I originally posted an unedited version of this article three days ago and chose to make it publicly available now that CNN has picked up the story. You can find the link to the website at the bottom. Do not click the link if you are not prepared for what you might see.
Web site: U.S. troops traded Iraq photos for porn access
No evidence of felony, Army says
From Barbara Starr
CNN Washington Bureau
Wednesday, September 28, 2005; Posted: 1:54 p.m. EDT (17:54 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. Army is investigating reports that troops took photographs of dead Iraqis and traded them to a pornographic Web site in return for access to that site, Army sources said Wednesday.
Army spokesman Paul Boyce told CNN that a preliminary investigation had found “no evidence of a felony crime,” but both he and Col. Joseph Curtin said the Web postings, if verified, could constitute a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice provisions on good conduct.
“There is no criminal investigation into the matter of photos of deceased bodies in Iraq being posted on the worldwide Web anonymously,” Boyce said. “Army criminal investigators examined this recently as a preliminary inquiry but found there is no specific evidence of a felony crime.”
Curtin acknowledged an ongoing investigation, however, saying it was focusing on “allegations that soldiers may have exchanged personally taken photographs of dead Iraqis in exchange for pornographic access.”
Chris Wilson, owner of the site, told CNN that he had given members of the military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan access to the site for free — if they provided him with a photograph proving they were serving there.
CNN could not verify the authenticity of the photographs and videos posted on the site and will not include its name because it is considered offensive by many people.
Ok, here’s the link:
Here’s the link:
US soldiers allegedly trading pictures of dead Iraqis & Afghanis for porn click here
My retreat from hope
Will it be worth it? That is the question that haunts my waking mind and obscures my vision of the future. An awesome weight of responsibility wears at my bleeding heart; it also (akin to a drug addiction) orders my days and frames me. I am skeptical all too often lately of the proponents of hope, as though my skepticism and doubt can stand as a viable palliative in lieu of their messages of peace. I think to myself- “Don’t these fools know anything about history? How cruel and indifferent we can be when actually tested?”. I consider the long and happy life of career bigot / American Hero Strom Thurmond, whose blessing of a whole century of life was constituted more often than not by the deliberate, strategic, and violent decision to truncate other human lives. I cry to myself- “What justice can there be in such a world where this man’s life is celebrated?”. My mind races next to the story of Raol Wallenburg, the Swedish business man turned martyr, whose equally intentional acts of courage helped spare the lives of over 100,000 “traitors” from the camps during World War II. What was his reward? To be arrested following the Soviet occupation at the age of 43, and then to die 10 years later after disappearing into the black hole of a Siberian Gulag. Astronomers infer the existence of black holes from the behavior of light in parts of the sky; they serve as a solution to the mathematically inexplicable observations of other celestial phenomena. It would be comforting to believe that the social equivalent of black holes existed amongst and between our human spaces, that evil was a place where ephemeral good and justice were sucked into instead of settling onto our skins like fine dust. It would be comforting because it would serve as the perfect reason for our inhumanity to each other. My sagging shoulders wouldn’t just be an artifact of my weary body and spiritat hearing the news of the micro-atrocity of soldiers. They’d become further evidence of the intractable (but explainable) forces tugging at my depleted reservoir of hope, trying to empty it and smash the ability to contain it. These bitter thoughts are likely as bitter to receive as to conceive of, but of late it seems to hurt more to imagine life without my rancor then to simply feed it (again, much like a drug addiction). Let me be clear: These caustic impressions and perceptions feel great, better in fact as time goes on in the current political climate. My acerbic perspective offers more comfort than all of the as they occurred examples of where hope was more powerful than despair. Mandela’s re-emergence after 27 years in prison; Ah San Sukyi’s endurance of 15 years of house arrest after being elected president of Myanmar; Park’s iconic refusal to defer to American apartheid after 12 years of seemingly futile organizing. But then I think “What affront have I endured that those heroes and millions like them have not endured 1,000 times more and then to ultimate triumph? What sacrifices aside the total security of position afforded me by being white, middle-class, male, and professional?” The answer is simple: I am bitter rather then weak, lazy, and afraid. My retreat to abstinence from hope is a symptom of the spiritual hermitage protecting me from the anxieties of the dis-inherited heir.
I stare up at the emergent pattern from the void.
Hey, uh anyone want to move to Canada with us?