Think Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo:multiply them by a million then cube it. You get this.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2005-09-21/news/news.html
[editor's note, by conturnedred] I've changed the title; I think this is more fitting.
I originally came across the story this morning in the free daily papers for commuters. There were some photos of the dead people but they were mercifully pixellated so that folk wouldn't heave the breakfast on the trains and buses. Still, I felt physically sick even though I saw nothing. The descriptions were truly horrifying.
From eastbayexpress.com: Yet in the weeks since the European press uncovered the story and in the week since the site was first noticed by Eric Muller, law professor and author of the blog IsThatLegal.com, not a single US daily newspaper had covered it -- as of press time. Representatives from Amnesty International and Human Rights First even refused to comment, although both organizations ostensibly exist to condemn just this kind of practice. Perhaps no one wants to give Chris Wilson more publicity, or daily editors are too sensitive about being viewed as unpatriotic. Or perhaps the story is just too ugly to contemplate.
Americans have thousands of media outlets to choose from. But they still have to visit a porn site to see what this war has done to the bodies of the dead and the souls of the living. One of the pictures on Wilson's site depicts a woman whose right leg has been torn off by a land mine, and a medical worker is holding the mangled stump up to the camera. The woman's vagina is visible under the hem of her skirt. The caption for this picture reads: "Nice puss -- bad foot." *
Chris Wilson is a wannabe porn baron based in Florida. His site, NowThatsFuckedup.com gives our American soldiers the chance to trade disgusting images of mutilated corpses in exchange for pornographic pictures. His reasoning:
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. All sorts of images began appearing over the transom, but he dedicated a free section of the site to the most "gory" pictures. Asked what he feels upon viewing a new batch, Wilson says: "Personally, I don't look at it one way or another. It's newsworthy, and people can form their own opinions."
Hands up who'd like to find this guy and punch the fuck out of him. I've studied journalism, have worked on and off in the field for half my life and currently work for the most respected news provider in the world. This ain't newsworthy.
War must be horrible. The sounds, the stench and the fact that you have no idea what will happen to you from one hour to the next. I know soldiers need to blow off steam, but this is criminal. What the hell is wrong with these people? Of course, all troops are not like this, I will never say that. But this type of behavior muddies the waters. In the words of one of the soldiers:
"What you interpret [as] maliciousness and bravado may be how [soldiers] react to situations where they almost die or they just saw their buddy get killed," he continued. "I will not defend the people who have posted pictures of dead, innocent Iraqis, but in my opinion, the insurgents/terrorists that try to kill us and end up getting killed in return have absolutely no rights once they are dead.
"Obviously these postings do not help our public image at all," the soldier concluded. "However, I believe the US has been far too concerned about our public image as of late. ... We need to take a much harsher stand against these Islamic fundamentalists and stop giving them the royal American treatment. They need to be taught a lesson, a lesson hard enough that they will think twice before waging a jihad against us."
I despair for the human race.