Flash of Death
All of the major news networks and newspapers I've seen haven't hesitated to show the dead body of Al-Zarqawi after a half-t0n bomb fell on the house he was hiding in.
First point to make- I didn't like the man, but I'm not "glad" he's dead. When we start to feel joy over another's death, we begin to depart from that which makes us human. Killing or capturing him was a military objective, not an emotional one. While there are those that must die, doing so must not make us feel better through the death itself- it is the results thereof that make us feel more secure, and thus better. He was a horrible person, but we begin to match his horrible nature if we sing and dance when he's dead.
In short, we should never derive joy from death. Ever. Even the animals are not so coarse in their behavior.
Secondly, and I've posted on this before- I regret that the media seems to have disdained the sanctity of death by showing human bodies in such an accessible fashion. Kids should not have to look at this stuff due to a careless accident. It should be available for mature consumption, but it should require more than the turn of a knob to find it.
There is no "moral" threshold that determines if it's okay to place the picture of a man's corpse on the front cover of a newspaper. Al-Zarqawi's "badness" does not make it okay to parade around his corpse's image as a tool of war propaganda. As I recall, dragging around the body of dead soldiers is exactly the tactic that the enemy soldiers used in Somalia. I wouldn't be surprised if we are using his pictures if only because of the cumbersone bidding war that would ensue over the man's body, if such a thing was allowed.
Certainly we are better than this. Or at least, I hope we are.
First point to make- I didn't like the man, but I'm not "glad" he's dead. When we start to feel joy over another's death, we begin to depart from that which makes us human. Killing or capturing him was a military objective, not an emotional one. While there are those that must die, doing so must not make us feel better through the death itself- it is the results thereof that make us feel more secure, and thus better. He was a horrible person, but we begin to match his horrible nature if we sing and dance when he's dead.
In short, we should never derive joy from death. Ever. Even the animals are not so coarse in their behavior.
Secondly, and I've posted on this before- I regret that the media seems to have disdained the sanctity of death by showing human bodies in such an accessible fashion. Kids should not have to look at this stuff due to a careless accident. It should be available for mature consumption, but it should require more than the turn of a knob to find it.
There is no "moral" threshold that determines if it's okay to place the picture of a man's corpse on the front cover of a newspaper. Al-Zarqawi's "badness" does not make it okay to parade around his corpse's image as a tool of war propaganda. As I recall, dragging around the body of dead soldiers is exactly the tactic that the enemy soldiers used in Somalia. I wouldn't be surprised if we are using his pictures if only because of the cumbersone bidding war that would ensue over the man's body, if such a thing was allowed.
Certainly we are better than this. Or at least, I hope we are.
posted by Yorick at 8:59 PM
3 Comments:
Interesting thing I heard on one of my podcasts the other day - probably an NPR piece -
that when a muslim dies as a martyr, this sort of publicity over their death, and the parading of their corpse, would be exactly the sort of thing they would WANT. I found that unusual, that we're basically playing into al-Zarqawi's wishes by prominently displaying his martyrdom to the world at large.
Something tells me that was not the intent.
I did not let my kids watch the news the other day, despite the fact that they were very curious after the lead ins, I didn't want any nightmares featuring The Big Dead Head.
Thanks for posting, Zuska.
I think our society has become so visually stimulated that, as a whole, we are no longer satisfied my simply hearing just words.
They could have said, "Al-Zarqawi was killed yesterday after the Army dropped a huge bomb. As a result of the blast, he suffered for almost an hour before dying. Blood spittled around his mouth, he moaned a little bit, and he was in excruciating pain. We'd show you the picture, but it is indeed graphic. If you wish to view it, please visit our website."
Of course, that's being facetious, but you get the point. They could have relayed the exact same information through words alone, and left the pictures for the adventurous adult to dig up.
What's amazing to me is that there is a "line" that is always shifting further and further away. Apparently his bruised and lifeless face was okay to show, but not the whole body.
Ten years from now they'll show you the severed limbs and burned genitalia, I'm guessing. All for the sake of "news."
if they just said it - no matter how much bloody spittle they spoke of - I would have had doubts in my mind. I would have wondered if it was a PR stunt designed to help poll numbers.
And I'm here, in this country.
I believe that they showed the photos in Iraq out of necessity. If the press here didn't show them, foreign press would have, and at least the blogosphere still would have picked it up. And I believe that those of us who listen to the radio or are otherwise informed know how loathe the mainstream press would be if they were said to be missing a scoop that the blogosphere publicized.
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