thedrifter
10-04-05, 03:05 PM
One dangerous Web site
from the Marine Corps Times
The Internet unquestionably is the most powerful, far-reaching communications tool in human history.
But such a free and unfettered medium also has its unsavory side, embodied most starkly by an endless torrent of pornography that permeates the Web.
One clever porn webmaster in Florida has hit upon a novel way to boost traffic to his site. He encourages U.S. troops in Iraq to send in personal photos depicting their lives in the war zone, which he then posts on a special section of his site.
In return, he gives the submitters free access to the pay portion of his site, which is devoted to amateur porn - including skin shots of female U.S. troops in the war zone and similar photos of wives and girlfriends sent in by male troops.
In his come-on, the webmaster is cagey, describing his solicitation of war-zone photos simply as an effort to compile "an unedited look at war" from the troops' point of view.
Unfortunately, many of the photos that have come in are grisly, stomach-churning shots of dead, mangled Iraqis. In some, U.S. troops preen and pose. Many carry troop-written captions, such as, "Die, Haji, Die!" and "Name this body part."
That this seaminess feeds the Islamic view of the West as corrupt and decadent is disconcerting enough. But the nauseating photos of dead Iraqis - with their faces blown away, internal organs spilling out, dismembered body parts on full display and with U.S. troops leering over them - go beyond the pale.
It also could very well be illegal. The understandably outraged Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights group, said the Geneva Conventions state that the "remains of people who have died for reasons related to occupation, or in detention resulting from occupation or hostilities, and those of persons not nationals of the country in which they have died as a result of hostilities, shall be respected."
It's tough to see how photos of dead insurgents with their brains spilling out, complete with "funny" captions, can be seen as any form of respect.
The problem in dealing with this situation goes directly to the quicksilver nature of the Internet. The military can, and frequently has, blocked access to objectionable Web sites through its own computer networks in the Iraq war zone. But civilian cybercafés are proliferating in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, and commanders can do little to fully police U.S. troops' use of such alternative Internet access.
And commanders certainly cannot police what U.S. troops do once they are back home and have access to their personal computers.
As Army investigators acknowledge, backtracking the photos to confirm they were actually submitted by U.S. troops is extremely difficult. As such, the military plans no criminal investigation. Not enough evidence, officials say.
That seems more than a little hasty and smacks of a desire to sweep another Abu Ghraib-style scandal under the rug.
At the very least, military officials should examine both the porn shots and the photos of dead Iraqis to see if, in fact, any U.S. troops can be identified. If so, they should be hauled to the woodshed and punished appropriately.
In the end, however, perhaps the only way to discourage such stupid and unprofessional behavior is to have leaders in both the enlisted and officer ranks police their own people more closely and make it clear that this will not be tolerated.
The stubborn and intractable insurgency seems to be doing quite well as the American casualty count in Iraq marches steadily toward 2,000. We do not need our own troops handing the insurgents a propaganda prize that they can use to attract even more recruits.
Ellie
from the Marine Corps Times
The Internet unquestionably is the most powerful, far-reaching communications tool in human history.
But such a free and unfettered medium also has its unsavory side, embodied most starkly by an endless torrent of pornography that permeates the Web.
One clever porn webmaster in Florida has hit upon a novel way to boost traffic to his site. He encourages U.S. troops in Iraq to send in personal photos depicting their lives in the war zone, which he then posts on a special section of his site.
In return, he gives the submitters free access to the pay portion of his site, which is devoted to amateur porn - including skin shots of female U.S. troops in the war zone and similar photos of wives and girlfriends sent in by male troops.
In his come-on, the webmaster is cagey, describing his solicitation of war-zone photos simply as an effort to compile "an unedited look at war" from the troops' point of view.
Unfortunately, many of the photos that have come in are grisly, stomach-churning shots of dead, mangled Iraqis. In some, U.S. troops preen and pose. Many carry troop-written captions, such as, "Die, Haji, Die!" and "Name this body part."
That this seaminess feeds the Islamic view of the West as corrupt and decadent is disconcerting enough. But the nauseating photos of dead Iraqis - with their faces blown away, internal organs spilling out, dismembered body parts on full display and with U.S. troops leering over them - go beyond the pale.
It also could very well be illegal. The understandably outraged Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights group, said the Geneva Conventions state that the "remains of people who have died for reasons related to occupation, or in detention resulting from occupation or hostilities, and those of persons not nationals of the country in which they have died as a result of hostilities, shall be respected."
It's tough to see how photos of dead insurgents with their brains spilling out, complete with "funny" captions, can be seen as any form of respect.
The problem in dealing with this situation goes directly to the quicksilver nature of the Internet. The military can, and frequently has, blocked access to objectionable Web sites through its own computer networks in the Iraq war zone. But civilian cybercafés are proliferating in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, and commanders can do little to fully police U.S. troops' use of such alternative Internet access.
And commanders certainly cannot police what U.S. troops do once they are back home and have access to their personal computers.
As Army investigators acknowledge, backtracking the photos to confirm they were actually submitted by U.S. troops is extremely difficult. As such, the military plans no criminal investigation. Not enough evidence, officials say.
That seems more than a little hasty and smacks of a desire to sweep another Abu Ghraib-style scandal under the rug.
At the very least, military officials should examine both the porn shots and the photos of dead Iraqis to see if, in fact, any U.S. troops can be identified. If so, they should be hauled to the woodshed and punished appropriately.
In the end, however, perhaps the only way to discourage such stupid and unprofessional behavior is to have leaders in both the enlisted and officer ranks police their own people more closely and make it clear that this will not be tolerated.
The stubborn and intractable insurgency seems to be doing quite well as the American casualty count in Iraq marches steadily toward 2,000. We do not need our own troops handing the insurgents a propaganda prize that they can use to attract even more recruits.
Ellie