Murder

[Phil Graham]

Dear all,

I posted the original page last night -- it contains very disturbing and
graphic images of violence. If you are interested to visit the page, please
make sure you read the realted links. Somewhat ironically for the western
press, the most balanced reportage comes from the electronic intifada. The
following is an update for the lists to which I originally sent the message.
Best,
Phil

*******
As promised, I have updated the murder page
http://www.philgraham.net/murder.html, putting links to collated responses
which also contain other links to varied and conflicting reports of the
event. As one correpondent put it, the controversy seems to turn on the
question of whether the person executed had a bomb, and why the last
picture of the robot was left out. Also, there is a question of whether it
is video frames or photographs. The name in the original post appears to be
incorrect. Regardless of whether there was a bomb, the person was
restrained and his clothes removed prior to his being shot through the
head. It is doubtful that shooting a person through the head will stop a
bomb exploding. In fact it seems rather stupid to let off guns in the
presence of an explosive device.

I'm sure there will be more about this. The page has been hit more than 300
times in less than 24 hours.

This has to stop. Heiko Recktenwald says it reminds him of South Vietnam.
It had the same effect on me. I remember as a child the footage of the
south vietnamese officer shooting a bound young man through the head in the
middle of a street.

Somehow, and for some reason unknown to me, these kinds of state-sponsored
summary executions seem to me to be far more reprehensible in moral terms
than do suicide bombing, regardless of the innocence or otherwise of the
victims (I do not condone any form of violence). Perhaps someone can tell
me why. There are mass murders being carried out at the moment in
Palestine. There is a difference between "an eye for an eye", a stupid
philosophy of "justice" in any case, and the logic of mass, state sponsored
reprisals and summary executions which amount to the dismemberment of a
perpetrator's civilization in response to the loss of a dozen teeth.

If you have visited the page recently you will of course have to refresh
the page to get the new links and discussion page. There are many varying
reports. We saw nothing of this in our media here in Australai. News here
has degenerated into harmless tabloid entertainment. For example, the Queen
Mother's death has taken up the media agenda here for most of the last two
weeks.

Best regards,
Phil

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Opinions expressed in this email are my own unless otherwise stated.
If you have received this in error, please ignore and delete it.
Phil Graham
Senior Lecturer
UQ Business School
www.philgraham.net

2002 Events
Towards Humane Technologies, UQ, July 15-17, 2002
www.uq.edu.au/gsm/biomediaindex.html
Norman Fairclough CDA Master Classes, UQ, July 2002
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