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Friday September 30, 2005

A shocking loss of decency

For the last few days, I've been reading snippets of political blogs talking about the military's war-for-porn scandal. Aside from liberal staples like Atrios and Americablog, I haven't seen much of this in the news. I think there was a small AP article in a recent Plain Dealer, but it seems like the story has come and gone. Of course, I don't watch much tv.

I still don't have all of the details, but the pictures posted on Americablog make so ashamed. The U.S. is in the middle of a deadly occupation, one in which it's trying to convince the world of its virtue, and soldiers in Iraq are trading gruesome pictures of Iraqis for free pornography.

Simply unbelievable.

Some of the pictures feature dismembered bodies. Others, just limbs and organs. There is a section of a pornographic website that encourages visitors to "guess the body part" in the submitted photos. One photo has a partially nude Iraqi woman with a limb blown off, headed by an obscene caption refering to her exposed vagina.

It's stories like this that make it that much harder for me to appreciate soldiers who serve with integrity, because I can't get past the shame of the ones who don't. And it doesn't help that this garbage is tolerated, and that little, if anything, will happen to rectify the damage. I am so disgusted. I'm at a loss for words.

Comments

So I wonder why everyone's so into supporting the troops if all this really DOES come about because of what the troops are doing.

The "support the troops!!11!" mentality has been bugging me lately, sorry. :/ But really. How can you support them when they do things like this?

Stephanie on October 1, 2005 04:40 AM

While we can't condone such things as this

From space sector 2814, Kid Charlemagne

Kid Charlemagne on October 1, 2005 11:12 AM

Kid, I know that in traumatic situations people will snap, and servicemen in war regularly experience some of the most brutal and psychologically damaging events. They are going through the greatest of hardships and will consequently suffer. But this doesn't mean that cruel and dishonorable behavior should be tolerated. When it becomes accepted and excused, it also becomes more frequent and more severe.

I think the lack of accountability is part of the reason I'm so upset. Nobody will do anything to right this wrong, aside from offering excuses. And the last thing we need right now is to show the world that we value justice in theory, but not in practice.

Drina on October 1, 2005 09:55 PM

Lack of accountability is the hallmark of this Administration.