Is Wapping or Washington the Dumbest Place On Earth?

Oh dear.

Let's just hand a despotic dictator the moral high ground, giving him just cause to sue his captors and a newspaper belonging to one of the main ideological backers of the man who brought him low, shall we?

The Sun, Britain's sleaziest tabloid, has printed photos of Saddam in his underwear. Fairly tame for the rightwing tits-and-tattle paper that once crowed "Gotcha" as the Argentine cruiser Belgrano was torpedoed and sunk with over 2,000 crew aboard. Pretty much par for a newsrag that makes most of it's daily grind out of printing celebs and models in their underwear or less. Except for one small thing - Saddam is a prisoner of the US military.

Thus proving yet again that there is no intelligent life in Wapping. As if the headlines "Hell's Grannies Coven is a Cauldron of Sin" or "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster" weren't proof enough.

The trouble, you see, is that he is therefore covered by the Geneva Convention, which clearly say countries must protect prisoners of war in their custody from "public curiosity". - he isn't some celeb who can safely be a victim of the paparazzi and the tabloids.

According to the AP report, "The Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch, said the photos it published Friday and Saturday were provided by a U.S. military official it did not identify who hoped their release would deal a "body blow" to the insurgency."
According to the BBC report, the Sun's source is quoted as saying "it's important that the people of Iraq see him like that to destroy the myth."
Thus proving yet again that "military intelligence" is an oxymoron.

The White House couldn't get it's story straight either, with Bush saying "I don't think a photo inspires murderers, these people are motivated by a vision of the world that is backward and barbaric," while White House press spokesamn Trent Duffy said a few hours later that ""This could have serious impact, as we talked about, with the revelations of prisoner abuse."

Meanwhile, a statement from the US military said it was "disappointed at the possibility that someone responsible for the security, welfare, and detention of Saddam would take and provide these photos for public release".
The US military would "aggressively" investigate, the statement said.

It is clear that the pictures were taken inside the prison, which means that American soldiers have leaked the pictures," said Saddam's chief lawyer, Ziad al-Khasawneh. "We will sue the newspaper and everyone who helped in showing these pictures." It's pretty clear that they have good cause, not just against the Sun and the leaker, but against the US military because of the idea of "command responsibility".

Now, reaction from the Arab world so far has ranged from outrage to outright hilarity, with a tendency towards the latter, so the pics may marginally tarnish the insurgencies image - but a "body blow"? Methinks the unnamed military official who leaked the photos reads too many rightwing blogs.