| Wednesday, September 28, 2005 |
| The war on pictures |
The Army and the Pentagon are investigating a web-site that reportedly exchange postings of grisly photos of dead, mangled Iraqis for access to pornographic material from U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The site, NowThat'sF---dUp.com (not to be confused with the site of similar name without the "now"), is still up, at least for now, and the owner is fielding a torrent of media interview requests (after debuting on Air America's "Morning Sedition" morning show earlier this week.) E&P has the follow-up to a story that originally appeared in the New Times East Bay, CA affiliate, The East Bay Express. The story made the NYT today. Says E&P:
An Army spokesman, Col. Joseph Curtin, said the Criminal Investigation Division recently began investigating the matter on behalf of Lt. Gen. John Vines, commander of the Multinational Corps in Iraq.
The East Bay Express, a New Times weekly in Emeryville, Ca. last week published a lengthy story about the porn site, and interviewed its owner, who said he gave soldiers free access in exchange for photos of dead or mutilated Iraqis. The soldiers apparently had been having trouble subscribing to the site because of credit card problems. The Online Journalism Review also ran a prominent piece. AmericaBlog, a leading blog, then covered it widely this week, and included links to some of the photos. The allegation is that the site and its participants may have violated the Geneva Conventions -- a novel argument for U.S. commanders under the current administration, but one Muslim groups (and the AmericaBlog faithful) are picking up on as well.
What remains to be seen is whether this will turn out to be another Abu Ghraib moment for the Iraq campaign, a rare opportunity to shed light on the grim realities of war (warning on that link, it's gory) and yet another elementary course in the laws of mass media, Internet proliferation and stressed out young soldiers far from home ... or worse, another chance for the brass to prosecute lower level G.I.s and ignore the bad things happening in their midst (or at their behest...) The site is raw, to be sure, but besides the greusome pics (and the ubiquitous porno ads) it also contains a lot of frank discusson about the war, and rare interaction between those serving in OIF and those sitting in front of our television sets watching "Over There." Americans probably need more of all of the above (except the porn...) not less.
My vote, and it's not P.C., is that the soldiers should be disciplined for violating the rules, but not prosecuted. This is war. It ain't pretty, and the uglier it gets, the more I'm interested in a makeover from the top down...
Tags: Iraq, Middle East, War, Foreign Policy, Media |
posted by JReid @ 10:39 AM   |
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