Friday, March 28, 2003

Nobody WANTS to see it, but they NEED to see it
Jed Babbin at NRO, yesterday at 2:21 PM:
Evidence of the abuse--torture and murder--of American POWs in Iraq may exist on videotape. There are apparently two versions of the tape shown by Al Jazeera. The second, shown over and over on Egyptian TV, shows both the murder of American POWs and the desecration of their bodies. Though the tape has been shown over and over in the Middle East, congressional requests for access to it have so far been denied. One source told me that some of what he saw reminded him of the murder of Danny Pearl. The public doesn't need to see all these tapes. But more people in government do, and they need to tell the press. The lack of public reaction to these horrors troubles me greatly. Maybe it's because there's so little knowledge of any of the details.
And at 11:35 PM:
I have confirmed that the Al-Jazeera tape, all twelve minutes of it, is merely an excerpt of the hour-long version being shown regularly in Egypt and elsewhere. The short version shows the interrogation of some U.S. soldiers and the defamed dead bodies of others. The longer version includes all that, plus the murders and later abuse and mutilation of the bodies. Apparently, the whole thing is out there on the internet. I don't want to watch it tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning, when the mind is fresher, more able to withstand it.