Just when you thought our international image had reached bottom:
Seems like a fair trade. Snuff for muff. However, Muslims are predictably appalled:
“This disgusting trade in human misery is an insult to all those who have served in our nation’s military,” Arsalan Iftikhar, legal director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in his letter to Rumsfeld.
Apparently, the Army is looking into it but has already determined that no felonies were committed.
Right. There is a possibility of disciplinary action for trading:
Why don’t we just give our soldiers free porn? Or, on a more serious note, why don’t we train them to use their friggin’ heads? Why do so many in our armed forces have so precious little respect for their enemy? And, lastly, what kind of fucking person trades photos of dismembered people for pornography?
“Person” might be too kind of a descriptor for such creatures.
here.
At the bottom of that page, they link to a few samples of the submitted pictures, with the soldier’s captions.
I implore you not to look at them unless you are really ready for something gruesome; they’ve been haunting me since I saw them yesterday.
One soldier’s defense of the practice (from the above link):
As if we don’t see images of death and destruction every flipping day.
I won’t follow that link. Thanks for the warning. I appreciate it.
just happened to be required to complete the transaction.
Sheez… I don’t know what disgusts me more, taking pictures of the dead, trading pictures of the dead for porn, trading porn for pictures of the dead…
I saw this headline and didn’t have the stomach to read it at that moment. Do you suppose this behavior is a recruiting issue, training, or just the general atmosphere/attitude in the military? It’s mind boggling how some in battle grow desensitized to death. Is it creulty or self preservation? It is deeply disturbing.
What can one even say about such a level of depravity?
Or, on a more serious note, why don’t we train them to use their friggin’ heads? Why do so many in our armed forces have so precious little respect for their enemy? And, lastly, what kind of fucking person trades photos of dismembered people for pornography?
A person who doesn’t have any leadership?
Who is letting these people take photos? There are no officers around?
I cannot believe that within two generations of WWII, the country that went to war to put an end to inhumane treatment, including torture of prisoners, is now the country that does the torturing. And this new revelation…..leaves me speechless.
Those soldiers from WWII who are now gone must be rolling over in their graves. Those of our “greatest generation” that are still with us, must question what our military has become. It certainly does not protect and defend the American values that the earlier generation cherished.
Here’s an idea… have these asswipes and their commanders/officers sit on the White House lawn – they will then get arrested FOR SURE.
Oh yeah, Bush is only concerned with arresting mommies.
Before we all jump on these individuals because they’re trading these pictures for porn, let’s take a step back.
I think that it is horrible that our government has suppressed as much as possible in order to make it as easy as possible for the American people to forget that we are at war.
For example, not attending funerals, and not allowing photos of the coffins of our returning dead.
If you were a soldier, in Iraq, witnessing what some of these guys see all the time, don’t you think there is a possibility that you would want your fellow Americans to have some inkling of what you were going through?
The mainstream media is in a state of lockdown as far as not showing any anti-war photos or non-political-correctness.
So how else to get these photos out to people? Let’s face it, porn is a HUGE industry with a very wide viewership.
IMHO, the problem is that we’ve got young men (and women) over there in a situation that a) they shouldn’t be in and b) the public doesn’t know enough about.
But the fact that this is hitting the MSM now indicates that maybe point b) is changing.
I think it is important to note that the majority of the pictures involved here are not of torture (according to what I’ve read). They are of dead Iraqis.
It’s important to separate the two; torture means that the soldiers clearly violated international law. These pictures (like I say, most of them) are things that the soldiers are seeing in the course of their daily work.
I think that is important to keep in mind as you read my other post, lest I sound like Abu Gonzalez Jr.
Sorry. I’m not buying it.
Reverse the situation: is it okay for insurgents to post pictures of dismembered bodies and body parts of US soldiers on sites in exchange for porn?
How do you know some of the dead weren’t POWs? It’s against the Geneva Conventions to distribute that type of picture.
I know you’re trying to find some rationale or even a legal loophole for this so we can look at both sides and, believe me, when it comes to understanding human behaviour, I’m all for looking into deep, psychological reasons and legalities, but THIS IS NOT OK. No matter how you slice it. It’s not. It’s inhumane. It violates the deads’ human rights. Surely, this cannot be acceptable under the Military Code of Conduct either. It’s just plain wrong.
I am trying to do 2 things.
I don’t think the bolded (porn) aspect of this is relevant. It only serves to inflame the issue. Would it be more OK if they posted these pictures on DailyKos or BoomanTribune for free?
I think it is only important in that it may have provided an extra kick in the pants (no pun intended) for these soldiers to actually post the photos. I don’t think it’s relevant from a crime / punishment standpoint.
I’m sure they want us all to see what they are going through. That is why they all have shit eating grins on their faces, and are sending the photos to a porn site.!
If they want the American people to know what they are going through, surely there is another media avenue still open to them that is more appropriate. (like e-mailing their friends, or the local weekly paper or whatever)
But also consider:
I don’t have an answer for the 2nd.
I am not trying to argue for these people; I think this is despicable. I am merely trying to show that like anything else, this may not be as black and white as it initially appears.
Wilson, a 27-year-old Web entrepreneur living in Florida, created the site a year ago, asked fans to contribute pictures of their wives and girlfriends, and posted footage and photographs bearing titles such as “wife working cock” and “ass fucking my wife on the stairs.” The site was a big hit with soldiers stationed overseas; about a third of his customers, or more than fifty thousand people, work in the military. Wilson says soldiers began e-mailing him, thanking him for keeping up their morale and “bringing a little piece of the States to them.” But other soldiers complained that they had problems buying memberships to his service. “They wanted to join the site, the amateur wife and girlfriend site,” he says. “But they couldn’t, because the addresses associated with their credit cards were Quackistan or something; they were in such a high-risk country that the credit card companies wouldn’t approve the purchase.”
That was when Wilson hit upon the idea of offering free memberships to soldiers. All they had to do was send a picture of life in Iraq or Afghanistan, and they’d get all the free porn they wanted. link
I thought I reached a new level of complete and utter shock today at what Bushco has done to your country after listening to the Michael Brown testimony.
Then I read this.
And then I read that Lynndie England has been sentenced to only 3 fucking years for her depravity.
I did a diary a while back on the extremely lax senetnces of all involved (except Graner) in this Abu Ghraib “abuse” – they’re called war crimes by everybody else in the civilized world, but this bloody sentence has just added to my sense of complete outrage and depression.
All I can say is that Bush will be gone in 2008 and at this point I don’t think anyone who replaces him can be worse, but today, I honestly feel like walking away and just focusing on what’s going on in my country.
I know I can’t do that and I won’t but that’s where I’m at. Just totally disgusted by it all.
Unless Lynndie England was in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay then there is something seriously wrong here. Why was there torture occurring in all three of these places? Why were the same sorts of torture and humiliation used in all three places? Lets say that several different sets of soldiers in several different parts of the world did this at the same time. Then why don’t we find out what is leading to a systematic breakdown discipline? Unless these folks where just following orders or inferred orders.
I hold all of them accountable – from Bush on down. And they should all be severely punished in the proper court – the ICC.
That really does say it all, doesn’t it?
the whole rest of the world is just meat. Female meat is good to fuck, and Iraqi meat is good for grinding up. And like any commodity, meat is always good to sell or barter.
I hold the wildly unpopular view that pornography often constitutes a form of violence against women and girls. Andrea Dworkin would have a field day with this story, G-ddess rest her soul.
I’m done for the night, so if I don’t respond promptly to any flames, it’s because I’m getting my beauty rest, not out of rudeness.
It is not easy to oppose your country, and even more difficult to oppose your culture.
I feel a special sympathy for those who are surprised.
My understanding is that this story has not been in US media for very long. As is the case with most US atrocities, Americans are the last to know.]
Those who are tasked with defending the practice have my pity. You should call Karen Hughes. She shares your burden, maybe some of your arguments can be used by her in her mission.
about supporting our noble troops, etc., the truth is that many of the people who enlist in the army are ill-educated yahoos, at best. At worst, some of them are sociopaths. But a lot of them are just ignorant and vulgar and boorish.
Welcome to the mercenary–oops, sorry–volunteer army.
War is dehumanizing. Soldiers ever since ever have invented degrading names for the enemy, so that killing a human being doesn’t seem quite so horrible. It’s hard to kill a human being. Easier to kill a gook, or a raghead.
I get a bit tired of reading, even on ‘left-wing’ blogs, descriptions of American soldiers that make them sound like variant clones of Tom Cruise. Ain’t like that, folks. These (guys, mostly) have signed on to kill people for a living. A lot of them get off on the rush, the excitement, the danger. They are not people you want dating your daughter.
Not all of them. A lot of them.
your garden variety sociopath. In the past though they were governed by a sane socially aware Command and there were consequences for stuff like this! No consequences now because we can’t afford to lose a warm body able to tote a gun. The Command is a bunch of loose cannon sociopaths so sociopaths through out the military branches are enjoying a moment in the sun. You do need to know though that there does exist soldiers out there that embody heart, mind, and soul more decency and honor than can be calculated. Most are attempting to leave the military in any way possible right now or finding whatever means they can to survive this administration and this Command.
I agree 100%.
It has always been the responsibility of the generals and their civilian leaders to keep the troops under control, and under Rumsfeld and Bush there is no control. As the 82nd Airborne whistleblowers have testified, the troops have received no clear instructions about where the line is when it comes to interrogations and treatment of prisoners. As a result, the sociopaths have had free rein.
The honourable and principled soldiers have, as you say, been hung out to dry.
I really hope that Bush, Rumsfeld, et al will eventually taste the justice that they never talk about, and have so outrageously abused.