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posted by janrinok on Friday February 06 2015, @11:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the depends-which-side-you-are-on dept.

Erik Wemple writes at the Washington Post that Fox News recently took the controversial step of posting a horrific 22-minute video online that shows Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh being burned to death warning internet users that the presentation features "extremely graphic video." "After careful consideration, we decided that giving readers of FoxNews.com the option to see for themselves the barbarity of ISIS outweighed legitimate concerns about the graphic nature of the video," said Fox executive John Moody. "Online users can choose to view or not view this disturbing content."

But Fox's decision drew condemnation from some terrorism experts. "[Fox News] are literally — literally — working for al-Qaida and ISIS's media arm," said Malcolm Nance. "They might as well start sending them royalty checks." YouTube removed a link to the video a few hours after it was posted, and a spokesperson for Facebook told the Guardian that if anyone posted the video to the social networking site it would be taken down. CNN explained that it wouldn't surface any of the disturbing images because they were gruesome and constituted propaganda that the network didn't want to distribute. "Does posting this video advance the aims of this terror group or hinder its progress by laying bare its depravity?" writes Wemple. "Islamic State leaders may indeed delight in the distribution of the video — which could be helpful in converting extremists to its cause — but they may be mis-calibrating its impact. If the terrorists expected to intimidate the world with their display of barbarity, they may be disappointed with the reaction of Jordan, which is vowing "strong, earth-shaking and decisive" retaliation."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Saturday February 07 2015, @01:53AM

    by Sir Finkus (192) on Saturday February 07 2015, @01:53AM (#142094) Journal

    I was in a city once when an extremely powerful carbomb went off.

    I don't suppose you can elaborate on that, if you're comfortable doing so or course.

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by tibman on Saturday February 07 2015, @07:46AM

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 07 2015, @07:46AM (#142166)

    Here's the WP page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Al_Hillah_bombing [wikipedia.org]
    My squad was delivering ammo (mostly 9mm) to the local police hq when the bomb went off. Six in the building and three outside. I was outside. The police building was on the edge of a large market. Cars weren't supposed to be in the market but people do what they want. They didn't want to be inconvenienced when offloading goods. A guy parked the carbomb in the middle of the market. People came apart like legos. You can't triage that. We did what we could but it was getting crazy and the city was swarming in. They were beyond anger. The Polish (don't forget the Polish!) and a Special Forces team (ODA 741) showed up to help. The citizens weren't angry with us but we didn't want to be a convenient punching bag (or be victims to a secondary bomb).

    It was horror, for sure. There were some people burned so bad that they were just the shape of people. Still alive though. No eyes or ears or hair. Just a hole in their face where a mouth should be. Screaming something horrible and inhuman. By law you cannot "put them out of their misery". But you also cannot help them. I saw an infant face down in water, trampled. The water was everywhere because of the fire trucks. But the water was also red. Red puddles all over. The citizens were trying to be helpful. One man was making a pile of shoes. Another man was stacking a pile of fruit from a cart that fell over. Ever see someone try to pick-up too much stuff? like how they pick one item up and another falls from their arms? Imagine that but with pieces of people. Men, women, and children all mixed up. Talk about a moment of clarity in life though. Looking down and seeing a child's shoe in one of those puddles and the world reflected in red around it. Something clicked and i knew my place in the universe.

    We returned to the camp. I cleaned all my weapons (M2, M249, and M9). Got everything laid out and straight for the next day. Then went down to one of the porta-johns (plastic bathrooms like a phonebooth) and had a good cry. I didn't cry again or have difficulties with it for something like a year. Anger kept other emotions away. But after leaving the US Army i finally had to deal with it. Drank a lot for a while : )

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