US troops upload photos of dead Iraqis for porn

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article315839.ece

 

29 September 2005 05:15

 

US troops upload photos of dead Iraqis for porn

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles

Published: 29 September 2005

 

 

 

 

The US military said yesterday it was opening an investigation into

reports that soldiers based in Iraq were posting gruesome photographs

of dead Iraqis, including explicit shots of severed body parts and

internal organs, on a Florida-based website in exchange for access to

the site's pay-only archive of pornography.

 

The photographs have outraged Arab and Muslim advocacy groups in the

US and prompted human rights organisations to question whether they

are not also a violation of the Geneva Conventions. They also

constitute another potential public relations disaster for the United

States as it continues to state publicly that it has the best

interests of ordinary Iraqis at heart.

 

Some of the graphic website images are accompanied by openly racist

comments from the soldiers who posted them. " What every Iraqi should

look like, " is the commentary next to a picture of a corpse whose

brains and entrails are spilling out. In another image, six men

wearing US Marine uniforms are smiling for the camera as they point to

a burned body at their feet. The caption: " Cooked Iraqi. "

 

Elsewhere, site visitors are invited to guess which body part is being

depicted. The website owner, Chris Wilson, has been quite open about

what he is doing. He said his site, which normally features

photographs of the wives and girlfriends of his customers in

pornographic poses, has proved very popular with the military. About a

year ago, in response to complaints that soldiers in Iraq and

Afghanistan were having trouble getting their credit cards processed

and gaining access to the site, he agreed to offer free subscriptions

in return for the graphic images. Those images, unlike the porn, are

openly accessible to anyone.

 

Mr Wilson's site is registered in the Netherlands, putting it outside

the purview of the US legal system. He has pointed out that he is not

a member of the military and so is not subject to their rules.