Iraq: The Unseen War

Originally posted by Bikereddie
Just been looking through the BBC web site for any "graphic" images and i cannot find any there. Maybe they are censored too?

Censorship is not just happening in the US, but around the World. The link you posted sent me to an Italian site. Not sure if its a reputable source run by any reputable media network.

BBC is English and GB has to provide good Image of the War also - after all they are second largest Army in the Coalition Forces and America's Ally.

And which link sent you to an Italin site?

Salon.com is from San Francisco, USA.

Originally posted by Souljah

I think people Should see pictures of Accidents and they would Think TWICE when driving too fast or Ignoring any of the Traffic Signs and Endagering Themselves and Others in the Traffic. With the Images in their heads they would drive VERY carefully and would Never drink&drive, don't you think so?



[edit on 23/8/05 by Souljah]

The scenario you quoted can work, but in all honesty, most people only remember it for a few days, then its back to the same old routine of speeding etc.

I was out with a mate of mine five years ago. We were both on high powered bikes, when a car pulled out in front of him. He hit it and later died in my arms at the roadside.
Did that slow me down or make me drive any safer than i already did? No.
I still ride fast, i still ride with all the skill that 35 years of riding has taught me.
Humans are conditioned to put the bad images out of their minds. they can recall them, but at a later time when its not needed.
So in my honest opinion, seeing images of car accidents etc will not educate people.( I did say my opinion there too ) It only makes them aware for a short period of time.

I think people Should see pictures of Accidents and they would Think TWICE when driving too fast or Ignoring any of the Traffic Signs and Endagering Themselves and Others in the Traffic. With the Images in their heads they would drive VERY carefully and would Never drink&drive, don't you think so?

If you mean local media for television then I disagree, for the childrens sake. I also dont like to sit down to dinner then photos of decapitated victims of an accident start showing up.

But I do agree that highschool classes should involve graphic photos of every level.




[edit on 23-8-2005 by evanfitz]

Originally posted by Souljah
BBC is English and GB has to provide good Image of the War also - after all they are second largest Army in the Coalition Forces and America's Ally.
And which link sent you to an Italin site?
Salon.com is from San Francisco, USA.

Not too sure about the link, but it did send me too an Italian site which was in English. Maybe i was rerouted for some reason, but hey, it don't matter.

I still have to say that the censorship is to protect the viewing public from graphic images. The BBC maintains this. Like i said, i can find, as can anyone else who wishes to do so, graphic images that are uncensored on the Web.

I think those kind of Images would proove to be effective with the Majority of the People.

When I was in the Civil Service (instead of my Military Service) I was working in Clinical Center, and I spent some times working at the Emergency Room too. I had a Friend who Badly wanted to sell his car and buy a Motor Bike, 'coz he was addicted to speed and adrenaline (probably like you Eddie ). We were sitting at the E.R. one day, drinking coffee and enjoying the precious moments of peace. Then suddenly an ambulance arrived and everybody went crazy - apparently they were driving in an injured man from a motorcycle accident. When the ambulance arrived, they had plugged just about every instrument on that poor guy, that they had in the ambulance, and a doctor was sitting on him, giving him CPR and they were taking him as fast as possible to the Reanimation Room. There was a Bloody trail behind the stretcher and minutes later the door opened from the RR and all the medical staff came out. The guy did not survive. We were just sitting there, frozen from fear and shock and could not move for minutes. My friend never got that bike then....

Sometimes seeing things like that really wakes you up and makes you think twice.

Ofcourse I don't agree with showing these images during the daytime soap opera timing and don't show them to children either! - show them in classes when teenagers begin to drive.

You see. you recalled an incident from the past. but in all honesty, did it slow you down, make you drive safer? At the time it did, because it was fresh in your mind.
My story only helped you to recall yours. Thats how the human mind works.
Great eh?

Oh, one more thing, yes, i am addicted to speed. I do ride fast, but safe if there is such a thing. (contradiction there me thinks:puz

Originally posted by Bikereddie
You see. you recalled an incident from the past. but in all honesty, did it slow you down, make you drive safer? At the time it did, because it was fresh in your mind.

I always drive slow - I am not a real fan of Speed. And that guy we saw made my friend to think again and stop him from getting a bike.

I have to bit a biased here about the bikes and speed thing. Its what i do.
But going back to the topic on discussion, maybe its the Governments who decide what we see and what we don't see. Maybe its not down to the military as you suggested?

Soulja has pointed out an important fact here. Its something
that some of you might have missed over the years. People
actually get killed in wars. For you faint of heart that can't
take this, you should probably not join the military, but take
heart in the fact that you don't have to. Many of us will do the
job for you and you can sit at home and wring your hands over
how terrible it is. That's the beauty of America. The hand
wringers can do their thing, and I'm proud to say that us
butt kickers can do ours. I'm very proud of the fact that I was
able to go off to war and not "lose it" as apparently some
seem to.

Originally posted by MajorCee
Soulja has pointed out an important fact here. Its something
that some of you might have missed over the years. People
actually get killed in wars. For you faint of heart that can't
take this, you should probably not join the military, but take
heart in the fact that you don't have to. Many of us will do the
job for you and you can sit at home and wring your hands over
how terrible it is. That's the beauty of America. The hand
wringers can do their thing, and I'm proud to say that us
butt kickers can do ours. I'm very proud of the fact that I was
able to go off to war and not "lose it" as apparently some
seem to.

First of all Major, I am not from America, so you can forget your "Beauty of America Speech". Good for you that you joined the Army and killed people for your job - I guess world needs somebody to do that too. I just think that this War in Iraq had nothing to do with what your president said it does, and that the American public is not really full confronted with the situation in the Iraq. The goverment and the military are both hiding and cutting the truth, which is as always in the wars, very brutal and bloody. And YES people die! What a revelation you have showed to us Major! And when I had the privilege of choosing between serving in the Army and serving in the Civil Service, guess what I picked?

Do you think, that the American Public does not see pictures like that, because:

a.) The pictures are censored, because the Military says so.

b.) The pictures are cencored, because the public would find out that "people die in wars"?

c.) The pictures are censored, because the American public is already enouht anti-war oriented and they don't need more of this civil disobedence. We can see all the fuss that one Mom made, imagine what would happen if people actually saw the images of War, and not the images that the military wants them to see.

d.) None of the Above.

e.) All of the Above.

The power of graphic photos can be shown by the sex talks given in the British Army in the 1950's.

The conscripts were shown pictures of clap ridden genitalia. truley revolting stuff. They were told that this is what would happen if they slept with the local ladies of negotiable affection.

Unsurprisingly it worked, men lived in fear for their manhood!

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
The power of graphic photos can be shown by the sex talks given in the British Army in the 1950's.

The conscripts were shown pictures of clap ridden genitalia. truley revolting stuff. They were told that this is what would happen if they slept with the local ladies of negotiable affection.

Unsurprisingly it worked, men lived in fear for their manhood!

See?

Graphic Images have a BIG Impact on the ones who see it. Just as those soliders probably saved themselves alot of medial problems, I think that people should be confronted with the facts of Iraqi war, that they don't see in the news or on the tv. Ofcourse this kind of images would bring all sorts of anti-war problems, and the goverment does not want that. Remember the Plans for Iraq? Four More Years! Now, the goverment sure does not want any domestic problems, while having enough of problems already.

Here are some more:

































[edit on 24-8-2005 by skippytjc]

Originally posted by AceOfBase
Skippy, you could probably find images just like that from when the Soviets were in Afghanistan and I'm sure there were similar images when the US was in Vietnam. A few smiling children doesn't mean there's a majority support for the US in Iraq.

Read the following article about the Soviets in Afghanistan that was printed by the Washington Times in 1987:

Afghans learning to read, but lessons laud Soviets

hey... ATS is a very big, well-known and famous web forum on opinions/politics/military and what's not ...

It is inconceivable that the CIA did not plant some "public relation officer" here to sway opinion to their favor


[edit on 24-8-2005 by betaiso]

Wow nice pics skippytjc! Where did you get them from FOX NEWS? I was wondering do you have any pictures of U.S soldiers handing out candy for the cameras as they get blown up by a suicide bomber? Or is the place to get those from somewhere like here as opposed U.S propaganda archive-someone’s record of heroic duty in crime wave Iraq?
Anyway I really admire your intellect and how you managed to answer the original points about a: U.S not doing Iraqi civilian body counts as a matter of policy, and b: the U.S censoring what we see (like troop coffins) and c: Bush not attending the funeral of a single soldier.

But you did answer those points did? Didn’t you?
Personally I think the only reason why Bush hasn’t attended a funeral of a single soldier is not because America lacks any degree of democracy whatsoever; but rather because nobody has invited him yet. After all it is still in the thousands of funerals isn't it?
As for not showing those coffins, well it’s disrespectful. Not to the soldiers of course, because there's usually little or no way of knowing which coffin is which when it has the mother of all U.S flags on it. Rather it’s disrespectful to our leadership who sent the troops there before they got killed.
And its only natural now that so much time has passed without another 9/11 terrorist attack that the U.S government should want to influence what we see and hear from Iraq. Otherwise we may not "understand" how successful the war has being and is still being to this day.

Skippytjc if you can contribute to every post like that you and me should be a team! I must admit I have no idea where you got those pictures from. BBC, Fox, CNB, CNN the list goes on and on.
Have you been to Iraq? If so speak to some non Kurdish Iraqis (that leaves about 90% of the population). But make sure you have a gun, a "small" army and some candy otherwise the pictures you get might not make a very good point.

Originally posted by Liberal1984

Wow nice pics skippytjc! Where did you get them from FOX NEWS? I was wondering do you have any pictures of U.S soldiers handing out candy for the cameras as they get blown up by a suicide bomber? Or is the place to get those from somewhere like here as opposed U.S propaganda archive-someone’s record of heroic duty in crime wave Iraq?

I dont like Bush and didnt vote for him, I also dont watch Fox news. It does not matter who took those pictures, they are of real US service men and women with real live happy Iraqi's.

These pics that I post are an actual side of this war as well. PERIOD. If you choose to ignore the good side of this conflict and focus on the negative side then thats your own shortcoming.

[edit on 24-8-2005 by skippytjc]

Originally posted by skippytjc
These pics that I post are an actual side of this war as well. PERIOD. If you choose to ignore the good side of this conflict and focus on the negative side then thats your own shortcoming.

I think the Pics you Post are the "Happy" side of War. Errr, wait a minute words Happy and War do not go very well togather. Sorry skipster, but those pics are too good to be true, they make me wanna go to war with every single nation on this planet if the aftermath of wars will be as it is shown on the pictures. Not to mention all the pictures are taken by military photographers, which ofcourse have their own order, given by the Information Officer. No bodies. No coffins. No casualties. No wounded. No dead. Those pictures are really not from Iraq! They are from a studio somewhere in Hollywood - or at least that is what they show. Yet on the news all we hear is how many have died this week and how many bombs have exploaded. We don't hear how the US troops were giving out candy and admiring oranges. You live in a Fantasy land skipster. Sure the pictures are "Nice" - but that is what the Intention of these pictures is. To make you feel Nice and Warm when thinking about this Illegal War. At least Some good news coming from down there, that makes you want to just sit down and relax, open a fresh bear and say to yourself: "Great Job Everyone. Keep it up!"

Reality Check!

Those pictures have NOTHING to do with the TITLE of this THREAD which is:

Iraq: The Unseen War.

Originally posted by C0le
Hell they dont show images of decaptitated bodies from car accidents on the news when they are covering an accident, or shreeded up bodies from going through the windshield, Damn that media and gov for keeping those images secret damn them!

Hey soul why, dont ya post pics of Paul Johnson or Nick Berg? the media doesnt show those to us either.

[edit on 23-8-2005 by C0le]

It's a friggin' car crash C0le. The president probably did not give speech after speech about the need for the car crash and how well the car crash is going while the media showed pictures of smiling crash victims.

Yes Skipytic the pictures are real and yes we mustn’t ignore the good side of the war; especially when it’s all over the media (at least when you listen to the BBC under its new leadership).
Actually you really annoyed me by putting so many pictures up. It would have been fair play if they had been smaller or just the one but it kind of dominates a modest first 50% of the thread. If a picture says a thousands words I’m missing over 900 in this case.
Maybe you can tell me differently but all i can read from the pictures is "the U.S does good stuff in Iraq too". Couldn't you have just dominated the first 50%. by repeating words like that again and again?

The main point is that there were some good intellectual points at the beginning of the post (some I repeated again in my last post). These did not just involve the U.S does or does not do good stuff in Iraq. Rather they were issues like the U.S is telling us enough about Iraq like the absence of civilian body counts as a matter of policy, or troop coffin pictures. Guess I better not occupy half a thread myself by repetition of point making.

Gee, Soulja is not American, so I should forget
my beauty of America speech. Sorry, I am not about
to forget it. It was addressed to Americans. I
could care less what someone outside the US cares
about this. Self centered non Americans who think
they can put a barrage of their propoganda here
and thereby promote their vision of the world is
just going to have to put up with me giving my
vision of the beauty of America. That is just
the way things work, and I like it that way.