Alhurra has even more devasting photos and videos

Just to clear up a popular fallacy that the liberals have tried to force on Americans as a part of their distortion and smear campaign...

The alleged 'abuses' at Abu Ghraib are not, I repeat NOT, new. They happened a long time ago, and at that time it was the military who pro-actively *requested* that General Taguba investigate the allegations. It is now that same military that is court marshalling the principal offenders.

In the same way that the liberals have misrepresented the *outstanding* economy's performance, they have similarly misrepresented many elements of the prison 'abuse' issue.

Additionally, the abuses by Hussein are highly relevant, as the American troops defend themselves against reckless allegations made by Ted Kennedy in which he said Saddam's torture chambers are now open under new management. Obviously, given the need to defend our military against this type of smear, the issue of abuse under Saddam is very very VERY relevant.

 

Jeff, you also forgot two other issues: national self-interest and shock value.

Atrocities committed by Americans (or an American government) will get more press than atrocities committed by foreigners or foreign governments...unless the atrocities were committed against Americans. This is why we don't hear about all of the horrible things going on in Africa for example.

The media also likes to cover that which will most shock its audience. Thus, a news story about how bad Saddam is will not be very shocking because everybody already knows that.

Actually, thes days news outlets just like to cover sitcoms and reality programming on their own network and pass it off as news. More money in that, I guess. Stupid liberals.

 

For about the 33rd time, the POW situation included murders.

 

Way to completely ignore the valid points made by Jeff by pretending they don't exist and then taking a shot at me.

Your beef is actually that your president's poll numbers are dropping like a stone, so rather than looking to his failed policies, you're going to blame the media for not paying more attention to the actions of a deposed dictator. By the low standards set by Jorge, I guess this response isn't quite that bad, though it is still invalid.

Why this is more relevant than the chaotic, anarchic state of nature on the ground in Iraq that pretty much everybody from Brooklyn to Baghdad agrees is untenable, as well as the result of poor planning by you know who, I guess is because of Moral Absolutism and Good and Evil.

Meanwhile, President Karimov continues to boil his enemies in oil! And nary a word from basso or CNN!!!! What's that you say basso, we need their help on the war on terror so it's ok!??? Why basso, I find your moral relativism downright OFFENSIVE!!!

 

Torture sucks.

 

All good reporters make exchanges for information. It is part of how you get a story. I'm sure that Jonathan Feigen knows of LOTS of juicy details about the Rockets, but he only prints the stuff that is REALLY newsworthy in his and his editor's estimation.

Besides, if the media had this information on Sadaam's torture of civilians, say, 3 years ago, we go back to relevance. There is torture and murder of innocent civilians taking place in countries across the globe. Most of it never gets reported in the mainstream American media. Why? Bias? Hardly. Try relevance.

If you run a story about the torture and murder of civilians in Somalia, how many Americans tune in to 60 Minutes for that? It's just as bad as torture anywhere. It's horrific and it is awful. But, is it relevant to the majority of Americans' lives? No.

Now, you're talking about not publishing stories that happened years ago due to bias. How exactly are they relevant right now other than the fact that we are currently fighting in Iraq? They aren't. And it isn't as if they have a duty to report this to make Americans aware of it. Amnesty International and the Red Cross have been telling us about abuses all over the world for years. If it wasn't news then, why is it suddenly news now?

I'm not defending Sadaam here and I know the media has plenty of flaws. I have an entire family full of people in the media including a cousin who worked for CNN and now is a reporter in Los Angelas and a very close friend who was a reporter for KTRH for 7 years. So, I know all too well the bizarre and twisted nature of media - particulary broadcast media.

But, if you go to ANY editor and ask them what warrants big coverage RIGHT NOW, torture and abuse by the former regime of Iraq several years ago or torture and abuse of prisoners by American military stationed in Iraq right now, which one do you think they are going to choose? Which one is going to sell more advertising?

It's not a tough equation. I've said it all along. The mainstream media could give a crap about political ideology (with a few key exceptions). The mainstream media cares about one thing and one thing only: money. It used to be "if it bleeds, it leads." Now, it is "if it sells ads, it runs over and over and over again until it is beaten into the ground."

 

Basso;


A question:

When do you suppose the onus should have been highest to report Saddam's atrocities, now, a decade or so after the worst, or at the time, when we funded and directed him, and when we protected him from UN action?

Were the 'liberal press' showing anti-US bias when they weren't covering it then, too?

This idea that the press is liberal...not only is it counter-intuitive, but it should have been clearly demonstrated to be a myth in the months leading up to and early on in the war, when they questioned so little which was and has since been shown to be obviously questionable. I hold the press partly reponsible for the initial support the war had, under false pretense, and as studies showed, FOX above all others.

I can tell you from mpersonal experience, being at something of a media crossroads, the coverage the US and war got in the early days was markedly more positive, and markedly prone to avoid anything which portrayed us in a bad light when compared with UK or Canadian media coverage. The bomb in the marketplace, which was the lead story on the BBC and in Canada but was barely mentioned for over a day on the major US stations is one example.

Basso; was that ias wrong?

 

basso: While you may have known about the war crimes and human rights vioilations committed by Americans in the course of restoring democracy and human rights to Iraq, two weeks ago, the rest of the world did not. Accordingly...news

Conversely, prior to two weeks ago, both I and the rest of the world knew about Saddam's human rights violations. In fact, such items were known about not just two years ago, but probably two decades ago. Accordingly....not news.

Here's a refresher so that we don't have such misunderstandings in the future.

http://home.wlu.edu/~grefed/journalism/jour101.html

In the meantime, feel free to get your news off of right wing blogs exclusively and let the rest of us suffer the handicap of mainstream journalism until you're able to catch up.

(PS. I'm still in shock that you just brought the "this has been known about for months!" argument into it. I truly hope you don't need me to explain how disingenuous and silly this is. Did you make that up yourself or did you get that from Jorge?)

EDIT: I should say that the rumors of human rights abuses by US forces were rumored and reported months ago by ICRC and by Salon.com, the Village Voice, and -- such reports were not picked up on by the mainstream media....was this part of a liberal conspiracy to push it back towards the election?

 

I am not the one saying it with certainty, at least not the one you would or should listen to. I am hardly an expert on extrme violations of human rights.

Fortunately, however, the Human Rights Watch is, and they, along with the Red Cross, UN, and virtually every other source of record on the matter DO say that the vast majority of the atrocities committed by Saddam were committed decades ago. They also mention the support he was getting from the US at the time, which everyone but you know as historical record.

Human Rights Watch

World Report, 2004


War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention
By Ken Roth



Humanitarian intervention was supposed to have gone the way of the 1990s. The use of military force across borders to stop mass killing was seen as a luxury of an era in which national security concerns among the major powers were less pressing and problems of human security could come to the fore. Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone—these interventions, to varying degrees justified in humanitarian terms, were dismissed as products of an unusual interlude between the tensions of the Cold War and the growing threat of terrorism. September 11, 2001 was said to have changed all that, signaling a return to more immediate security challenges. Yet surprisingly, with the campaign against terrorism in full swing, the past year or so has seen four military interventions that are described by their instigators, in whole or in part, as humanitarian.

In principle, one can only welcome this renewed concern with the fate of faraway victims. What could be more virtuous than to risk life and limb to save distant people from slaughter? But the common use of the humanitarian label masks significant differences among these interventions. The French intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo, later backed by a reinforced U.N. peacekeeping presence, was most clearly motivated by a desire to stop ongoing slaughter. In Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, West African and French forces intervened to enforce a peace plan but also played important humanitarian roles. (The United States briefly participated in the Liberian intervention, but the handful of troops it deployed had little effect.) All of these African interventions were initially or ultimately approved by the U.N. Security Council. Indeed, in each case the recognized local government consented to the intervention, though under varying degrees of pressure.

By contrast, the United States-led coalition forces justified the invasion of Iraq on a variety of grounds, only one of which—a comparatively minor one—was humanitarian. The Security Council did not approve the invasion, and the Iraqi government, its existence on the line, violently opposed it. Moreover, while the African interventions were modest affairs, the Iraq war was massive, involving an extensive bombing campaign and some 150,000 ground troops.

The sheer size of the invasion of Iraq, the central involvement of the world’s superpower, and the enormous controversy surrounding the war meant that the Iraqi conflict overshadowed the other military actions. For better or for worse, that prominence gave it greater power to shape public perceptions of armed interventions said by their proponents to be justified on humanitarian grounds. The result is that at a time of renewed interest in humanitarian intervention, the Iraq war and the effort to justify it even in part in humanitarian terms risk giving humanitarian intervention a bad name. If that breeds cynicism about the use of military force for humanitarian purposes, it could be devastating for people in need of future rescue.

Human Rights Watch ordinarily takes no position on whether a state should go to war. The issues involved usually extend beyond our mandate, and a position of neutrality maximizes our ability to press all parties to a conflict to avoid harming noncombatants. The sole exception we make is in extreme situations requiring humanitarian intervention.

Because the Iraq war was not mainly about saving the Iraqi people from mass slaughter, and because no such slaughter was then ongoing or imminent, Human Rights Watch at the time took no position for or against the war. A humanitarian rationale was occasionally offered for the war, but it was so plainly subsidiary to other reasons that we felt no need to address it. Indeed, if Saddam Hussein had been overthrown and the issue of weapons of mass destruction reliably dealt with, there clearly would have been no war, even if the successor government were just as repressive. Some argued that Human Rights Watch should support a war launched on other grounds if it would arguably lead to significant human rights improvements. But the substantial risk that wars guided by non-humanitarian goals will endanger human rights keeps us from adopting that position.

Over time, the principal justifications originally given for the Iraq war lost much of their force. More than seven months after the declared end of major hostilities, weapons of mass destruction have not been found. No significant prewar link between Saddam Hussein and international terrorism has been discovered. The difficulty of establishing stable institutions in Iraq is making the country an increasingly unlikely staging ground for promoting democracy in the Middle East. As time elapses, the Bush administration’s dominant remaining justification for the war is that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who deserved to be overthrown—an argument of humanitarian intervention. The administration is now citing this rationale not simply as a side benefit of the war but also as a prime justification for it. Other reasons are still regularly mentioned, but the humanitarian one has gained prominence.

Does that claim hold up to scrutiny? The question is not simply whether Saddam Hussein was a ruthless leader; he most certainly was. Rather, the question is whether the conditions were present that would justify humanitarian intervention—conditions that look at more than the level of repression. If so, honesty would require conceding as much, despite the war’s global unpopularity. If not, it is important to say so as well, since allowing the arguments of humanitarian intervention to serve as a pretext for war fought mainly on other grounds risks tainting a principle whose viability might be essential to save countless lives.

In examining whether the invasion of Iraq could properly be understood as a humanitarian intervention, our purpose is not to say whether the U.S.-led coalition should have gone to war for other reasons. That, as noted, involves judgments beyond our mandate. Rather, now that the war’s proponents are relying so significantly on a humanitarian rationale for the war, the need to assess this claim has grown in importance. We conclude that, despite the horrors of Saddam Hussein’s rule, the invasion of Iraq cannot be justified as a humanitarian intervention.

The Standards for Humanitarian Intervention
Unusual among human rights groups, Human Rights Watch has a longstanding policy on humanitarian intervention. War often carries enormous human costs, but we recognize that the imperative of stopping or preventing genocide or other systematic slaughter can sometimes justify the use of military force. For that reason, Human Rights Watch has on rare occasion advocated humanitarian intervention—for example, to stop ongoing genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia.

Yet military action should not be taken lightly, even for humanitarian purposes. One might use military force more readily when a government facing serious abuses on its territory invites military assistance from others—as in the cases of the three recent African interventions. But military intervention on asserted humanitarian grounds without the government’s consent should be used with extreme caution. In arriving at the standards that we believe should govern such nonconsensual military action, we draw on the principles underlying our own policy on humanitarian intervention and on our experiences in applying them. We also take into account other relevant literature, including the report of the Canadian government-sponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty.

In our view, as a threshold matter, humanitarian intervention that occurs without the consent of the relevant government can be justified only in the face of ongoing or imminent genocide, or comparable mass slaughter or loss of life. To state the obvious, war is dangerous. In theory it can be surgical, but the reality is often highly destructive, with a risk of enormous bloodshed. Only large-scale murder, we believe, can justify the death, destruction, and disorder that so often are inherent in war and its aftermath. Other forms of tyranny are deplorable and worth working intensively to end, but they do not in our view rise to the level that would justify the extraordinary response of military force. Only mass slaughter might permit the deliberate taking of life involved in using military force for humanitarian purposes.

In addition, the capacity to use military force is finite. Encouraging military action to meet lesser abuses may mean a lack of capacity to intervene when atrocities are most severe. The invasion of a country, especially without the approval of the U.N. Security Council, also damages the international legal order which itself is important to protect rights. For these reasons, we believe that humanitarian intervention should be reserved for situations involving mass killing.

We understand that “mass” killing is a subjective term, allowing for varying interpretations, and we do not propose a single quantitative measure. We also recognize that the level of killing that we as a human rights organization would see as justifying humanitarian intervention might well be different from the level that a government might set. However, in either circumstance, because of the substantial risks inherent in the use of military force, humanitarian intervention should be exceptional—reserved for the most dire circumstances.

If this high threshold is met, we then look to five other factors to determine whether the use of military force can be characterized as humanitarian. First, military action must be the last reasonable option to halt or prevent slaughter; military force should not be used for humanitarian purposes if effective alternatives are available. Second, the intervention must be guided primarily by a humanitarian purpose; we do not expect purity of motive, but humanitarianism should be the dominant reason for military action. Third, every effort should be made to ensure that the means used to intervene themselves respect international human rights and humanitarian law; we do not subscribe to the view that some abuses can be countenanced in the name of stopping others. Fourth, it must be reasonably likely that military action will do more good than harm; humanitarian intervention should not be tried if it seems likely to produce a wider conflagration or significantly more suffering. Finally, we prefer endorsement of humanitarian intervention by the U.N. Security Council or other bodies with significant multilateral authority. However, in light of the imperfect nature of international governance today, we would not require multilateral approval in an emergency context.

Two Irrelevant Considerations
Before applying these criteria to Iraq, it is worth noting two factors that we do not consider relevant in assessing whether an intervention can be justified as humanitarian. First, we are aware of, but reject, the argument that humanitarian intervention cannot be justified if other equally or more needy places are ignored. Iraqi repression was severe, but the case might be made that repression elsewhere was worse. For example, an estimated three million or more have lost their lives to violence, disease, and exposure in recent years during the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), yet intervention in the DRC was late and, compared to Iraq, modest. However, if the killing in Iraq warranted military intervention, it would be callous to disregard the plight of these victims simply because other victims were being neglected. In that case, intervention should be encouraged in both places, not rejected in one because it was weak or nonexistent in the other.

Second, we are aware of, but reject, the argument that past U.S. complicity in Iraqi repression should preclude U.S. intervention in Iraq on humanitarian grounds. This argument is built on the U.S. government’s sordid record in Iraq in the 1980s and early 1990s. When the Iraqi government was using chemical weapons against Iranian troops in the 1980s, the Reagan administration was giving it intelligence information. After the Anfal genocide against Iraqi Kurds in 1988, the Reagan and first Bush administrations gave Baghdad billions of dollars in commodity credits and import loan guarantees. The Iraqi government’s ruthless suppression of the 1991 uprising was facilitated by the first Bush administration’s agreement to Iraq’s use of helicopters – permission made all the more callous because then-President Bush had encouraged the uprising in the first place. In each of these cases, Washington deemed it more important to defeat Iran or avoid Iranian influence in a potentially destabilized Iraq than to discourage or prevent large-scale slaughter. We condemn such calculations. However, we would not deny relief to, say, the potential victims of genocide simply because the proposed intervener had dirty hands in the past.

The Level of Killing
In considering the criteria that would justify humanitarian intervention, the most important, as noted, is the level of killing: was genocide or comparable mass slaughter underway or imminent? Brutal as Saddam Hussein’s reign had been, the scope of the Iraqi government’s killing in March 2003 was not of the exceptional and dire magnitude that would justify humanitarian intervention. We have no illusions about Saddam Hussein’s vicious inhumanity. Having devoted extensive time and effort to documenting his atrocities, we estimate that in the last twenty-five years of Ba`th Party rule the Iraqi government murdered or “disappeared” some quarter of a million Iraqis, if not more. In addition, one must consider such abuses as Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers. However, by the time of the March 2003 invasion, Saddam Hussein’s killing had ebbed.

There were times in the past when the killing was so intense that humanitarian intervention would have been justified—for example, during the 1988 Anfal genocide, in which the Iraqi government slaughtered some 100,000 Kurds. Indeed, Human Rights Watch, though still in its infancy and not yet working in the Middle East in 1988, did advocate a form of military intervention in 1991 after we had begun addressing Iraq. As Iraqi Kurds fleeing Saddam Hussein’s brutal repression of the post-Gulf War uprising were stranded and dying in harsh winter weather on Turkey’s mountainous border, we advocated the creation of a no-fly zone in northern Iraq so they could return home without facing renewed genocide. There were other moments of intense killing as well, such as the suppression of the uprisings in 1991. But on the eve of the latest Iraq war, no one contends that the Iraqi government was engaged in killing of anywhere near this magnitude, or had been for some time. “Better late than never” is not a justification for humanitarian intervention, which should be countenanced only to stop mass murder, not to punish its perpetrators, desirable as punishment is in such circumstances.

But if Saddam Hussein committed mass atrocities in the past, wasn’t his overthrow justified to prevent his resumption of such atrocities in the future? No. Human Rights Watch accepts that military intervention may be necessary not only to stop ongoing slaughter but also to prevent future slaughter, but the future slaughter must be imminent. To justify the extraordinary remedy of military force for preventive humanitarian purposes, there must be evidence that large-scale slaughter is in preparation and about to begin unless militarily stopped. But no one seriously claimed before the war that the Saddam Hussein government was planning imminent mass killing, and no evidence has emerged that it was. There were claims that Saddam Hussein, with a history of gassing Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds, was planning to deliver weapons of mass destruction through terrorist networks, but these allegations were entirely speculative; no substantial evidence has yet emerged. There were also fears that the Iraqi government might respond to an invasion with the use of chemical or biological weapons, perhaps even against its own people, but no one seriously suggested such use as an imminent possibility in the absence of an invasion.

That does not mean that past atrocities should be ignored. Rather, their perpetrators should be prosecuted. Human Rights Watch has devoted enormous efforts to investigating and documenting the Iraqi government’s atrocities, particularly the Anfal genocide against Iraqi Kurds. We have interviewed witnesses and survivors, exhumed mass graves, taken soil samples to demonstrate the use of chemical weapons, and combed through literally tons of Iraqi secret police documents. We have circled the globe trying to convince some government—any government—to institute legal proceedings against Iraq for genocide. No one would. In the mid-1990s, when our efforts were most intense, governments feared that charging Iraq with genocide would be too provocative—that it would undermine future commercial deals with Iraq, squander influence in the Middle East, invite terrorist retaliation, or simply cost too much money.

But to urge justice or even criminal prosecution is not to justify humanitarian intervention. Indictments should be issued, and suspects should be arrested if they dare to venture abroad, but the extraordinary remedy of humanitarian intervention should not be used simply to secure justice for past crimes. This extreme step, as noted, should be taken only to stop current or imminent slaughter, not to punish past abuse.

In stating that the killing in Iraq did not rise to a level that justified humanitarian intervention, we are not insensitive to the awful plight of the Iraqi people. We are aware that summary executions occurred with disturbing frequency in Iraq up to the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule, as did torture and other brutality. Such atrocities should be met with public, diplomatic, and economic pressure, as well as prosecution. But before taking the substantial risk to life that is inherent in any war, mass slaughter should be taking place or imminent. That was not the case in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in March 2003.



http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm

There's much more, and its a great read. Here's the link. But a neutral authority on human rights violations stating for the record that the Iraq war cannot be justified for humanitarian reasons is not relevant; the facts they quote, which you seem to take issue with, are.


In that we supported him, helped him keep down populist movements, funded and armed him, and provided him intelligence about 'enemies' inside and out Iraq...and we know what happened to the internal enemies, as did the intelligence officers who were helping him identify them for years...you're damned tooting we're culpable. It is right there with Chile, Iran, etc. etc.


It's counter-intuitive that a widepread industry would interfere with it's primary function, making money, in order to assuage a political angle that bears no profit. If there were no competition, or if you were talking about one particular netweork or media outlet, sure, it's possible. But industry wide? As I said, counter-intuitive. I can see most reporters being liberal...but as anyone who knows modern media, they simply don't call the shots.

All the quagmire stuff? I think I remember a few glynch links, and people asking if it could become one...which was also true during GW1; it's a natural question to ask after Nam...but I certainly don't remember it being a big aspect of coverage, nor do I remember mainstream media concluding it was a quagmire. I do remember them downplaying several aspects like the one I mentioned...


I don't know what the majority of the US supporting the war has to do with discrepencies I saw between US and other coverage during the opening days of the war, but oh, well. Besides, the most recent poll says the majority of the US says the war was a mistake...again, though, don't see how it relates to your point.

 

In this context, news is news. You described the fact that CNN agreed to not display certain things in exchange for access. I can guarantee you Feigen has the same understanding with the Rockets. The point is that it is common practice in the business.

Yes, the prisoner torture happened 9 months ago, however (and it's a BIG however), this isn't Sadaam. These are OUR soldies. In addition, this is a NEW discovery, something we've never seen before...ever. That automatically makes it a HUGE news story.

Again, I'm not talking about "atrocities." I'm talking about "news." What Sadaam did 3 years ago is the exact equivalent to what is happening in places like the Sudan and Somalia today. Would you tune in to stories about brutal dictators killing innocent civilians in sub-Saharan Africa if it were on the news tonight? Do you think the majority of the country would?

If CNN or 60 Minutes ran a story on the torture of innocent Iraqi's 5 years ago, would you have watched? I'm guessing, like the majority of Americans, you didn't even know it was happening back then and wouldn't have cared. The fact that you care now is only predicated on our current situation.

Yes, those photos are news. But, going back to my point again, are similar reports of torture in other countries from 3 years ago relevant now? What about photos of mass grave sites from Bosnia? Were were actually involved in that confilict.

The major difference between the prison in Iraq/Nick Berg stories and the Sadaam torture story is that the first two involved the torture and killing of or by Americans making it instantly more important than 3-year-old photos of Sadaam's torture chambers. That isn't placing a greater value on one life over another, but it is placing a value on one STORY over another. That's something the news does every single day.

First, Fox and CNN are hardly good news sources. They both suck. They are almost universally thought of as poor coverage among journalists. Any good journalist would find them to be sensationalistic, biased and a very poor source of good information.

The New York Times has always been considered left of center just as the WSJ has always been right. The Washington Post has had its lefty moments. NPR is mostly liberal. AM talk is dominated by the right. Most local broadcast news leans in the direction of its viewers. It tends to be more conservative in conservative communities and more liberal in liberal communites.

When I talk about the bottom line, however, I mean that, at the heart of any news organization is the need and desire to make money. It is the nature of any for-profit business and the news is no different. Newspapers are 80 percent advertising and only 20 percent news copy, so imagine how uncomfortable it is when a major advertiser threatens to pull ads if the paper doesn't go easy on them during a scandal. Ever wonder why Houston's only daily rarely if ever had a scoop on Enron? I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with the fact that Ken Lay sits on the Chron board of directors.

Ultimately, the job of a news outlet is to drive ratings and circulation to increase ad revenues and they will do that in whatever way is necessary which is why sweeps week on local TV usually resembles something somewhere between Hard Copy, America's Most Wanted and Entertainment Tonight. They know it will draw in the viewers and set higher ad rates for the coming year.

As the station manager at KTRH once said to a friend of mine and the entire news staff (and I'm not kidding), "Our job is not to report the news. Our job is to scare people." In other words, make people afraid NOT to tune in.

Personally, I find the only decent sources of good news reporting to be sources like the Christian Science Monitor because they report the facts, go in-depth and allow the story to tell itself, not try to knock everyone over the head with some sensational bunch of crap.

Beyond that, the vast majority of "news" ranges from marginally interesting to downright laughable. I definitely listen to, watch and read sources that I know are liberal or conservative and others where I can see the liberal or conservative slant, but I try to read between the lines.

basso, I think you are getting caught up in the difference between opinion on these two stories (Sadaam's abuse of prisoners and that of our military) and the stories themselves. No one would argue that both were awful (ok, well, SOME might, but most reasonable people wouldn't), but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about how the news world views this - not through the eyes of someone wanting to promote a specific agenda. Like the governement, mass media are WAY too disorganized to organize any nation-wide plot to dispense with lefty info and their shareholders would string them up anyway. And, I'm not talking about talking gas bags like Hannity or Limbaugh or Franken or whoever.

This is about the usual things with news: what sells papers and what pushes ads - i.e. what drives people want to read, hear and see. Mostly, that is something titilating or scary. Clearly, Sadaam's torturous abuse of Iraqi's doesn't rank highly on that scale just like it didn't 5 years ago.

 

Yes, but not in detail like this.

 

Lastly, if the mainstream media is so focused on the bottom line, why then aren't they all following the lead of Fox News? After all, Fox continues to beat the pants off of CNN in the ratings?

The answer to this is fairly simple - Fox is successful because it's one of a kind. CNN, MSNBC, ABCNews, CBSNews, etc are all considered "middle of the road" (or use leftist if you prefer) while Fox is considered to the right.

That means everyone who wants right-leaning news turns to one station, while the rest of the public splits their viewership between a couple of sources. So of course Fox will have higher ratings. However, if CNN moves into Fox's market, they are splitting Fox's audience, instead of the "rest of the market" audience. I'd venture to guess that both Fox and CNN would have low ratings if that were to happen, because they'd be splitting an already smaller piece of the pie.

Let's say 60% of the population wants CNN-type news, and 40% wants FOX-type news. The current viewership would be something like:

CNN - 30%
MSNBC - 30%
FOX - 40%

If CNN began competing with FOX instead of MSNBC, you'd have:

MSNBC - 60%
FOX - 20%
CNN - 20%

That's why FOX has the highest ratings - they fill a niche that none of the other networks do.

 

Huh?

The entire premise of their argument is that it does not qualify, but as I said, I was highlighting the aspects that specifically counter your earlier claims, and/or answer your questions. Check the link if you want to arguem himanitarian cause; they stongly disagree...what you are quoting here is one small part of their overall argument; that a past bad record does not in and of itself preclude people from waging humanitarian wars...they go on to point out at lenght that in sipite of that, for several other reasons, Iraq doesn't qualify...But, again, I was ddressing your questions about:

* Whether the bulk of Saddam's atrocities occurred decades ago.

* Whether the US was funding/supporting/etc. him at the time.


I did. You chose to try and redirect onto another debate...and, obviously, didn't even read the whole thing. It's a beast, but well worth the read.

 

What else is new. Watch, he'll probably act like he doesn't know what you're talking about, then recite more irrelevant info.

edit: OMG, I honestly didn't see his post before writing that. My crystal ball is shining bright today!