clueless fucks the lessons there for the taking in a million history books. There are many intellectuals in the Arab world that curse Bin Laden because they too know that the polarization he has brought about will be a disaster for Muslims and Arabs both.

Islam declared this war, and now is in a cultural fight to the finish that its social order is incapable of winning. In total war the victor is the society that can out-produce and out-motivate the other. They can't organize anything bigger than an extended family, haven't been able to in 12 centuries, and offer only repression and narrow-minded dogma as a motivator. We offer enlightened hedonism in its many and varied flavors and the tolerance to enjoy diversity. The Arab experience in Spain is a good look at the problem in a microcosm. Despite tremendous wealth they fought endless petty wars and ultimately were driven out of Spain by a relatively backward society in 1492. Spain celebrated their liberation by funding the expedition that discovered the new world – at least in a way that led to its eventual inclusion in the civilized world.

If you think this is all a bunch of reactionary bull you might ask the youth of say Iran how they like living under the boot-heel of religious zealots. The truth is there really are millions of people around the globe who's best chance for a good future lies in the US or UN coming over there and taking down the dictator de'jour. The Taliban used to take women to the soccer stadium in Kabul and kill them for "sins" like showing their faces. No one on this tribe or any other has ever lived with that kind of repression, or if they have they don't need me to tell them any of this. The savaged and brutalized peoples of the world continue to vote with their feet and come here as fast as they can get in.

I know this tribe would rather find simple-minded solutions like corporate greed or advertising dollars, but then this isn't really a forum for serious policy discussions is it? I am really just wasting my time and energy here trying to have one aren’t I? My bad. I keep hoping at the margins there are minds in search of truth, not just sensational titillation.

For all the things wrong with this country, gorging yourself on gore adds nothing to the solution to any problem and has at least the potential to add to the problem itself. It also promotes violations of the GC massively out of proportion to anything that went on in Abu Ghraib, and you are, at least in part, responsible if you show interest in this sort of thing.

A vote for Kerry would be a good start on being counted in the ranks of those committed to a better world. Watching hating minds torture and victimize the innocent doesn't help at all.

Amador