A picture's worth a thousand words. From Yahoo News:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday the United States would release graphic photographs of the dead sons of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) to prove they were killed by American troops.
"There will be pictures released," Rumsfeld told reporters on Capitol Hill after meeting with members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Rumsfeld did not say when the photos would be released other than saying "soon"
The debate apparently has not been over whether to release pictures, but what kind of pictures to release. Do they put out the immediate documentary photos of the dirty beat up bodies taken immediately after the building was taken, or do they have a mortician clean up the corpses for something less shocking.
Obviously I'm going to favor something worse. I'd personally like to see pictures of these jacklegs being hung by their balls. This would be something of a moot point after they're dead, though.
Perhaps something more Mussolini style would be appropriate. Let some Iraqis drag their bodies through the streets. Maybe leave them swinging from a telephone poll.
Perhaps they could hang signs around the Hussein boys' necks saying something like, "Any questions?" That'd be your picture.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - mike
Al, as you'll note from the following article, these killings, if they even got the Hussein boys, have done nothing to quell the insurgency:
here
2 - Natalie
Holy fucking hell. It's not enough to murder them, they have to get photos to prove they did the unforgivable deed? These people aren't fit to lead anything.
The only moral thing to do is to IMPEACH Shrub and his entire terorrist crew.
Since the news was released, I haven't been able to eat or sleep. I am so disgusted and ashamed to have been born among people like these.
3 - andy
so move to a country where your leaders rape women, jail children, and murder at random. maybe you'll feel better about your national pride.
4 - Tom Johnson
The photos aren't for us, they're for the people of Iraq to see that these two disgusting, horrible bastards have been removed from their concerns. Until the Iraqis have proof Saddam's entire regime has been quashed, they're not going to do anything to help - they remember well what happened in the first Gulf War when we didn't get Saddam, and how he tortured those who had helped the US and allies.
It's kind of amazing, Natalie, that you mind us killing these two, but seem to brush over the atrocities these two men themselves were personally responsible for (the one brother was known to have killed several people with his own bare hands,) and both were widely known for their brutatilities toward women. You really want to stand up for these guys?
5 - Eric Olsen
The military came to lawfully arrest them, they didn't give up, they opened fire and wounded four US servicemen, the military gradually escalated the firepower until three were dead, they went in, the fourth was alive and still firing, they shot him. Sounds pretty rational, reasonable, appropriate to me.
These were the most sociopathic, brutal, irredeemable freaks imaginable, raised for nothing other than the murder, subjugation and brutalization of their "fellow" men, and in particular, women. Even the tiniest drop of sympathy is bizarrely misplaced.
And, unfortunately, because of widespread Iraqi/Arab mistrust, they had to be shown the graphic details.
End of story
6 - mike
Aren't you just a little curious at to why the U.S. just didn't surround the building, wait it out, and use every attempt to capture them alive before going in? Imagine the intelligence bonanza, and the pr coup of parading them before Iraqis and putting them on trial, never mind obtaining possible insights into the guerilla campaign and the location of Saddam. This is what a great many Iraqis would have preferred, by all accounts. It is also the classic strategy of any conquering government trying to build legitimacy among a distrustful populace.
I think the reason they didn't do it is because they know the two had little connection to the resistance, and because killing them would be the most effective way of whipping up a storm of jingoism in the U.S. to divert attention from Bush's troubles.
In addition, these two thugs most likely had keen insights into the U.S.'s behavior in the 1980s, when we sold Iraq the WMD precusors for use against Iran and provided other support. They also may have provided confirmation of Saddam's fierce hatred of and rivalry with bin laden, wiping out yet another phoney justification for the war.
In short, you are being played for a fool, as surely as any citizen of a dictatorship. As Orwell said, educated people in a democracy are often more susceptible to propaganda than their counterparts in a dictatorship.
7 - debbie
Aren't you just a little curious at to why the U.S. just didn't surround the building, wait it out, and use every attempt to capture them alive before going in?
They were given the chance to give up and be taken into custody. I think the reason is because they weren't going to be taken alive. They think that Uday possibly committed suicide as it is, but since they were shooting and wounding our soldiers in a firefight, they died. Sometimes this is not a perfect world, sometimes you just have to take it as it really is and try to clean up afterwards. I seriously doubt that the soldiers on the ground being fired upon had any ulterior motives for killing them, they just wanted to come out alive at the end.
I know that you don't like President Bush, but really there aren't always ulterior motives for everything that happens in the world. Everybody said that Iraq had WMD and were working on nuclear program, even Clinton said it in 1998.
I know that our Politics tend to spin everything and you always have to question what they say, because they want to push their own welfare first, but sometimes you have to pick a side.
Personally I would choose Bush over Saddam any day of the millennium.
8 - Natalie
Tom: I brush over no such thing and see no reason why you would accuse me of something so heinous. My heart breaks over the atrocities committed by the Brothers Hussein and their horrid dad, just as my heart breaks over the atrocities committed by the Bushites. But I don't wish any of them dead. And the glee I am seeing and hearing everywhere -- not to mention the gruesome photos -- makes me physically ill. If that makes me a bad person, so be it. Better that than to be what appears to be your definition of good.
Andy: Why should I be proud of any manmade construct not of my making? Get real. But yes, I do have plans to move elsewhere.
9 - mike
Again, you're simply vomiting the Pentagon's version of events, a classic example of a literate person parroting crude central State propaganda. Even a North Korean would be embarrassed.
10 - Eric Olsen
They would have preferred to take them alive, but what are you supposed to do when they don't give up and shoot back for hours? You give government "conspirators" far too much credit, life and battle aren't nearly that easily manipulated.
After reading this tortuously conceived connecting of dots that aren't even on the same plane, you call me the fool? I am continuously amazed at the ice cream castles people will build to make the world fit their rigid agendas.
If all they wanted was to kill the vermin, they would have just bombed the building to ash from the beginning. They risked the lives of soldiers in an attempt to take them alive, they escalated the firepower gradually, there's nothing else they could have done. There was no way they were going to just sit there and wait them out - what if they escaped, again? What if there were secrets ways out? Far too many variables - they did the best they could do.
11 - andy
People...this is war here...not a hostage situation at your local 7-11
12 - debbie
I suppose that you aren't just parroting the "ultra-left" we have to win in 04 Democratic demagoguery mantra of the last several months? Is that what you want us to believe?
Puleeezze, I'm not that gullable!
If you would rather take the word of Saddam's group over Bush, that's up to you.
I would, however, like to know where you got your "information" from? How do you know that it wasn't just that way? How can you say what the soldiers were doing or not doing over there??? You can't, you weren't there. Even if you were you couldn't tell us what was going on in their minds at the time.... I really don't understand the position that the "Liberal's" position is the only position or you are a "hateful bigot", a "war mongering terrorist", or all of the other crap that comes out the of sewer crap hole of the DNC.
Maybe we should teach real history in schools instead of the made up fantasy crap they they push today.
Natalie: Being a pacifist isn't a bad thing, as long as you have other people willing to do the fighting and dying for you so that you can keep that right....
13 - Natalie
excuse me, but i have rights endowed to me by my creator, not by your government. i have them whether someone is trying to execute me for acting upon them or not. better dead than unequal. and no. i would prefer that you folks did not fight and kill. how convenient -- you play your murderous games and then tell me i must be grateful. what codswallop. was is immoral. always. no exceptions. YMMV, but then mine varies from yours and i ain't buying the swill you're selling.
14 - mike
Comment 10: Again, you're simply repeating the Pentagon's version of events, as relayed by the servile U.S. media. The foreign English press-British, Asian-Australian, South African-has been telling a more nuanced story, using its own correspondents on the ground.
But suit yourself
15 - mike
Comment 12: It's "Saddam's people" vs. "Bush's people"? Even Al isn't that simplistic.
Jeez. How lame.
16 - debbie
Like I said, freedom does come at a cost. Whether you are willing to pay for it or not. It doesn't change the price..... Am I speaking slow enough for you?
Your freedom to have your views have been given to you by our creator, but there are people that are always trying to take it away..(you can insert "bad guys" here).
I'm only saying, you can exercise that right because of the people fighting and dying to protect it for you. Whether it goes against what you believe or not, the truth is the truth... It could be the police officer on the street that is trying to protect you from the robber, mugger, rapist, murderer or it could be the military. It could even be the fireman trying to rescue someone from a burning building started by an Arsonist...someone else is willing to pay the price to keep you hiney safe... Yes, you should be grateful (at the very least) instead of being the "high and mighty, I'm so much holier than thou, pure virgin" that you think you are.
17 - debbie
Mike: Almost as lame as your constant conspiracy theory... really, there is medication available.......
18 - andy
Natalie, I'll take the "was" in "was is always immoral" to mean war. Let me ask you something. What do you think is more immoral? To sit on the side lines and watch a man like Hittler kill 6,000,000 people and counting when you have the power to do something to stop him...or waging war to stop him? Tell me where the immorality is in that situation(whic I realize is not fully relevant, and some would argue not relevant at all, w/ the situation in Iraq).
19 - andy
cause in my mind, if you have the power to stop something like that and you don't use it, you might as well be doing the deed yourself.
20 - debbie
Why isn't it relevant? Because he only killed hundreds of thousands instead of millions??? It is relevant, we didn't go into Iraq because they were a peaceful nation....
21 - Joe
Mike-
You're right! We've obviously failed because things haven't undergone a 180 degree change in less than 48 hours. In another post (If you're nice, I'll tell you how to make clickable links!) you were saying how we didn't get them, now, you're developing a nifty conspiracy theory that is pretty lame even by your own ridiculously low standards of believability. Doesn't consistency count for anything? Cleopatra wasn't the only Queen of da' Nile.
22 - Al Barger
Actually Debbie, best estimates for deaths from the Hussein regime start around at least 1 million, varying upwards to perhaps 2 million.
The Bush administration is indeed butthole deep in a vast conspiracy. Dubya, Ashcroft, Rummy, et al are conspiring right this very day while we confer so amicably here at Blogcritics. They conspire by hook and by crook to knock down any evil thugs anywhere in the world who are or seem likely to be trying to kill us.
What evil bastards they are. They should be impeached and removed from office right away, lest America and the world become a safer place.
23 - mike
Joe, why do you keep running off the cliff like this? I feel like the Road Runner. In my post, I was skeptical but also stated that if it was true, they were stupid and helpless beyond belief, which they were, as the Patrick Cockburn link argued.
Beep! Beep!
24 - Joe
Mike-
Most people who read your posts also associate you with a cartoon character, so your point is?
25 - Al Barger
GO HERE for the CNN story with the actual pictures of the Hussein boys. Look for the box labeled "US GOVERNMENT PHOTOS" to get the pop up box with the pics.
Looks like Uday in particular had a very bad day.