Sunzoo,
You don't appear to be stupid, or angry. Now you are the lying liar!
Pete
On Friday, May 28, 2004, at 09:48 AM, sunzoo wrote:
PS, I didn't call Berg's captor's "noble". You really ought to read
more closely.
We don't know for sure that Berg was alive when the decapitation took
place. There is credible speculation that Berg was killed in a more
conventional manner, then beheaded for the camera.
I guess I've lost the thread of what we're supposed to be arguing
about. We agree that the Berg murder was violent, reprehensible and
wrong, and that the occupation itself was wrong to begin with. You
seem to want to tar me with the "pro-terrorist" brush but I reject
that. I'm just pointing out that one man's terrorist is another man's
freedom fighter. I don't think Berg's killing was justified on any
grounds. I can understand it, however, in a larger context and
recognize that the normal rules of "humanity" are out the window in
this situation.
I can confidently say that, if a foreign army bombed my house and
killed my children tonight, I'd be putting on a hood tomorrow morning
and terrorizing the occupying army any way I could. That includes
actions that would otherwise considered murder, I suppose -- I could
not see myself feeling much sympathy at that point for foreign
contractors wandering around trying to fix my phone, etc. I'd see my
actions as justifed by the larger crime commited by the occupying
force.
But that's just me, I guess.
On Fri, 28 May 2004 04:25:54 +0000, KAREN ALLEN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Despite your claim that ** I'm not defending the actions of Berg's
captors
in any way...**, your choice of words and comparisons reveal the
opposite.
I have never disputed the fact that war is horrific, however, as I
said,
some things go beyond all sense of humanity.
how does anyone justify the deliberate, conscious decision to cut
someone's head off?
I don't know, you tell me. Does simply taking a picture of the
dead body
make a difference in >this argument?
Actually the body wasn't dead when they began filming. But somehow,
they
seemed to know how it was going to turn out.
One photograph of a mutilated body was taken for the purposes of
documenting the evils of war >and the events that took place at
American
hands. The other photograph was taken, in my opinion, >to shock the
occupying army (and it's civilians at home) into stopping their
aggression.
Which purpose is more noble? Can a comparison be made?
Absolutely. No one ever accused the photographers present at the
liberation
of the Nazi concentration camps of causing the atrocities they
documented.
No one ever accused Abraham Zapruder of causing President Kennedy's
assassination just so he could take a motion picture of it.
Similarly, no
one is accusing the photographers of Iraqi war dead in the example
you
cited as causing the deaths being documented. The same cannot be
said of
your **noble** individuals who photographed themselves in the act of
butchering Mr. Berg.
What those individuals did was evil. The fact that I believe that
what
George Bush is doing in Iraq is wrong will never make me believe that
what
those men did was right.
Karen Allen
----
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the
list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see
<http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
----
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the
list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see
<http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
