[Peace-discuss] soliers posing with dead bodies/ body parts and nothin' wrong with that, apparently

[Joan Nelshoppen]

Sorry if you get multiples of this.  Some kind of glitch does not always let
me post to peace-discuss so I am trying again.
Joan




You might have heard about the web site that allows service men in Iraq and
Afghanistan to trade pictures proving they are in these countries for access
to a porn site - you know, pictures of street signs or an soldier leaning
against a tank, etc.  (Supposedly credit cards were refused when used from
other countries so the web owner decided to give our service people a
break.) I heard that a few days ago.

What I did not hear until yesterday was that these pictures often included
many dead Iraqis - people in cars with their heads blown off, a picture
labeled "cooked Iraqi" with servicemen happily pointing to the charred body,
pictures of obviously dead civilians (women).

The army opened a cursory investigation and decided there was insufficient
evidence to puruse criminal charges and they don't even know if those
service people are really US service people.  Since so many of the service
people have their faces in the photos, how about asking them???!!!  These
people are posing with dead bodies or body parts - how can that not be a
problem worth looking into.

My God, what is wrong with this country?!!
Joan






Army looks for origin of Iraq corpse photos
Soldiers allegedly trading pictures for porn site access
- Josh White, Washington Post
Thursday, September 29, 2005


Washington -- U.S. Army officials are looking into allegations that soldiers
have been trading gruesome digital pictures of war victims in Iraq and
Afghanistan for access to an amateur pornography Web site, but officials
said Wednesday that there was insufficient evidence to pursue criminal
charges.

The allegations surfaced last week, when the Bay Area weekly East Bay
Express published a story about graphic photographs that appeared on one
section of the Web site. The photographs, which show the bodies of several
people killed in shootings, explosions or fires, include crude captions,
some of which mock the dead.

Pentagon and Army officials issued strong statements Wednesday condemning
the taking and posting of such photographs but said there was little
evidence to authenticate them and few ways to pursue a criminal
investigation. While some of the photos appear to show U.S. soldiers in
uniform near mutilated bodies, it is unclear where or when the pictures were
taken.

For the rest of this article:
(no photos so ok if you don't want to look at the awful gore):
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/29/MNGUTEVFVD1.DTL&
feed=rss.news



A blogger's look at the issue:   It has pictures with black boxes over the
gore but it is enough to give you the idea that Abu Ghraib is nothing
compared to this!
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/us-soldiers-allegedly-trading-pictur
es.html
This blogger does have links to the gory photos showing everything if you
want to see the real costs of war.  WARNING:  the entire photos are very
disturbing.  The porn site has extremely high traffic - you might only see
the photos for a few seconds or not at all.


A listing of other stories (with links) on this issue.  They are much more
sanitized so if you prefer not to see the gore, go to this link.
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/aside-from-wash-post-coverage-has-be
en.html