>You will remember, Chris, that I said that I personally didn't see any mistreatment of Iraqi POWs.

Yes, I did read that.

>The point I'm making above is who's to say what is insulting, degrading, and displaying for public curiousity?!?! So it is the SHOWING that seems to be problematic for the U.S. I know full well that they have to be searched, and later confined, but SHOWING that on TV **IS** insulting and degrading and showing it on U.S. (and other) TV **IS** to satiate public curiousity. There's no two ways about it!

There is a huge difference between independent reporters coming upon these Iraqi soldiers, either in the process of surrendering or being held, and Iraqi STATE TV broadcasting these interviews. I just saw brief clips of the American POWs, and they look terrified. I have seen the Iraqi POWs in clips, they look bored.

>The minor fact that U.S. (and most other) stations showing the Iraqi POWs versus the U.S. POWs being shown on STATE TV has NOTHING to do with permissibility under the Geneva Conventions or anything else, especially when the American stations honoured the governmental 'request'. Do you not think that CNN or Fox or NBC or CBS or ABC weren't dying to be there to get the images of the U.S. POWs??? You bet your sweet A** they were!

I have already seen the images of the American POWs on CNN. AFTER their families had been notified. Furthermore, independent TV stations are not bound by the Geneva Conventions, at least so far as I know. The government holding the POWs is.

>I've now seen momentary clips of 3 "interrogations". They were asked their names, by a TV reporter. I can't in all earnestness call that "interrogation". I'm sure Wolf Blitzer would have been only too pleased to do exactly the same thing.

And here is the key difference... the U.S. military is not allowing reporters to interview the Iraqi POWs.

>Sure. But IN THIS WAR it is decidedly one-sided. And remember, it was the U.S. government that asked them not to show these images. Sure the networks said it was their own decision, but it never would have been an issue if the government had stayed silent on the matter.

CNN waited until the families of the American POWs had been notified. It has not yet shown the POWs whose families have not been notified. And after the 1991 Gulf War, there is good reason for those families to be worried. The families of the Iraqi POWs should have no such worries.