US Soldiers use Pictures of Iraqi Dead to
Access Porn Site
The Nation
by GEORGE ZORNICK
September 22, 2005
Images of US soldiers used to access porn sites have been deleted (April 5,
2006) because Bravenet.com (my server) didn't like them.
On November 15, 2004, a report on CNN.com briefly described a clash in the
Iraqi city of Baquba, including an insurgent attack with rocket-propelled
grenades on members of the First Infantry Division, in which four American
soldiers were wounded. CNN did not post any images of the battle, and the
incident wasn't given much attention in other media.
But visitors to the amateur porn website nowthatsfuckedup.com were given a
much closer view of the action: "today in baquba we got into the shit again and
got some of it on vid.....this is me and my wingman fuckin some shit up when
these fucks shot 3 rpg's at us so we took down the whole spot.....look for
yourself...the fight lasted like 85 mins total and they are still counting up
the bodies."
The poster, an anonymous soldier identified only as "Stress_Relief,"
uploaded two videos of the clash onto the website, drawing enthusiastic
responses from patrons: "nice work, guys. Keep blasting those mujadeen [sic]
bastards."
Originally created as a site for men to share images of their sexual
partners, this site has taken the concept of user-created content to a grim new
low: US troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan are invited to display graphic
battlefield photos apparently taken with their personal digital cameras. And
thousands of people are logging on to take a look.
The website has become a stomach-churning showcase for the pornography of
war--close-up shots of Iraqi insurgents and civilians with heads blown off, or
with intestines spilling from open wounds. Sometimes photographs of mangled
body parts are displayed: Part of the game is for users to guess what appendage
or organ is on display.
One soldier who goes by the alias "shottyintheboddy" said in an e-mail
exchange with The Nation that he posts combat images on the site because it
gives civilians a more accurate view of his life in Iraq. "I mostly take
interest in the response of civis back home. Most know what CNN tells them and
couldn't hack it here," the soldier wrote. He added that he recommended the
site to his fellow soldiers, and knows others who post.
Chris Wilson of Lakeland, Florida, said in an interview that he created the
site in 2004 as a simple Internet pornography venture: Users post amateur
pictures--supposedly of their wives or girlfriends--and for a $10 registration
fee, others can take a look. He claims there are about 150,000 registered users
on the site, 45,000 of whom are military personnel. Of the 130,000 unique
visitors who come to the site daily, Wilson estimates that 30 percent of the
traffic, or 39,000 unique users, are US military personnel.
Early on in his Internet venture, Wilson said, he encountered a
problem--potential military customers in Iraq and Afghanistan couldn't pay for
membership, because credit card companies were blocking charges from
"high-risk" countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Not wanting to shortchange US troops, Wilson established a rule that if
users posted an authentic picture proving they were stationed overseas, they
would be granted unlimited access to the site's pornography. The posting began,
sometimes of benign images of troops leaning against their tanks, but graphic
combat images also began to appear. As of September 20, there were 244 graphic
battlefield images and videos available to members.
Why would a site devoted to sex also reduce the horrors of combat to a
spectator sport? According to one expert, this confluence of pornography and
violent combat images may have roots in the way the human brain processes
high-arousal information.
"For some people, any arousal--it doesn't matter if it is a negative image
or a pornographic image--if it takes away the boring humdrum of everyday
existence, it's all the better," says David Zald, a Vanderbilt University
psychologist who studies how the brain processes emotional stimuli.
Some of the images on nowthatsfuckup.com appear to be of Iraqi
insurgents--one soldier posted eight graphic photos of a person he claimed was
a suicide bomber who accidentally detonated before he got close to US troops.
"Wow. Nice set of pics. Amazing how the face just wrapped off," is the response
from another user.
Other images appear to be of Iraqi civilians. A series of photos showing two
men slumped over in a pickup truck, with nothing visible above their shoulders
except a red mass of brain matter and bone, is described as "an Iraqi driver
and passenger that tried to run a checkpoint during the first part of OIF." The
post goes on to say that "the bad thing about shooting them is that we have to
clean it up." Another post, labeled "dead shopkeeper in Iraq," does not explain
how the subject of the photo ended up with a large bullet hole in his back but
offers the quip "I guess he had some unsatisfied customers."
Officials at the Defense Department and at US Central Command in Tampa Bay,
Florida, shied away from any direct comments about military personnel posting
combat images on Wilson's porn site, claiming a firewall blocks viewing of such
material from their office computers.
But Centcom spokesman Matt McLaughlin said that, in general, "Centcom
recognizes DoD regulations and the Geneva Convention prohibit photographing
detainees or mutilating and/or degrading dead bodies." He added, "Centcom has
no specific policy on taking pictures of the deceased as long as those pictures
do not violate the aforementioned prohibitions."
The fact that US military officials refuse to denounce combat photos posted
on a porn site is troubling, since the very act of posting pictures of dead
civilians for entertainment value is degrading. In addition, one photograph of
detainees sitting on the back of a flatbed truck with burlap sacks on their
heads does appear to break even the narrow rules on photographing detainees set
forth by the Defense Department.
Christopher Conway, a Defense Department spokesman, noted that Internet
technology has been beneficial for combat troops; according to Conway, troops
link up via the Internet to share information about "lessons learned" on the
battlefield.
"They're very adept at using technology," Conway said. But he acknowledged
that "technology is a double-edged sword."
As the Internet has given bloggers powerful tools of communication outside
the realm of the mainstream media, it has also given soldiers the ability to
relay their experiences in ways Americans will never get from traditional news
sources.
But the posts on www.nowthatsfuckedup.com are not meant to subvert the
sanitized mainstream media with the goal of waking the general public up to the
horrors of war. Rather, all of the posters--and many of the site's
patrons--appear to regard the combat photos with sadistic glee, and
pathological wisecracks follow almost every post.
If there is any redeeming value to such a clearinghouse for images of
destruction and death, it would rest in the site's ability to offer an
unflinching look at the obscenity of war--and war's impact on the psyches of
the soldiers called to fight it.
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