SADDAM'S CENSORED SADISM
Deborah Orin:
If it hurts the US it is news. If it shows how bad our enemy is, it is not news to the liberal media.
Deborah Orin:
AFTER terrorists beheaded Korean hostage Kim Sun-il, The New York Times kept the photo showing the horror of his final moments off yesterday's front page.
Instead, the Times' front page bizarrely describes Kim as "sitting or kneeling quietly" as he waited to die — in reality the photo, back on Page A-11, shows Kim with his mouth open wide in terror, and the video shows him shaking with fear.
It's just the latest instance of how the press often hesitates to show the true savagery of America's enemies in the War on Terror, whether al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein's thugs, precisely because the images are so awful.
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Last fall, when Fox broke the story of the Saddam torture videos, the Times ran all of five paragraphs back on Page A-14 with a small picture — versus, so far, 181 stories on Abu Ghraib, more than 40 on the front page.
Incidentally, that Santorum-Lieberman screening of the Saddam torture video drew a roomful of reporters but resulted in just a couple of actual news reports. Christian Broadcasting Network aired the video by fuzzing the most gruesome parts.
Actually, says former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who did a tour in Baghdad training Iraqi policemen, that video isn't even the tip of the iceberg. He has 30 or 50 DVDs that show the same kind of Saddam torture and much worse.
"I've had guys from the NYPD, veteran homicide cops, whose stomachs turn when they watch it. What went on at Abu Ghraib under Saddam was 1,000 times worse, but we don't see it. They write a paragraph about it," Kerik says.
He recalls visiting Abu Ghraib about a month after Baghdad fell in 2003, a month after the last tortures and executions — the stench of blood was still so awful, like a slaughterhouse, that even he had trouble walking through it.
"When Ted Kennedy says Abu Ghraib has reopened under 'U.S. management,' the guy hasn't got a clue. It just shows what kind of world of unreality he lives in. His whole agenda is political," Kerik adds.
If it hurts the US it is news. If it shows how bad our enemy is, it is not news to the liberal media.
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