The picture of a dead Iraqi, or rather an easy access to pornography



"If you are a U.S. Soldier stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other combat area and would like free SUPPORTER access for the site, you can post real pictures you or your buddies have taken while you have been deployed. This section is for the gory ones so that people who do not wish to see that kind of stuff can just not go in here."



The site in question? Pornographic. It is about, specifically, a forum in which users exchange strictly amateur material, that goes from voyeur to pictures and videos of actual and past partners; it is foundamental that the pictures aren't copyrighted.



The site is not a secret: it counts more than 500.000 messages and 140.000 registered users (is that possible!?). To gain access it is necessary to send interesting material or a small amount of money.



It cannot be missing the military discount!



With two dedicated sections, soldiers can have access to the resources of the site by posting photos and videos made during their service. One section has got a general theme, usually photos of soldiers or of (doubtful) war humour, the other one contains... photos of dead Iraqi.



The more gory and violent a death is, the more entertaining is. The quote at the beginning of the article is part of the rules of the forum. A caption, in particular, warns: "if you get sick easy or have a problem with dead terrorists please don't look here".



The thing didn't prevent me to look anyway. The first photo that welcomes me is less disturbing that I expected: a men prostrated inside a car, clearly not in shape. The comments following the image left me astounded. The fist one shows an image with a writing that reassures: "Don't worry, they are not americans. Operation Iraqi Freedom: You've got to break some eggs to make an omelette". Not less charitable the comments of the other users.



I search randomly other photos and I find more gory images. Some men lay on the ground, who with face parts missing, who with the open skull and related organs poured out. The comments astonish me even more: reference to the "poor bastards" and to the "72 virgins awaiting them in heaven and think if they are ugly" and thanks to the soldiers.



And the more you go on, the more you see an horror museum. Carbonized bodies, headless bodies, mangled bodies, bodies that are no more bodies, bodies that "are they bodies?", a face in a bowel, the remaining of a kamikaze, an arm, some legs, everything you wanted to know aboaut anatomy and never dared to ask. The comments of the users are unhuman, near to exhultance for those corpses.



I wrote already this article before, but in a more messed way. Taken by the frenzy of writing and divulge this new I did it in a more chaotic and uncertain way. I decided to rewrite it to improve the shape and expand the contents.



This forum is clearly not the first one that shows so gory pictures of the war. Surfing the net, making searches, you can easily stumble upon photos like those. You can find, for example, a site that publishes a lot of them with the intent to show "the REAL war in Iraq", looking, so, to make leverage on the consciences showing the hard truth. Noble intent, but I don't understand the reason why the corpses of the U.S. soldiers are always hidden while the Iraqis don't deserve the same respect, the same privacy or the same attention. The roughness of some photos has a relevant effect on the public opinion: awful was the fall of consents when americans began to see the images of Vietnam. It is for this reason that the government of the U.S., during the current war, has so many problems with the notorious photos of his own soldiers' coffins and stil has problems with any kind of image not propagandistically acceptable.



Acceptable so, even if with some reserve, that are spread rough photos of the war in Iraq, to show exactly the roughness of the war reality. But how much is excusable that soldiers, trained and competent, praised between the best of the world, exchange such material for pornographic stuff? And how much this thing, I would like to ask to the U.S. patriots, makes them honor? We already knew a rotten reality with Abu Ghraib, another one comes out with this article, other ones are discovered by the newspapaers too much often. When the war will end, in real terms rather than officially, Iraqi will have more other realities to tell us. History is made in the present and written in the future.



My outrage is partial. The outrage of who knows that some thing happen but has some difficulties to accept them when he sees them. Human reaction, I'd say. My intent, however is to reach those who see the war whit a too distant eye, as a tv reality, as a necessary evil until it is far, necessary for themselves and the others. This is for all those who believe that war is for their own good.

Staìb

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the orrible site is: www.nowthatsfuckedup.com/bbs/forum23.html