Teh stoopid, it hurts...

You know, some days I feel like Robert Stadler - stupidity just has a way of sending me over the edge.

Take, for example, a recent news story:
Evidently while Saddam Hussein was in the US's custody, pictures were taken of him. Including pictures of him in his tighty-whities. Which has now been published on the front page of the Sun in Britain. Bad guy or not, many people are saying this was inappropriate, demeaning, and possibly against the Geneva Convention. And the quote from our president is this:

Speaking to reporters himself, Bush did not condemn the photographs and said he doubted they would stoke the anger of Iraqi insurgents.

"I don't think a photo inspires murders," Bush said.


What? He doesn't think a photo inspires.. holy god, I know he wasn't at the top of his class in his Ivy League school, but he did supposedly get passing grades - I think I'm going to send him a letter.



To President George W. Bush:

I recently read your response to journalists regarding the photographs of Saddam Hussein that have been published, and would like to ask you a question. You were quoted as saying "I don't think a photo inspires murders", is that correct? I am a 29 year old stay-at-home mother who has a two year college degree from my local community college. In less than five minutes I pulled up the following stories online:

Photo on a phone leads to shooting
A 27 year old man has reportedly shot his older sister in a so called "honour killing" after he saw a picture of her on a friends mobile phone screen. The shooting occurred in Jordan's second city, Irbid last week. The brother turned himself into the police shortly after the shooting.
"The man told police he shot and killed his sister to cleanse his family's honour because he saw her photo on his friend's mobile," the source told The Jordan Times.
The suspect told interrogators he was sitting with his friends on Sunday evening and started playing with one of their mobiles when he saw his sibling's photo, the source said.
The suspect left immediately and headed home. He reproached his sister about the photo and her alleged "immoral behaviour," according to the source.
This is the 5th person killed in an honour crime in Jordan this year.
(from http://www.cellular-news.com/story/12678.shtml)

A good lesson from history: Remember the Maine! Now, in this case, the pictures on the front of the newspapers were drawings, not photos, and they had a lot of bombastic words to go along with them - but pictures helped turn an unfortunate accident into a causis belli.

From their own administration: General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sought to delay release of the photos of the abuse at Abu Ghraib. "What I asked CBS News to do was to delay the release of the pictures given the current situation in Iraq . . . because I thought it would bring direct harm to our troops. It would kill our troops."...


If a photo doesn't inspire murder, then the whole rationale behind wartime propaganda kinda falls apart, don't you think? Take World War II - I mean, if you're not putting up a picture of a Nazi murdering defenseless gypsy children in order to inspire your troops to fight harder in the war (of which a large part involves killing Nazis), what ARE you putting up the picture for?



Okay. I have real work to do. I can't do George Bush's job (as much as I sometimes feel like attempting to take over) so the least I can do is do my job well.