I couldn't believe it. I just got to look at the local paper and right on the front page is a picture of the charred bodies hanging from a bridge in Fallujah. How horrific. I cannot beleive what I saw.

I have purposely turned away from the tv and have not looked at the paper today. I heard the story detailed on NPR and it is just too gruesome. Others will disagree, but there are some things that might be a little too gruesome to show on the news or in the paper. The effect of the story is not lost on me without pictures.

This is a perfect example of why I rarely watch the news on t.v. After explaining to all of the horrific pictures from September 11th to my daughter who was six at the time, I decided enough. She doesn't need to see these pictures. I usually catch the news on the radio.

I think it is important to show this to the American people. I also think there is a responsibility to not show it during prime time and to give a warning to allow those who do not want to see it.

The items that I have seen on the internet are blocked until you click on play to view it. It also has a warning that it contains violent scenes or what not. I think that this a wake up call for the United States that these people are not going to change and that we should just get out and let them all take care of each other (if you know what I mean). I was very sickened when I seen the picture of the hanging bodies with children celebrating next to them. This proves to me that it is in their blood and will never change. There I will get off of my soap box now.

I remember a wise professor in a college history course saying that you will never win or end a religious war, especially among an ancient civilization. The statement runs through my head every day I listen to the news.

Who is fighting a religious war?

It would seem they are... and i agree, these "battles" amoungst the middle eastern peoples have been going on since the Old Testament, it seems hard to believe no matter how good our intentions may be, that we'll be able to stop it.

Well, I'm not sure what religion it is that teaches people to drag around and mutilate charred corpses. Maybe it's really no different from any other war, except that the media coverage is constant and real-time.

(This is not a comment on whether that is a negative or positive development.)

I am trying to understand the mindset that finds it acceptable to beat and mutilate charred corpses, drag them through the streets, and hang them from bridges, all the while chanting, displaying banners, dancing, and mugging for the cameras.

On the one hand, I can postulate this scenario: say the 9/11 hijackers somehow had managed to survive by, I dunno, bailing out or something. (Obviously impossible, but go with it.) And then later on, they got tracked down in Anytown, America and were vaporized by the Army with some big missile. I think there might have been a similar celebration by the locals.

But on the whole, I can't recall too many times in recent history where significant numbers of people in the Western world took obvious delight in killing people and then dishonoring their bodies and dragging them around, celebrating wildly all the while.

Dead is dead, and from that perspective it doesn't matter if people are killed by insurgent bombs or coalition counterfire. People are equally dead either way. But you don't see too many of the allied forces dragging bodies around and beating them with shoes and chanting "Iraq, no, no, Christianity, yes, yes."

I don't want to fall into the trap of saying that because of this, all Iraqis or Muslims are primitive and hateful savages. What we saw on camera seemed like a lot of people, but in actuality it was probably comparatively few. For all we know, 98% of people in the Sunni Triangle just want to get on with life, and only a minority are engaged in the attacks. All the same, I think it would be appropriate to use the footage we've seen and hunt down each person who so proudly showed his face and capture them for a swift trial. As one commentator noted, we've captured a lot of people in Iraq, but virtually none have gone to court or really been punished in any way, and so far there's no disincentive NOT to go blowing people up. This may be a case that calls for some Israeli-style "we will hunt you down" reaction.

In determining if showing this type of gruesome footage should be shown or not...I always think, "what if their family was watching this right now?" Can you even for a second imagine the horror and trauma this causes for the friends and family of these men? It disgusts me.

If anyone even haphazardly keeps up with the current events that go on today, you know that inhuman acts occur all the time. I am aware of this, but I don't have to be shown to understand. We see enough violence, enough gore, enough hatred that I can perfectly picture what took place, I don't have to be shown footage to grasp the severity of the situation. JMO.

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I am trying to understand the mindset that finds it acceptable to beat and mutilate charred corpses, drag them through the streets, and hang them from bridges, all the while chanting, displaying banners, dancing, and mugging for the cameras.

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Ever heard of lynchings in the South? What do you think we would do if we were occupied by a militarily more powerful country and we were able to kill a few of the invaders?

I'm not justifying it. I think it's awful and horrible, but some of this rhetoric is clearly racist and nationalistic.

Liberating is an interesting word. We liberated them right out of their power and water supplies, universal healthcare, and a far better educational system for women than we've ever had in this country.

What we did was invade and occupy a country without provocation. The fact that we see ourselves as "good guys" and everyone else as "bad guys" is nationalism, not patriotism. Patriotism is about believing in the things our country was founded on. Where does it say "We hold these truths to be self evident, that we have the knowledge and the right to determine how everyone else can and should live?"

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We liberated them right out of their power and water supplies, universal healthcare, and a far better educational system for women than we've ever had in this country.

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While I agree that the war was not possibly the best thought out idea we've ever had, the statement you make about educational systems for women confounds the heck out of me.

Because of the actions of the previous regime women in Iraq have fallen far behind their counterparts in many other countries. If they were lucky they got to go to sewing classes so they could be slave like laborers making carpets and tapestries for pennies a day until they died of the conditions or were raped while trying to get home after their shifts.

Iraqui women have limited participation in political and civil societs, diminishing the value of womens issues as political concerns.

More than half of Iraq's women are illerate.

Lack of basic and reporductive healthcare has caused high maternal mortality rates.

Iraqu's fertility rate is 5.4 children per woman. Their children often experience low infant birth weight and maternal anemia.

All this and more is a problem because public awareness of women's issues is very low since religious groups continue to advocate restrictions on women's rights.

If that's what you feel is a great system...well I'm stumped.

I'm not sure where you get your information.

Before we invaded Iraq, women were not only allowed to attend college for free in Iraq, but the were paid to do so in order to prevent them from having to work while they studied. Upon graduation, women were guaranteed jobs.

Maybe you're thinking of Afghanistan. We sure did a lot for the women there, huh? Wasn't that one of the main justifications for that whole debacle?

What exactly is your definition of terrorism?

George W. Bush's acts fit our government's definition of terrorism. Saddam Hussein's do not.

Again, not a value judgment, just trying to show that all this catch phrase cliche crap is just that. Crap. My freedom doesn't need to be protected from 10s of thousands of Iraqi civilians, because it was never threatened by them, yet we always hear about how the troops are "protecting our freedom" by killing innocent women and children, and people who godforbid defend their country from foreign invaders.

Turn off Fox News and look to some of the international media. You'll find some very interesting things about the way "our boys" act towards the people we "liberated."

Last question, when exactly did your God declare the United States as the world's moral policeman? Where the hell do we get off "liberating" people who clearly didn't want to be liberated? Also, if this were about liberating Iraq, wouldn't you think some of the "rebuilding" (what we do once we destroy stuff) contracts would have gone to Iraqi companies, as opposed to Dick Cheney's company?

The arguments used by the Bush administration are amazingly similar to those used by Hitler to convince the German people to engage in genocide against the Gypsies and Jews.

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Hermann Goering, designated successor to the Fuhrer Reichsmarshall, 1946, at the Nuremburg Trials

tell them they're being attacked....denounce the pacifists for exposing the country to danger....it works the same in any country....

THINK!

I'll pray for your enlightenment, and hope that someday when you grow up and may have actually experienced (or maybe even found the courage to participate first hand ) something in life other than accepting extremist propaganda as you have, you will understand that your hatred of us who believe in the values of our country was a terribly misplaced stance to take.

Being there and reading about events are always two different things. Yet you liken the current government to Hitler when you know nothing about what really takes place.
You chastise others for accepting information that is contradictory to your belief, yet ask us to blindly accept the propaganda of a foreign press as fact.

IMO you are distorting, rationalizing and flat out making things up to further a political agenda that has nothing to do with Iraq. But perhaps you don't believe it as much as you say because you certainly do not identify yourself with it. Most terrorist and their allies do not identify themselves either.

First of all, I doubt the mainstream European press can accurately be characterized as "extremist propaganda."

The simple fact of the matter is we attacked a country without provocation, who posed us no threat, and the lives of the people there are no better for it. Usurping the sovereignty of other nations is not what I understand to be "the values of this country."

In fact, nothing is more patriotic than dissent. Do you consider our founding fathers to be unpatriotic? Do you consider Martin Luther King Jr. to be unpatriotic? I sincerely hope for YOUR enlightenment.

As for your allegation that I have hatred for people whose views I disagree with, you will see that none of my statements even suggest such a ridiculous thing.

The reference to Hitler was about the tactics of getting the people to rally behind a government objective. As the Germans weren't evil people, and I have no hatred for them, I don't hate people with your views, I just think you're being lied to and you don't know it.

War is a terrible thing. Whether you believe there are justifiable wars or that no war is ever justified, there is no redeeming value to this one. Well over 600 of our boys have died (about 400 in combat) to date, with no end in sight. The people are making it ever clearer that they don't see us as liberators, but as an occupying force, which is precisely what we are.

I don't think I'm unpatriotic because I don't suport unjust wars where over ten thousand innocent civilians and hundreds of young American men from predominantly blue collar families are murdered in my name.

The destruction of the World Trade Center and 3,000 people was not some haphazard, uncontrollable act of nature; it was a deliberate massacre orchestrated and carried-out by evil men with evil intentions. It was a declaration of war. Why do you not mention this provacation?

Pacifist holding up their "Global peace and unity" signs, is not an appropreiate response to such an atrocity. Neither is standing in a circle holding a candle singing "kum ba yah" while terrorists murder your loved ones. Anger, bitterness and a warped and unbalanced view of history constitutes the mindset of a "pacifist"

Organized terrorist groups have attacked America. These groups wish the Americans to not fight. The American
pacifists wish the Americans to not fight. If the Americans do not fight, the terrorists will attack America again. And now we know such attacks can kill many
thousands of Americans. The American pacifists, therefore, are on the side of future mass murders of Americans. They are objectively pro-terrorist.

There is no way out of this reasoning. No honest person can pretend that the groups that attacked America will, if left alone, not attack again. Nor can any honest person say that this attack is not at least reasonably likely to kill thousands upon thousands of innocent people. To not fight in this instance is to let the attackers live to attack and murder again; to be a pacifist in this instance is to accept and, in practice, support this outcome.

As President Bush said of nations: A war has been declared; you are either on one side or another. You are either for doing what is necessary to capture or kill those who control and fund and harbor the terrorists, or you are for not doing this. If you are for not doing this, you are for allowing the terrorists to continue their attacks on America. You are saying, in fact: I believe that it is better to allow more Americans -- perhaps a great many more -- to be murdered than to capture or kill the murderers.

So it doesn't matter if you have not asked to be defended or protected from terrorism, the rest of us have. Don't even begin to speak of American Boys, as you lack the courage to be one of them. You bandy accusations and call them murders. You only use their name for your distortions of truth. The enemies we fight produce the same propaganda.