John's Blog - Rants, Raves, and Geeky Thoughts

US Hypocrisy

I really meant to post to the blog at least once a week. I guess once a month will have to do since nothing ever seems worth posting.

I sat this week at work and frequently saw the newscasts showing the bodies of Uday and Kusay Hussein who had been killed in Iraq. The newscasters continually mentioned how the government feels its very important to show these images to help the Iraqi people see that their country has become safer. I have serious issues with the US doing that.

As I recall, it wasn't that long ago that the US was outraged over the Al-Jazera TV network airing footage of dead US soldiers. To me that means we would never considering doing the same. For a long time though I saw nothing on the news networks other than their corpses. Did these actions become alright because they're for the supposed good of the people? One could argue that the Iraqi government figured the images of dead soldiers would be good for their people. It just seems very hypocritical to show what we considered to be disrespectful ourselves.

I don't understand the fascination the general public seems to have with death and seeing such images either. Whenever there is an execution somewhere it seems like you always start hearing from the groups that want it televised, or on pay-per-view, or something like that. Why would possibly want to watch someone die? I can't understand even a victim's family wanting to see that. Is it a sense of revenge? It certainly wouldn't make me feel any better to see. It is just a little too barbaric for me. Then again I don't get the appeal of hunting either.

Posted by johnm at July 27, 2003 06:03 PM