Redaction in Action

[andrewducker]

Chatting to spidermonster yesterday and he forwarded me bits of a BBC article that started

Gen Caldwell said Wednesday night was the first time US forces had "definite unquestionable information" they could strike the target without causing collateral damage to civilians.

and finished

They were followed "very shortly thereafter" by US ground forces, who "swept through the site and identified six persons that had been killed in that strike at that time". The dead included a woman and a child, and two others still to be identified.

Which makes sense only if you don't count Iraqi children as civilians.

I then popped over to the BBC to see this for myself. To find that some articles mentioned the child, but the one that he'd sent me the clipping from didn't. And then, when I went back to look at the article that mentioned the child it had been updated to read

On Thursday he said the six bodies included a child, but on Friday he said his information had changed. There were three dead men, three dead women, and no children.

All of which makes you wonder. It really does...

Comments

[ripperlyn.livejournal.com]

But what about people who are 16, 17, 18, 19? That's a bit of a grey area, isn't it? If you're 16 and you've grown up in a warzone, or even lived in one the last few years, surely your outlook and experience are going to be different.

When my cousin died, he was 18, so the article in the paper called him a 'man.' But think about the 18 year olds you know and how many of them you'd really classify as 'adults.' Articles like these don't really ever say 'young adult' or 'older teenager,' there are only 2 categories to put them in.

Not that I'm saying it isn't fishy. Just playing devil's advocate.

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

Give 'em a chance and they'll redact the whole thing...
US in Iraq? No, we wre never there ;@)

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

6 people killed, thats the constant. Are the ages so important? Are we being haunted here by the notion that some deaths are more deserved than others?

[andrewducker]

It was the "civilians" bit that seemed contradictory.

And yes, some deaths are more deserved than others. While I don't like the idea of people being killed, I can see it as sometimes being necessary, and the deaths of people who weren't connected bothers me more than the deaths of people who were deliberately engaged in the fight.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Well, if they say "no civilians", then they presumably mean that all those killed were fighters. Children generally are not fighters; if they are, it's generally acknowledged that they will have been forced into that role. Either way, killing them is, yes, more wrong than killing an adult who has chosen to take part in a war.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

just interesting to bring our default age, gender and war cliches into the light and examine them...what if, for instance, the "child" was one of those 14 years old psycho thugs who are currently knife carving and happy slapping (aka GBHing) their way through our social space; someone for whom the situation in Iraq was like being set loose in a sweet shop. What if the three "men" are earliy twenty Iraqi Rupert Brookes, forced by peer pressure, religion, parents and just sheer bloody awful circumstance into a situation they abominate in which they died terrified and alone?

Until I know the details of the indivduals, I'm happier not buying into the "its ok, they were blokes" method of dolling out or sympathies.

[andrewducker]

Personally, I'm also not happy about the idea of collateral damage at all. But then I'm also not in favour of demonising the kids who cause damage in the streets either.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

demonising, hmmm. How, exactly, might one go about demonsing, taking three recent examples, the 14 year old girl who kicked in the head of the gay nail bomb survivor "like a football", laughing, until he dies; the 13 year old in peckham who stabbed a guy in the heart at a bus stop for his mobile phone; the one that raped the 8 and three year olds. What exactly would demonising these people mean?

All I know is that psychopathy is a _human_ trait, one that, if its there, usually emerges pretty early (pre-pubescently). Its not uncommon, and people with it tend to be OK about hurting other people, or even enjoy it. I really dont know what it would mean to demonise them. They are what they are.

[andrewducker]

That's overly essentialist to me. While I believe that people have tendencies, I also think they can changed and be changed.

There are terrible people out there, and generally I feel sorry for them. Albeit not as sorry as I feel for the people who they hurt.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

we're waaaay off topic i guess, but i think the evidence is largely against you. Traits are stable and not a lot to do with enviroment, will or change. There may indeed be some enviroments that encourage and others that supress the supression of traits. Like, say , gayness: its much easier to be gay in big western cities these days, so more people will express the trait BUT that doesnt mean that A. if trait isn't expressed in a small african village that it isnt there or B. that you could change someones orientation if you wanted to. Believe me, the behaviorists and the christians have tried.

Same with psychopathy, anti-socialness. Its probably more suited to working class inner cities, or the army, so more expressed, but they also reckon its highly over-represented in the top echelons of buisiness and politics. You really do need to be a bastard to succeed in some enviroments. And please, save your sympathy. I dont think they need it, and they certainly wouldnt want it.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

that supress the supression of traits.

should read: supress the expression of traits.

[andrewducker]

Gah.

We're not going to agree on this one, I know. When it comes down to it, I empathise with people even if they're unpleasant and you don't - it's come up a few times now. I suspect we'll just have to agree that we disagree :->

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

oh probably you are right; Ive become a curmudgeon with age and will no doubt be capmaigning to bring back hanging soon...I didn't used to believe in human badness, now I'm almost overly sensitised to it.

[andrewducker]

Don't worry too much about it - we'll just get you a subscription to The Spectator and the Daily Mail.

But yeah - the change to have less empathy for scary violent people seems to be common with aging - people become less idealistic and more realistic as they get older, I suspect.

[andrewducker]

Being a bastard, maybe. Bludgeoning people to death? Less so.

It's the expression of the trait that we were originally talking about, and I firmly believe that the conditions of poverty and despair that tend to characterise the background of those people it's most expressed in isn't a coincidence.

There are many people who have changed from being violent and unpleasant, found a reason to change their lives and become better people. I'm sure there are people who are beyond help, but I'm not convinced it's more than a tiny percentage who are completely lacking in empathy.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Where did anyone bring gender into it?

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

im afraid that was me, sorry.

[azalemeth.livejournal.com]

When the member of the American military announced that "the person with the most blood on his hands in Iraq is dead", I honestly _did_ think of Bush....