South Park creators given signed photo of Saddam Hussein
 

This is too freaking awesome!

For those that don't know/remember, in the 1999 movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Saddam Hussein is pictured as gay, the boyfriend of Satan, and meets a horrible demise at the end of the movie.

Well it seems that during his captivity, good old Saddam was forced to watch this movie repeatedly. :evil:

The story doesn't indicate if the photo was just signed or addressed to them, but the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, were given an autographed photo of Saddam by the US Army's 4th Infantry Division.

Hahahahahahahaha and HA!

That sounds too good to be true. Please tell me it's not just an urban legend. If it's not true, then don't tell me. I want to go on believing.

Sorry, but that's just petty vengeance. It lowers the dignity of the service members involved and the nation as a whole.

Oh yes, our service members in Iraq have such dignity. And THIS is the incident that ruined their reputation as dignified soldiers serious about their mission.

Well, yes, considering they were tea bagging Hussein while he was trying to watch the movie. How rude!

I see, so as soon as one soldier (or group) does something wrong the entire worldwide forces of the United States Of America have carte blanche to do whatever the fvck they want.

What's wrong is wrong. Saddam was already heading for the noose, what benefit was there in their actions? Zero.

Was there a tangible benefit? No, of course not. But I gotta tell ya, sometimes wiping someone's nose in their own sh¡t is pretty damn pleasurable.

It would have been nice to be able to say that our forces conducted themselves better than the people who carried out his execution.

sh¡t

^^^ I did it!

Now get off the pot.

I'm with these guys. We're supposed to be the good guys. Does that mean I condone what Saddam did? Fvck no. Does that mean I didn't find that South Park episode funny? Nope, it was funny. But I don't think we needed to force him to watch it, and I hope the autographed photo was not personalized.

Add me to the list.

But, I can understand the pleasure it might bring some people, and they're certainly entitled to it.

But, it's definitely something I personally think was tasteless and a waste of time.

Yes, i might agree, but it's so piddly compared with the way SOME of our soliders in Iraq treated and continue to treat detainees, that it's hardly worth posting even this much complaint about it.



And, of course, it passes the Roger Rabbit rule of acceptance ... i.e, as long as it was funny.

I think if you put yourself in their shoes, it's easy to see it as a mostly harmless way to feel a little better.

Your friends, coworkers, buddies were blown up, shot to death, or killed in some fashion because of him. You are stuck there without your family because of him (and yeah - I know they enlisted for that but go with me). Is making him watch a silly movie that makes fun of him really all that big of a deal by comparison?

He was a bad man and was made to watch South Park. Oh noes!

I blame Canada.

Well, actually, they were blown up, etc., because of George W. Bush. I don't recall that our invasion of Iraq had anything to do with anything but the potential threat Saddam posed.

To decent sentence structure, apparently.

I propose that George W. Bush also be forced to watch endless hours of all South Park episodes he's featured in.

He was a horrible man who did deplorable things. But we're supposed to be the good guys. We're supposed to be bigger than that.

I have no doubt Iraq would have been invaded eventually by some President, but that doesn't mean how we went about invading was right. So ya, those men and women are over there and how they got there (enlisted, re-enlisted, stop-lossed, however) doesn't matter. They are there, they are supposed to be representing the USA and freedom. Not humiliation, degrading behaviors or torture of anyone, regardless of their actions. Saddam got "what was coming" - he was executed by his countrymen. We didn't need to bring excess fuel to the fire.

I'm pretty sure that Kim Jung Il is getting North Korea put on a short list for some sort of invasion. And I don't think that he should be forced to watch Team America: World Police.

I'm not saying those movies or episodes should never have been made. They were hilarious. There was nothing gained but more animosity towards America by making Saddam watch it over and over and over again.

Either it was done with a purpose (in which I tend to doubt it was useful in achieving that purpose but am willing to be proven wrong) or it was just done to be dicks to him.

Regardless of provocation simply doing some to be a dick is, well, dickish.

Exactly. I think it's along the lines of "two wrongs don't make a right".

Also, let me restate - I have no issue with the episode of South Park, or the movie Team America and I have no issue with the picture (if it wasn't a forced autograph).

So, let me get this straight. It's ok if they play "These Boots Are Made for Walking" at top decibal 24/7 if the objective is to sleep deprive your captive for advanced interrogation techiniques, but it's not cool to play "Bigger Longer and UnCut" ad-infinitum if the purpose is to humiliate him?

Per the Geneva Convention, I guess that would be right. Unless the "advanced interrogation techniques" are torture, which under Bush they probably were.

So... by that logic if the South Park movie was only played to keep him awake and not to humilate him that would be okay?

Yes. Which is why I think it's absurd everyone getting in an uproar about playing the movie over and over, but - aside from the recent "Torture" thread, which had like 2 replies - I haven't seen any panties in a bunch about similar and far worse techniques being used on more common prisoners.

Besides, no one's alleged Saddam was all Ludivico'd with toothpicks propping his eyes open while tied to a chair with his head in a vice. How, exactly, did they "make" him watch it? Was it projected on all four walls of his cell?

More than likely, he was made to listen to it, because you can't really escape sound. And if this particular sound was designed to humiliate rather than "advanced interrogate," please put that in the perspective of guard dogs, naked human pyramids, koran desecration, hoods and stress position and wires attached to the genitals.


Let's get a freaking grip about the South Park torture.

I didn't say it was worse than torture.

I said the people who did it were probably just doing it to be dicks. And when you do something to be a dick then you are a dick.

Is it the worst thing in the world? No. I'd just prefer that people not go around trying to be dicks. I especially prefer that prison guards not be dicks to their prisoners. I even more prefer that they not torture them but I'm a dreamer and dream of a world in which I get both.

I think he should.

But I'm in favor of being a dick to the dicks of the world.

I just want to say that I really like this post.

I, too, agree with the gist of Alex's post ...

But I also think American Soldiers being a dick to Saddam Hussein, in particular, is the smallest problem in the entire world. Smaller than little Bobbie's pimple on his neck this morning. Smaller than not having exact change.

That would be because you all were not celebrating the torture of prisoners in other threads I have seen.

Now if you want to post a thread laughing at and celebrating the treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib then yes, I suspect I would respond to that and do so much more fervently than I did this issue.

Same here.

I will admit that the thought of Hussein having to watch South Park is pretty damn funny. Reason being - he was a genocidal murderer, and if that's as bad as it gets, it works for me. Forcing Hitler to watch The Producers would be funny too. GODWIN, BIATCHES.

Now, making anyone watch anything hundreds of times, or full blast all night long, is cruel. If it truly were to this extent I would be unhappy with it, regardless of who is locked up in there.

All very subjective, I guess. But I think it crosses the line into torture when you talk about sleep deprivation or endless repetition.

To be clear (if I wasn't), I don't give a gnat's ass about how Hussein felt about it. I also don't particularly consider sleep deprivation to be an inexcusable form of torture (though if carried far enough it can be). As said, if that is the worst thing that happened to him then go cry me a river.

All I'm talking about are the motivations driving the people who did it. And regardless of how cosmically justified a prisoners humiliation is, prison guards doing it just because they can reflects poorly of the prison guards.

Yes, it is troubling in anybody but I would say it is particularly troubling in prison guards since they exercise complete control over other people. If "he deserves it because he's a bad person" and "it's just embarrassment and not torture" and "well, it is funny" are sufficient reason to excuse them behaving anything less than professionally (even if we can certainly understand the temptation) then this opens the door to a whole lot of behavior we rightfully condemn.

And that is why I say my response might be different if it was done in pursuit of a concrete goal. If they were pursuing a theory that Hussein was so egotistically fragile that 15 viewings of South Park would prompt him to reveal every mass grave in Iraq then that is different and should be discussed within a different framework.

And just what qualities do you expect from people who choose to have complete domination and control over other people?


This is all well and good if you're talking about some petri dish with SIM creatures. But with humanity, we don't have to wonder why politicians are corrupt or why prison guards are cruel.

But should we revel in it?

Yes, I see. Since we can't realistically expect perfection (which we can't) we should clap at and applaud the failures.

Get outta my head!

Get outta my head! Both of you.

VAM.

Just practicing, since you've named me your successor

So perhaps we should secretly endorse torture so we don't have to feel bad about wanting to be a dick sometimes?

No, we should not revel in it. But we should accept it. That's right, accept it.


And I am not exactly reveling in the Saddam/South Park situation. I'm not applauding. But I am laughing. It's irony and it's funny.

Frankly, I'm not opposed to people being dicks to people that have been convicted of doing Very Bad Things.

If someone killed your mother or your son or daughter and was convicted and put in prison for it, how sad are you that the guard is a dick to that person? Be honest, doesn't it make you a little happy to know that the guy isn't having a great time there? Or is all that matter is that he's in jail and you prefer that everyone there is as nice as they can be to them?

Yes, and that is why they don't let the families of the crime victims serve as guards for prisoners.

Just because a desire towards an action is understandable doesn't mean it should be condoned.

Like I said, I'm not sad at all if Hussein was unhappy. And in the annals of attempts by prison guards to humiliate their prisoners showing a movie over and over is hardly that egregious.

I still don't find it amusing. It is, after all, essentially the same feeling that humiliation of prisoners was ok because it was cathartic that lead to creating a naked prisoner pyramid. There is hardly a history suggesting that prison guards can be trusted to stop at "playful vaguely amusing and ironic humiliation."

And of course, there is the idea that even in the face of provocation there is dignity in being the better person.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is a great study.

A friend of mine was shot and killed when we were in high school. I still prefer jailhouse justice take care of him then the prison guards being dicks just because they can.

What's that saying? Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Yes, it's an absolute. So why are we even surprised that soldiers are dicks? Prison guards sadists? What kind of people do you suppose seek out these jobs?

It's bad enough that, yes, the positions themselves will tend to corrupt even a "normal" person ... but these are voluntary positions sought out by people with proclivities toward violence, domination and control.

The inevitability of it doesn't change the fact that if I think it's wrong I'm going to react to it as if it's wrong.

People are going to murder each other, no matter how hard we try to stop it, so maybe we should just laugh about murder and have movie makers talk about how great it is that the latest headline murderer made their victim watch their movie while they killed them. I mean, why are we surprised that murderers murder people?

In this context, that's an excuse for the taunting behavior by the Iraqis who executed Saddam, not by our troops.

That's not what I meant, Greg. Though, I didn't explain myself fully.

Murderers are the perfect example. They exist, they will always exist. I believe good people should react strongly against murder, and should work against it to the greatest extent possible ... while realizing no amount of work will ever bring an end to it.


Because ending it is not what's important. What's important ... and this is just my particular philosophy - is who we each choose to be in reaction to it. We may never rid the world of murder, but we are living up to our own ideals if we fight against it ... and of course, if our ideals say murder is a bad thing. The ideals of murderers may not say so. And neither one of us is intrinsically right or wrong. Those are human values assigned by man, and which don't exist in nature. Still ... allowing for human concepts of good and evil, I believe the best we can do is fight the "good" fight, though there can never be a victory lest good cease to exist.

Because for anything to exist - so must its opposite. Just as there can be no such thing as Up without a thing known as Down, there can be no 'good' without 'evil.' Murderers must exist so that people who don't murder can also exist.


That is the kind of acceptance I mean. Not that any particular instance of prison guard abuse shouldn't be railed against and battled, but that the phenonomen and the people who fill that necessary role must be accepted ... if we also want compassionate and professional prison guards to exist.


Since I strive to find a balance between supporting my values in the world -and- accepting the imperatives of the universe, I take everything on a case-by-case basis. Abu-Ghraib tends to find me more railing-against, and Saddam forced to watch South Park tends to find me more accepting.

Both are "bad" in my value system. Both are necessary for their opposites to even exist. Since I am pleased to be a person who (I hope) would not seek to torture or humiliate prisoners under my watch, in some sense I am thankful for those that do. They fill a necessary niche in the world. And I am free to be their opposite.

It's an arrangement I rather like.


And I still get rather tickled about this particular bad act.

And you lose me here. Murderers exist. People who don't murder exist. I do not believe one gives rise to the other, nor do I believe they are cosmically linked by any sort of yin-yang requirement of the world. They are independent, rising from simple statistics.

Which is based on a belief in something for which I have no evidence and therefore cannot agree with.

As with Alex, I have no sympathy for Saddam in the situation, nor do I consider the act particularly heinous on a relative scale. And, were Matt and Trey to have thought of it and put it in an episode of South Park as a theoretical situation, I would have laughed at it. But faced with the reality of an individual who chooses to act like that, I don't find it amusing, I find it cowardly and pathetic.

If one of those soldiers happened to be sitting next to me in a bar and told me how he'd sat and laughed at Saddam while showing him the movie just to rub it in Saddam's face, I would have thought, "Wow, this guy is a fvking prick, I want nothing to do with him."

And again, I post in this thread with nothing to say but "I agree." On all counts. Is it the worst thing ever? Of course not. Is it dickish and lame? In the context of a real-life situation, yes.

I have nothing to add but "well said".

My criminal law professor said something similar: that a system of private vengeance would result in a more justly administered death penalty than the current system where we express our collective will, which tends to drag in considerations like race, class and the Faces-of-Death-watching impulse to see another human being suffer.