Posted on 01/14/2007 12:06:38 PM PST by RedRover
Gruesome photographs of dead Iraqis, allegedly killed by US Marines in Haditha, will soon be made public. That is, if the leaks keep coming and the anti-war crowd has its way.
The photos were given to the Washington Post by the enemy within. An unnamed "defense official". He or she gave the Post the entire Naval Criminal Investigation Service report into the incident at Haditha.
On January 7, the Post published, Marines' Photos Provide Graphis Evidence in Haditha Probe. "Among the images," according to the article, "there is a young boy with a picture of a helicopter on his pajamas, slumped over, his face and head covered in blood. There is a mother lying on a bed, arms splayed, the bodies of three young children huddled against her right side. There are men with gaping head wounds, and a woman and a child hunkered down on their knees, their hands frozen around their faces as if permanently bracing for an attack....Post editors decided that most of the images are too graphic to publish."
An equally good reason not to publish the photographs is that they may not be legitimate evidence. They may have been posed by the pathological liars who are our enemy in Iraq. A terrorist who would behead an infidel would have no qualms about shooting a corpse in the head.
No matter. The anti-war crowd is salivating over photographs that could turn the stomach of Americans, and turn more people against the war.
The leader in this effort is the blog, All Spin Zone (the kind of blog where the Bush Administration is called "the regime"). In an entry from January 8 entitled, When the Media Gags Itself, Richard Blair leaps to the conclusion that the photos are evidence of a My Lai-style massacre and wants them published now. He gave the e-mail and phone number of the Washington Post ombudsman, Deborah Howell, so that the Moonbats could shriek their demands at her.
The Washington Post responded today in a piece by the ombudsman, Covering Death, Here and in Iraq. Ms. Howell writes:
Scores of readers wrote -- probably driven by a blogger -- to ask that The Post run more photos from Haditha, the city where several Marines are accused of having killed civilians, many of them women and children. Military reporter Josh White obtained Naval Criminal Investigative Service reports, as yet unreleased, so The Post alone has the photos.
Tim Collier of Gardiner, Maine, wrote: "A newspaper is more than just a vehicle for entertainment and commerce. Its highest purpose is news: to inform on important issues of the day. There are iconic photos from previous wars, such as the shot of the Vietnamese police commander executing the captured VC guerrilla in Saigon during the Tet offensive, that are widely recognized as making a major contribution to public discourse simply by virtue of their publication."
Two other pictures were mentioned frequently -- one of a little girl running from napalm and the picture of the dead after the My Lai massacre. The Post ran versions of all on Page 1.
Five Haditha photos were published, the most newsworthy a Jan. 6 Page 1 photo of dead bodies near a taxi, showing that the victims did not appear to have been fleeing, as some claimed.
Photos of the bodies of accident or crime victims are not run -- unless "there is a clear journalistic purpose" -- out of concern for the "dignity of the deceased," Downie said. The rest of the photos did not meet that criteria, he said. I viewed those photos and agree with him. They were not iconic photos. They were just gruesome and sad.
The photographs will be introduced as evidence at the courts martial of the Haditha Marines. In the meantime, the leaker still has copies. How long will it take for them to be displayed at an anti-war rally near you?
"Laughter threw tears" is teh BeSt!
Where'd the guys go? Too much estrogen...
Red,
I KNEW I could count on you. BTW I've seen that at Trader Joe's.
Don't even THINK about stealing that tagline!
Yes, freema, I read about Zacs Mom and LadyX also. I never had the privilege of posting to either but I could tell by reading the threads they were adored by all who knew them. May God Bless both of them and their families.
I did post to Tonk a few times and was on his ping list, what a dedicated man. We here at FR miss him badly. Tonk will join Karl and Jason, what a trio.
G'Night, freema.
G'night, jaz! G'night, ma!
G'Night, Red.
My fortune cookie tonight:
"YOU WILL HAVE MANY FRIENDS WHEN YOU NEED THEM"
P.S. I am NOT kidding!!!!
I really am not!
God wink!
Night Night.
That is a great fortune, Flyer. G'Night.
Well, too bad you're stuck with us! Night, flyer. See you tomorrow.
Nighty night.
The people who leak these photos deserve a slow, agonizing death. Leaks like this inflame the Arab world and result in nothing but more deaths.
Some posters on our threads have said that the leaker here is probably like Deep Throat in the Watergate caper. That just doesn't feel right to me. Hard to say if there's one leaker or a gaggle of them, but the variety of sources is very different from Watergate. Wish I knew the answer.
Why would we want to eat whatever that was? Maybe you would like some Poi. I will have to look at it again.
It's morning somewhere, but good night.
I hope that fortune cookie holds for the Marines.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1767713/posts
Do I "really" want to look at this?
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