War-Porn
The website that has been exchanging porn for pictures of dead Iraqis is in trouble, or at least the man who runs it is in trouble:
Polk County officials arrested a Lakeland man on obscenity charges Friday after investigating his graphic Web site, which has gained international attention for allowing U.S. soldiers to post pictures of war dead on the Internet.The charges against Christopher Michael Wilson, a former police officer, are likely to reignite the debate about obscene material in the Internet age. It also raises questions about whether the federal government played a part in motivating the prosecution.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said late Friday that the 300 obscenity-related charges against Wilson all involve sexual content on his Web site — and not graphic war-scene images posted by soldiers.
“It is the most horrific, vile, perverted sexual conduct,” Judd said. “It is as vile, as perverted, as non-normal sexual conduct, which rises to the level of obscenity, as we’ve ever investigated.”
Late last week, U.S. Army officials said they could not confirm whether photographs on Wilson’s Web site, presumably showing Iraqi and Afghan war dead, were actually posted by U.S. soldiers.
An Islamic civil-rights group was disappointed that the Army did not pursue criminal charges. Last week, Ibrahim Hooper, a Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman, said: “For this to be treated in a manner that suggests the Army does not take this seriously is only going to further harm our nation’s image and interests around the world, particularly in the Muslim world.”
Wilson, 27, was letting soldiers access normally paid portions of his site in exchange for graphic war-scene shots or proof that they were fighting in the Middle East, for instance. Late Friday, Wilson’s site, which the Orlando Sentinel will not name, still had grisly images of war dead.
Judd said none of the 20 films and 80 photos that brought about the charges involves pictures of war dead. But Judd confirmed that his detectives did speak with officials with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division before arresting Wilson on Friday.
Disgusting stuff. The reactions (in the comments sections) to these news both on Americablog and on Eschaton are worth reading. The consensus appears to be that the display of dead Iraqis is horrible and that for Wilson to be arrested on obscenity charges for the ordinary porn part of the site is hypocritical. Also, many point out that porn is legal and all over the internet, that the authorities in this case seem to be arguing that sex is dirty and showing dead corpses is not. I can see the truth in these arguments.
It certainly is hypocritical to behave as if dead corpses are somehow ok to view and porn is not. But it might be enlightening to ask why a website trades in both kinds of pictures. What is it that the two might share, at least in the case of some types of “ordinary” depictions of porn? Could it be the pleasure of observing how violence works? The pleasure of humiliation, of making a person into a thing? The pleasure of the ultimate power of unmaking a human being?
Not all porn is like this, of course, and not even the majority of porn, but there is a narrow edge to pornography which definitely serves the same kinds of instinct as come into play with those who enjoy watching torture, for example. I have not visited the war-porn website, so I don’t know if any of my guesses are correct. But the feelings of disgust and fear I have experienced from seeing violent pornography are not really any different from those I experience when I come across a really horrible picture of a war victim, except that I try to persuade myself in the former case of it all being play-acting.
The point I am making in this piece is not the central one that the war-porn website elicits, and I don’t pretend that it is. But it’s a point worth making, I think.
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Cross-posted on my blog.
October 8th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Somehow people seem to be missing the most horrific porn available to anyone with a television set. Images of President Bush and members of his administration lying about conditions in Iraq and the progress of democracy is more horrific than viewing the victims of his illegal war and the military occupation of Iraq (as documented in my latest book “Lying for Empire: How to Commit War Crimes with a Straight Face”). George W. is doing to the people of Iraq what men do to women in pornographic movies.
Bush’s lies are intended to persuade the American people to allow him to continue to pursuit his objectives in Iraq despite the cost in human lives and the stability not only of Iraq but possibly the region.
Constructing military bases with no-bid contracts going to Haliburton and other large corporations while many of the people of Iraq have no clean water is more obscene than the sight of a dead body or people engaged in sexual activities.
Pretending that the pseudo-democratic process underway in Iraq is really serving the interests of the majority of Iraqs is more disgusting then any triple X rated movie.
The proper authorities should be charging President Bush for violating the War Crimes Act or the House of Representatives should be impeaching him for one and the same. I know that this will not happen but at least one can hope that the media will maintain some kind of perspective and criticize the real villains.
October 8th, 2005 at 6:34 pm
From your description, it seems like this is exactly the kind of thing that must happen for this particular kind of karma to be unfolded. Life will never fit into anyone’s crafty little moral box. From my perspective, pornography is in the mind of the beholder.
October 8th, 2005 at 6:44 pm
To some people, it will surely be pornography. But this sort of thing is not so different from what happened during Vietnam.
These awful paradoxes of war used to be thrust upon soldiers almost exclusively. Perhaps it is time for the rest of us to be put to this monstrous test. Perhaps we will fail. I pray not.
October 8th, 2005 at 7:27 pm
Further, my guess is that, if any soldiers sent pictures of war dead to be posted on a web site, that would perhaps constitute war crime. It should certainly be considered a military crime. But then, not the worst of crimes, by far.
On the other hand, the proprietor of the relevant web site should not be singled out for prosecution.
These issues should be resolved swiftly, since there are larger issues of decency in this scenario that absolutely must be addressed soon.