NBC: Handling of Sons “Quite Offensive to Islamic Sensibilities”

MRC ^ | Monday July 28, 2003 | BrentBaker

[fight_truth_decay]

NBC’s Richard Engel offered a more sweeping scolding than did other reporters of the U.S. for laying out for video cameras the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein. He called the decision “controversial” and insisted “all of this has been quite offensive to Islamic sensibilities here. Muslims are generally buried in a simple white shroud without any embalming process at all.”

On Friday’s NBC Nightly News, Tom Brokaw asked Engel in Baghdad: “Richard, as you well know, there’s fresh video tonight as well of the bodies of Saddam’s two sons after they were cleaned up by Army morticians. We want to warn everybody, the images are still very graphic, but are those new images any more persuasive to the Iraqi people?”

Richard suggested the U.S. messed up again: “They are not really more persuasive. But they certainly are more controversial. These bodies were quite radically altered. First, the men were shaved, then putty was used to remodel their faces, make-up was also applied to make them look more life-like. The Americans, however, say these are certainly the men and even displayed a metal plate that bears the identical serial number to a plate that was inserted in Uday’s leg after an assassination attempt in the 1990s. All of this has been quite offensive to Islamic sensibilities here. Muslims are generally buried in a simple white shroud without any embalming process at all, Tom.”

[fight_truth_decay]

We wouldn't be seeing the pictures of Uday and Qusay Hussein if some of the Iraqi whose families were raped, tortured or murdered had gotten hold of them.

[areafiftyone]

We wouldn't have needed to show pictures and videos if the Iraqis and other Arabs would stop living in denial!

[areafiftyone]

We wouldn't have needed to show pictures and videos if the Iraqis and other Arabs would stop living in denial!

[white trash redneck]

all of this has been quite offensive to Islamic sensibilities here

Cry me a river.

[Pest]

Are they even Muslim?

[areafiftyone]

We wouldn't have needed to show pictures and videos if the Iraqis and other Arabs would stop living in denial!

[DittoJed2]

I wasn't aware that they were embalmed.

[miloklancy]

It's all fine and good for Islamic extremists to video tape the decapitation of Daniel Pearl and for the former Iraqi regime to show our dead soldiers, but when the tables are turned, they don't like it.

[Frank_Discussion]

Worth saying twice! ;-)

[Frank_Discussion]

T H R I C E!

[cjshapi]

In that heat they would have to be. The decomposition would have occurred very quickly.

[JDGreen123]

I saw a special on Saddam on Discovery last night. They had film of the day in 1963 that the Baath Party took over in Iraq. What did they show? The bodies of the old rulers for all Iraqis to see that they were dead. I suspect that this is really the standard in Iraqi history and that Brokaw and company protest too much.

[So Cal Rocket]

Apparently the murder, rape, and torture inflicted upon others by these two monsters weren't offensive to islamic sensibilities.

[veronica]

Oh please. Who gives a damn about the "sensibilities" of 2 psycho mass murderers.

[#3Fan]

We need to start burying terrorists with pork sewn into their corpses and show those pictures. The number of terrorists deterred by this practice would translate to a number of innocent lives saved.

[gridlock]

I doubt there are five people in Iraq who saw those bodies and thought "Oh, my sensibilities are offended". It was either, "'Bout time!" or "Time to get outta Dodge!", depending on where they fall in relation to the Hussein regime.

[Marysecretary]

I don't think so.

[caisson71]

I think the murder of 3000+ people on 9/11 was most offensive of all. I don't believe radical Muslims are offended by anything except seeing another Muslim murderer at room temperature.

[theDentist]

"Islamic Sensibilities" glorifies the murders of innocents, and the more the better.

Who gives a SH## what they think?!

[Steely Glint]

NBC is quite offensive to MY sensibilities.