Why has CNN chosen to release "Iraq Torture Tapes" now?

[Flubadubya]

CNN is showing snippets from some tapes that were found and confiscated by American troops on April 22 upon the invasion. Little Soledad O'Brien solemnly introduced the showing of clips from the tapes warning of their graphic nature. Indeed there are some pretty horrible scenes there... i.e. people being thrown from buildings, run ups to tongue excisions and beheadings, whippings, floggings with sticks, and the like.

After showing this she stated something to the effect that CNN felt it was important to show these tapes now. Wonder why it is so important now, and not when they first found them? WMD's anyone???

Does anyone else get tired of seeing the national media groveling at the feet of this administration? I just can't stand this much longer. :mad: :grr: :puke:

[eleny]

1. I was terribly upset by this last night...

So I posted. Many others felt the same. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=621332

It really is awful.

[lindashaw]

2. Yet they won't show coffins of our boys coming back. Yes, I'm

so tired I can't watch it anymore. I get all my news off the Internet. And that's the purpose, isn't it? To demoralize us and wear us down until we can't object anymore?

[Pallas180]

3. Is there any proof those are "torture tapes" & not usual justice meted

out to criminals in Middle Eastern countries?

They could be criminals in those pictures rather than
political"torture" victims. Their justice is somewhere in the 7th
century.

How is it that the Bush administration and CNN are conveniently
forgetting that Bush family best friends, the Saud family, also
mete out the same justice in Saudi Arabia? Beheadings, hands and
arms cut off, tongues and so on for criminal activity?

Shall we ask CNN if they are going to show tapes of Saudi justice?
or is that not the right propaganda?

[qwertyMike]

5. Here's some Saudi torture

http://www.amnesty.ca/SaudiArabia/

[qwertyMike]

4. They show them now

Because the WH has to jack up the 'fear' level again.
Especially after Bush's demeneted press conference/meltdown.

Anyone got those GitMo tapes?

[CWebster]

6. to reinforce the moral goodness

of Bush's crusade by defining the evil villan.

Any footage of what's going on down in Gitmo?

PR Sensationalism to stir up emotional reaction, same game as fear-mongering.

[jbfam4]

9. Bush claimed the media was filtering the news

So who is filtering the news , now?

[CWebster]

19. Heh heh

That damned truth is the filter he objects to. ;-)

[leetrisck]

7. Because Rummy told them they could

show them now - CNN, FAUX both - don't know if others have shown them.

[Tim4319]

8. Sad state of affairs!

It is just to try and get some more backing for this administrations cause. Since the first two reasons for this war have turned up nothing (link to Al-Queada and Weapons of Mass Destruction). That turn the real cause for this war To Iraqi Freedom! They fiqure something has to work!

Tim

[jbfam4]

12. welcome , Tim

Agree....the other cases for war didn't work.......now it's a case of the ends justifies the means.

[terrisel]

10. Today's Washington Post editorial may explain-

Washington Post editorial today says that Bush should share with the Kean Commission, the daily security briefings he had been given from just before 9/11. The last sentence in this paragraph seems, to me, to indicate that the information in those briefings is already in the hands of the press and will be released even if Bush doesn't release it:

Congress passed -- and President Bush signed -- a law creating the bipartisan National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States in order to produce an authoritative study of Sept. 11, 2001, and to make recommendations as to how to shield America better in the future. The question of what intelligence the president and his top aides were being given in the run-up to the attacks is obviously central to accomplishing the task with which the commission was charged. If Mr. Bush did not mean to share the country's most sensitive secrets with the commissioners, he should not have signed the bill in the first place. Since he did so, it makes no sense for him now to refuse it access to material its members regard as critical. It isn't reasonable to expect commissioners to put their names on a report they know to be based on incomplete information, only to look like fools when that information comes out and contradicts their conclusions.

I think the the media, on its own or at the request of the Bush White House, is trying to remind us why the Iraq war was a good thing --even though their secret daily briefings told Bush that Bin Laden and not Iraq was going to attack us.

[leesa]

11. Isn't it obvious?

I would like to see CNN air some of the torture tapes from Gitmo. I'm sure they exist since I can imagine the sadists within the military who are participating wouldn't want some momento of their peak career experience.

[gardenista]

13. It's a dry run for Fall 2004

Autumn in America...

As the leaves color and fall on another season, we are reminded of the sadness of the 9/11 attacks, the sinister doings of Saddam Hussein, and as the light fades from out days, we increasingly seek the glow CNN in our "living" rooms.

It's the perfect time to introduce a new product, and that's what they've done. But this is just the dry run for what they plan to deliver in 2004.

[Tempest]

14. Where are the U.S. torture tapes?

Where are the tapes of the two prisoners who died in Guatmo Bay after being tortured?

[SlavesandBulldozers]

15. Wolf Blitzer

said yesterday that CNN would release more of the material on the tapes "as it becomes appropriate". My jaw dropped. SO whenever we're feeling down in the dumps about an ambulance blowing up a Red Cross building we can expect to see more excerpts of this tape to counter-balance it?

[boblynn]

17. Pez Dispenser of propaganda

I think that the Bush crowd has many tapes and stories in their bag to be released to justify the war after the fact.

[Flubadubya]

20. What an absolutely perfect description...

Wolf Blitzer - the Pez dispenser of propaganda.

His schmoozing and shilling for the Bushies knows no bounds, and it has really gotten more blatant recently. Just God awful! He should be presented with the Journalistic Kiss Ass Award of the year. :puke:

[newyawker99]

21. Hi boblynn!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Jivenwail]

16. This is never appropriate

It's more propoganda to take the emphasis off the lies and deception that lead us into an illegal and unjust invasion of a sovereign nation. CNN is nothing short of bottom dwellers. There is no need to show such graphic material - ever. It does nothing if not make the viewer sick or feel as though they are voyeuristic. It's disgusting.

If they choose to air this stuff, they they should also share with the viewer the dead bodies of all the innocent Iraqi's and American military/civilian personnel killed, maimed and injured. And if it is so important that we here in this country know the evil of a regime, then they'd better start sthowing what goes on in Saudi, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, et al. They are no different and somewhat more vicious. Remember the school girls in Saudi who died in that fire because their heads were uncoverend and forced back into that school? Where do we, as viewers, draw the line? When do we tell these morons of the media that (as Great Grandma Cora would say) enough is enough and too much stinks?

[ex_jew]

18. Where are the tapes depicting 10000 Iraqi deaths at the hands

of the U.S. ? That would be a slice of reality.

[bobbieinok]

22. Release tapes now to deflect criticism of US torture

Talk about US torture in Iraq and Gitmo .... immediate comeback 'the horrible tapes of evil Saddam who tortured his own people.'

'And we've SEEN the torture by Saddam; there's nothing about US torture on CNN - no pictures - , so you're just a dupe of anti-american, leftist, democratic propaganda. Why do you hate America?'