Honestly, I'm not surprised by this abuse in the least. If anything, I'm surprised that it wasn't exposed much earlier in our world of instant media coverage. Granted, there are lots of Americans whose perspective is very naive about what really goes on in the rest of the world, apart from their cozy homes; but believe me, I'm not one of them. In fact, I think most Americans aren't necessarily surprised by all of this, but more disgusted because, yet again, we're looking like jerks in front of the entire world.

As for not judging the American soldiers who have committed these crimes of abuse, I have to disagree. America claims to be so civilized and evolved, so we should be expected to act that way in times of peace and time of war. Is it human nature to act differently in time of war? Of course! But, but there comes a point where we HAVE to take responsibility for our actions.

That being said, Lulue, even though I don't agree 100%, I think the points you brought up pretty valid!

*edited for spelling

I say this from a very personal experience. I lived in Paris when I was a kid, during a period of frequent terrorist attacks. There were several bomb alerts every week in metro stations, colleges, stores... and many of those ended up being true.

Every single department store had metal detectors at their entrances, public garbage cans had been sealed off so no bombs could be left, you couldn't leave an unattended bag in the metro for five second before somebody would ring the alarm, etc... It was a bit drastic, but at least people could go on with their lifes feeling safer.

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Originally posted by Merimoo:
I really don't want to be in Boston during the DNC in July, but my boyfriend has to work. It's good and all that they're shutting down the highways for safety, but the major detour will be right in front of my bf's apartment. The whole thing just scares me.

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Originally posted by kena:
What strikes me as odd, at best, is that there seems to be a lot of warnings and fear propaganda, but very little concrete actions done to actually prevent terrorist acts.

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Originally posted by kena:
Why would terrorists attack the DNC? It doesn't seem to make sense; if I were a terrorist, I'd attack the Republicans, not the Democrats, no? Especially since more terrorist attacks on American land would probably fuel Bush's campaign, which isn't in the terrorists best interest.

On another related theme, is it just me or the closest we get to Election Day, the more frequent the reports of terrorist threats.

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Yeah, this confuses me as well - if you're a Bush-hating terrorist, why are you gonna mess with the election and possibly ruin the chances of getting him out of office? You saw how he got in last time, PLEASE, we'd like this one to go off with no complications!!!

*Edited to acknowledge that terrorists are probably not the most rational thinkers.

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Originally posted by kena:
On another related theme, is it just me or the closest we get to Election Day, the more frequent the reports of terrorist threats. Part of me is convinced it's pure propaganda (Michael Moore's style: make people afraid and they will stop asking questions). But after what happened in Spain right before the elections, so I'm not willing to brush it off totally.

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I feel sort of embarassed about saying that now.

September 11th affected me very deeply, and I was in constant fear or another attack for quite a long time after that. And then of course the government kept raising the terror alerts, talking about "unspecific" chatter, urging us to go out and buy duct tape and plastic sheeting. And I wanted to do that! I wanted to get duct tape, and while I didn't agree with his politics, and didn't like him as a person, I was okay with Bush going to war if that is what was necessary.

But now I feel like I was completely duped into supporting a needless war. Now every time the terror alert is raised, I can't help but wonder what they're trying to distract us from. And the fact that they're mentioning terrorist attacks before the election makes me wonder if the Bush administration is trying to scare people into staying home on election day.

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Originally posted by kmarie:
I always think of propaganda as coming from the government.
http://www.propagandacritic.com/
Kena - maybe I misunderstood your post (?), but "(making) people afraid (so) they will stop asking questions" is exactly the message that Moore was promoting in his movie

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Ok, I didn't express myself clearly. I should have said "the type of propaganda Moore denounces".

And by propaganda, I think we can also include biaised messages sent by other influent groups like lobbies and media. If someone in power uses his supposedly objective platform for his own agenda, and thus influences the way people are going to vote, that's propaganda in my book.

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Originally posted by SLourdes:
I am both glad and slightly uncomfortable that this thread was bumped. Back in 2002, as America was planning to go to war with Iraq, I posted with my feelings. I didn't want to go to war, but as I posted, "I feel we have no choice" and thought that if we were going to be attacked again, by terrorists, Iraq, Al-Queda, whomever, we needed to stop it.

I feel sort of embarassed about saying that now.

September 11th affected me very deeply, and I was in constant fear or another attack for quite a long time after that. And then of course the government kept raising the terror alerts, talking about "unspecific" chatter, urging us to go out and buy duct tape and plastic sheeting. And I wanted to do that! I wanted to get duct tape, and while I didn't agree with his politics, and didn't like him as a person, I was okay with Bush going to war if that is what was necessary.

But now I feel like I was completely duped into supporting a needless war. Now every time the terror alert is raised, I can't help but wonder what they're trying to distract us from. And the fact that they're mentioning terrorist attacks before the election makes me wonder if the Bush administration is trying to scare people into staying home on election day.

All I know is, I certainly won't be staying home. I've never been so pumped about an election in my life!

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Originally posted by maxpower:

I am just so upset over right wing talk radio's response to these pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib. To say they are no worse than fraternity hazing (I have heard this first hand and attributted to Rush second hand) is insulting disgusting,and completely off the mark.

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Originally posted by Sophie:
you are fucking kidding me. This is how it's being reported in the US?

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I was midly suspicious through out the article, but when I read at the end that the 14 guys in question were in a band, it all made sense.

They were friends, they congregated together in the aisle since they weren't seated together, and they brought their valuables with them to the bathroom (When I'm on an airplane, I too bring my laptop and camera with me to the bathroom). Ok, they might have used the bathroom a lot, but having stomach flu doesn't make someone a terrorist.

I think the flight attendants did their job in recording the unusual behavior and being on their guard. It's their job to do so. But anything more than that, provided that the men in question did respect the plane's rules, would have been abuse in my book.

Either you make some rules that apply to everyone, or you don't. Discriminating according to skin color is not only bad, it's also stupid because the next terrorist can very well be a beautiful bombshell blonde (The Arab world doesn't have the monopoly of terrorism after all...)

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Originally posted by BionicGirl:
I don't think you should feel embarrased. A lot of people are right there along with you. If you don't mind, what things lead you to change your mind? You don't have to answer if you're uncomfortable. I'm just curious because I think it might help me see events from a viewpoint other than my own.

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Not a problem, BG. I can answer. I was a little embarassed when I first went back and read this thread, but I'm feeling okay about it now.

I don't think it's any one thing that lead me to change my mind, but just a slow realization that something wasn't right.

At first I supported the war because I believed our government that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Or that there was something that they knew that they couldn't tell us. I never would have thought we'd enter a war without a good reason.

Even though I have always self-identified as a Democrat, or a liberal, I was pretty moderate, and supportive of the adminstration right after September 11th. I trusted them to do what was right, and trusted that they'd protect the American people from further threats.

Now we've spent months talking about how there were no weapons in Iraq, and the link between Saddam Hussein and Al Queda was weak, at best. I began to feel incredibly duped. At the same time, the terror alerts kept going up, then down, then up, etc., and I started to feel less scared and more annoyed and feeling like they were just messing with us- trying to scare us.

One moment when I felt literally sick about the administration was when Bush was joking around about the WMD. Where he was narrating a slideshow, which showed pictures of him peeking under his desk in the Oval Office, and he jokes, "Nope, no weapons under here." Around the time that that was in the news (albeit very briefly), a kid from my state was killed in Iraq. And I thought that the fact that our president could joke around like that about a very serious issue while kids were DYING for this war was absolutely disgusting and nauseating.

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Originally posted by SLourdes:
One moment when I felt literally sick about the administration was when Bush was joking around about the WMD. Where he was narrating a slideshow, which showed pictures of him peeking under his desk in the Oval Office, and he jokes, "Nope, no weapons under here." Around the time that that was in the news (albeit very briefly), a kid from my state was killed in Iraq. And I thought that the fact that our president could joke around like that about a very serious issue while kids were DYING for this war was absolutely disgusting and nauseating.

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Originally posted by shamrock1018:
Thousands of INNOCENT people, including children, have been killed in the war.

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Originally posted by Merimoo:
I don't know if this is the best place for this...

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