Talk:Abu Ghraib prison/Archive 2
There should probably be external links to sites hosting the relevant pictures. Anyone know of any? --Dante Alighieri | Talk 16:39, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- I disagree, I've seen that currently there is no Web site hosting all of these pictures. CBS has access just to the videos, and they are likely to pull them out or start charging for seeing them. Until there are two or more places were all of these photos are hosted, I think it's better to keep them here. ChaTo 16:56, Apr 30, 2004
- I don't think Dante was saying we should take the photos down. I think he was just saying we should add a link. I added a link to the Memory Hole, which will keep them up, free, indefinitely. 64.112.183.66 17:57, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- To clarify, my comment was written before the pictures were up. I'm not suggesting we remove them. I just didn't realize at first that we could host them without copyright issues, but then Eloquence cleared that up. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 17:59, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
Is that word written on one of the prisoners "rapeist"? --Dante Alighieri | Talk 16:57, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- The prisoner in Pic 6 is recognizable. IANAL, but I am a human being. Shouldn't the img be tweaked (blurred, blacked out) to conceal his identity? (Re "rapeist" (sic) -- yes, that's what it looks like). –Hajor 17:06, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- It looks like it could be RAPEIST or PAPFIST. News sources refer to it as a slur. 64.112.183.66 17:57, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I've since read press reports (specifically, the Daily Mirror -- sorry, not one of the best possible sources) describing it as an Arabic insult transliterated into English. Far more reports describe it as an "American slur" or "English slur", however. –Hajor 23:24, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I don't think we should have 14 pictures in this article, as the additional 12-13 don't add any content to the story. That would be like having a huge listing of pictures at the end of Auschwitz, which we of course don't have, despite the existence of thousands of pictures we could put there. --Delirium 20:21, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- The images are essential to understanding what happened. They will stay.--Eloquence* 20:32, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- Having all of them is no more essential than having 15 images on Auschwitz is. Similarly, we could put up 50 images of torture during the Hussein regime, which would also not be essential to understand what happened, and would be inappropriate. In addition, you do not run this wiki, and I do not appreciate your dictatorial tone. "I believe they should stay" is within your prerogative to say. "They will stay" is not. --Delirium 21:14, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
The whole point of the images is to illustrate what happened -- what was done to these people? This is not a matter of the historical record yet, so the comparison with Auschwitz is absurd; furthermore, we should have more images about what happened in Auschwitz in the appropriate articles.
What we should do is provide captions for each image to actually describe what happens here.--Eloquence* 21:26, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- This isn't a primary source document, but an encyclopedia. We should, for example, have illustrative images on Auschwitz, but an in-depth image gallery is inappropriate. Same with the Rwandan genocide: having an image gallery of 15 images of Rwandans being murdered would not help illustrate what happened. The same goes with just about any other atrocity: a few illustrative images are very helpful, but an image gallery is not. What do 14 images add that, say, 4 do not? I agree all 14 (and more, as there are certainly more in existence) are important for the historical record, but not for an encyclopedia article. Putting them all here, and not in other articles, seems a bit like an attempt to advance a particular agenda. What would you think, for example, of someone who added a lengthy image gallery depicting the victims of Palestinian terorrism to one of our articles? There are plenty of pictures of mangled Israeli bodies---should those be in Wikipedia in order to illustrate what happened? --Delirium 21:28, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- Showing the same corpse out of two different perspectives is pointless. Showing different concentration camps, different gas chambers in different regions is not, nor is showing the wide range of atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. In this case, the different images show different types of humiliation (the electric schock threat, the hoods, the body pile, the sex acts), they show the behavior of the soldiers (laughing, smiling and pointing, proudly posturing in front of the "human pyramid") -- this is hardly redundant, and all of it is part of the evidence of what happened. What you are trying to pull off here is the most blatant attempt of censorship I have seen on Wikipedia in recent months.--Eloquence* 21:34, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- If I were interested in censoring the images, I hardly think Wikipedia would be the place to go, given that the news sites that have them have orders of magnitude more readers than we do---nearly everyone coming here has already seen the images, unless they live in a cave and don't read the news. What I'm interested in is why we have an image gallery here, when it is standard Wikipedia policy to only use a few illustrative images, and not use image galleries. We could, for example, show images of Palestinians blowing up cafes... or blowing up buses... or blowing up military checkpoints... celebrating in the streets afterwards... we could show torture committed by the Palestinian Authority... we could show any number of things, but don't, because this is an encyclopedia, not a catalogue of atrocities. This isn't the place for evidence, but discussion. --Delirium 22:20, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- Actually, I suppose I didn't formulate my objection well enough. I think this does give the impression of trying to show evidence of atrocities, which isn't our job. We should simply neutrally describe things. This has a bit of the feel of advocacy. For what it's worth, I didn't support the invasion, and don't support Bush, but don't think opposition to Bush and the war should be based on propagandistic images, but on actual reasons. --Delirium 22:23, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- Describing things neutrally is not identical to evoking no emotions. The latter is inevitable when dealing with subjects like this. We do not portray these pictures as anything except exactly what they are - a description of the events that occurred in this particular prison at the end of last year. If you want to interpret this as a pro-Bush or anti-Bush thing, then that is your business. Describing the facts of a matter is the job of an encyclopedia, and in this case, the images and the article work together to tell the story of what happened.--Eloquence* 22:39, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
The pictures violate NPOV policy. They make the soldiers look like monsters. I'm saying this and I was pro-war. --Merovingian ↕ T@Lk 22:00, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- The pictures are why this article exists and is on the front page of Wiki. The individual soldiers involved do indeed look like monsters and its going to have a significant impact on US involvement in Iraq. Its a historical event, or at very least a very newsworthy one, and probably one Iraqis are going to remember for a long, long time.Stargoat 22:04, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- That doesn't tell me why they violate the policy, suggested by your assent, and are still allowed here. --Merovingian ↕ T@Lk 22:08, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- Asserting something does not make it so. Do you claim that the images are an inaccurate presentation of what happened? If so, how? If not, then they are clearly factual and thus perfectly acceptable in accordance with our policies. If you don't like what happened because it conflicts with your preconceived notions of how the world should be, then that is unfortunate, but unrelated to Wikipedia policy. It is not our job to shape reality in such a fashion as to make it more convenient for your brain.--Eloquence* 22:43, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
- Hisss... You're right; the pictures are factual, and therefore acceptable. --Merovingian ↕ T@Lk 22:47, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
This story has been receiving widespread coverage in the UK and presumably many other countries. But we are told that it is receiving little attention in the US and failed to make the front pages of pretty much every newspaper in the USA (page 22 of the Washington Post according to Channel 4 News). So I'm proud that Wikipedia has this on the "In The News" section. Now of course we have new pictures of British soldiers mistreating prisioners splashed across the Daily Mirror. It's a shameful business. Mintguy (T) 23:17, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Well, it's been the top story on CNN.com all day, and was all over the TV news. --Delirium 23:34, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
The following "Sir Michael Jackson, chief of the UK general staff, said similarly, "if proven, the perpetrators are not fit to wear the Queen's uniform and they have besmirched the Army's good name and conduct." is in completely the wrong place. Mike Jackson was referring to the the incident that is depicted on the front of the Daily Mirror, which is a completely different incident, not occuring in Abu Ghraib prison. So I'm going to remove the text on this basis. Mintguy (T) 23:27, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Ah, sorry about that. The BBC article was confusing, and didn't mention where the other incident took place, so being that it was in the same article, and the issue was raised on the same day, I assumed it took place in the same location. Perhaps we should move all this to a separate page on mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by the coalition, regardless of location, and link to that article from here? --Delirium 23:34, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
Aren't these photos copyvios? RickK 23:32, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- I think an easy fair use case can be made for at least including some of them. --Delirium 23:34, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)