"The female" "A female", bah on CNN (Dehumanizing victim)

[uppityperson]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/07/iraq.mahmoudiya.ap/index.html

U.S. soldiers accused of raping and murdering an Iraqi female drank alcohol and hit golf balls before the attack, and one of them grilled chicken wings afterward, an investigator told a U.S. military hearing Monday, citing a soldier's sworn statement....
(clip)
According to Barker's sworn statement cited by Bierce, Green not only raped the female, but also shot her and her family members after telling his comrades repeatedly that he wanted to kill some Iraqis.
(clip)
According to Bierce, Barker told him that when they arrived at the house, the father and the female were outside the house. (clip) Barker wrote that Cortez pushed the female to the floor, (clip)Barker then tried to rape the female,(clip)...

At the beginning of the article, they give Abeer's name, but no mention of her being a teen, or an individual unique person, only a female, the female, etc. bah.

Yes, rape, murder mutilation of anyone is horrible, but I am angry at the media for dehumanizing the victim, downplaying the EXTRA ADDED part of this being a 14 yr old girl. (edited to add dehumanizing

[derby378]

1. Her name is Abeer. She was only 14 years old when she was killed.

Anyone who tries to sugarcoat this story is on my list.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. What a fucking abomination...

:grr:

[sui generis]

3. the media is complicit; absolutely

You can give CNN feedback, if not contact the journalist directly. There is a huge broad line between not stoking an emotional response and dehumanizing the victim.

[uppityperson]

4. I have written them, today, yesterday, day before, etc

Dehumanizing, that is the term, thank you.

[JitterbugPerfume]

5. dehumanizing

---you beat me to it "the Female" sounds anonymous somehow

[theHandpuppet]

6. It's called objectifying the victim.

Makes it easier to rape, murder and immolate "it" so you can then go back to barracks and grill some wings.

[Tanuki]

7. and not even human,

since "female" could just as easily refer to an animal.

[uppityperson]

8. exactly, except for the first mention of her name, not even clear human

[Igel]

9. Some place else I read that the document with her age

was being disputed.

If you call her a girl, you're rendering a judgment that the document was accurate and the defense's claim false. If you call her a woman, you're rendering a judgment that the document was false and the defense's claim accurate. CNN's trying to give the impression they're neutral on the matter.

"Victim" would do.

[uppityperson]

10. CNN put out doctored ID, yes "victim" is better than "the female"

yesterday there was a topic here with media link that someplace was putting out manipulated ID.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1835200

Here is the undoctored ID


Link to contact CNN
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?35

[Recursion]

22. Cross-posting (and expanding) my attempt at translation

With the caveat that I'm bad with hand-written Arabic, and this is really hard to read.

The four characters towards the top left (two of them look like 9's) I thought at first was '1992' printed backwards like cheap printers will sometimes do in Arabic. But then I looked again and it's not backwards or 1992, it's 002997, which I would assume is some kind of serial number for the girl or the document.

The flourishy stuff I can never read.

Now for the stuff in the center; the red stuff on the right is the form questions, and the black stuff in the center is the filled-in information.

First name is "Abiir"
I can't read what the second row says in red, but the black seems to be "maahmudiya" -- I think that's the village she was from?
Next row's red text is "al-lakab", which means nothing to me, and the black appears to read "itnaaya", which also means nothing to me.
The next red row is hopelessly garbled but the black is "Hamza ta(m?h?)"
The next row is hard for me to read but "jinsi" / "untha" (sex / female) fit the basic shapes.
No idea on the next red row with no answer
On the next row, the red and black are both clear: date of birth / 1992-2-18

And then the last two rows with the stamped responses I can't make out.

If anybody has a clearer picture or better mastery of Arabic please do help me out!

[Recursion]

23. Could the doctoring...

...come from the fact that US media as a rule obscures pictures of ("alleged") victims of sexual crimes? Or maybe they thought the picture of her when she was 2 would be too inflammatory... I hope not... we need some people to get inflamed over this...

[The Stranger]

17. Many are "disputing" facts to deflect moral responsibility, when there is

no real dispute to begin with.

[Igel]

24. That she's dead isn't in dispute.

But lawyers are paid to quibble.

The difference doesn't matter for guilt for the one charge. It will for sentencing. And having the victim be 14 versus 20 might add charges.

Rape/kill a girl versus rape/kill a woman ... many, maybe most, consider the former to be a more heinous crime, and are likely to go for a harsher sentence. In this case, if NC has a death penalty, the defendent may skirt it for the woman, but not for the girl. (I personally consider there to be a difference in heinousness, but since both merit the max punishment there's no different in penalty, as far as I'm concerned. But I don't know NC law, if that's where the trial is.)

[Orrex]

11. Why don't they cut to the chase and just call her a C**T?

Hell, she was probably asking for it, right?


Disgusting. If she'd been missing for two hours in the US, we'd have had an Amber Alert in her state and all surrounding states.

[Kailassa]

16. Even in America, there would only be an amber alert

if she was from a "respectable" caucasian family.

Report any other girl missing and you will be told girls just run away from home all the time.

[Orrex]

18. Too true

They should change the color from "amber" to "blond"

(of course, I know that Amber was the girl's name, but the point remains...)

[valerief]

12. She's a child. Not a woman. More than "the female." A child.

If she were a damn stem cell, they'd give her more respect!

[elehhhhna]

13. What next ? A "carbon-based life-form"? FYCK CNN. GLASNOST!

[theHandpuppet]

14. Ugly bag of mostly water?

(To borrow a line from ST:TNG)

[gatorboy]

15. They seem to be downplaying the rape now as well.

What's with these guys suddenly "trying" to rape her? This is the second story I've seen where several of them suddenly have no idea what they're doing....

[uppityperson]

19. I don't care if you get an erection or ejaculate or not.

violence disguised as sex is rape. "I tried but couldn't get an erection" does not let anyone off the hook as far as I am concerned. They terrorized Abeer, murdered Abeer's little sister mother father, murdered Abeer, mutilated Abeer. I really don't care if he managed to stick his penis into Abeer. Excuse me, "allegedly".

[bloom]

20. That is disgusting.

The dehumanization. As if she is not a person with feelings. If they are going to dehumanize somebody - let it be the rapists.

[itzamirakul]

21. How does a poster make a recommendation for an additional option

to the DU site owners?

I was thinking it would be good if there was a pull down menu of email addresses to the major network news stations and the cable news stations like the one we have for Smilies. That way, when we post a response to an OP such as this one that has made so many of us angry and disgusted, wse could also hit the email addy of the station that broadcast this insulting, disrespectful information so that they would get a copy of our response. That way, they would get a good idea of just what many Americans think of their crassness.