May 13, 2004

pr0n as propaganda: "Graphic photos appearing on Arabic websites of U.S. servicemen raping and sexually abusing Iraqi women were actually taken from American and Hungarian pornography sites."(NSFW) Old news, right? But what does it mean when American politicians hand out those photos at a press conference and they make it into a major U.S. newspaper? (possibly NSFW)

There's no response or correction on the Globe's website as of this post.

posted by de Carabas 19 years ago
  • Any response or correction from the politicians?
  • Well thank god everyone's intelligently fact checking this very sensitive topic. They're not? Oh. One ticket to Canada please.
  • I think I'll wait to get outraged until I hear it from a less insane source. The entry below this in the OmbudsGod: The Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal is becoming increasingly Monty Pythonesque as President Bush apologizes to various brutal Middle Eastern despots for behavior that would be considered relatively benign in their own Hellholes, and leaders from countries with less-than-stellar prisoner treatment records pipe-up to call the kettle black. Uh huh. Don't call me, I'll call you. Except I won't.
  • is the Globe itself a less insane source? that bottom right picture (in the picture) is pretty clearly from the porn site.
  • What am I supposed to be outraged about, again? That the Boston Globe showed pictures of people fucking? That its correction was mealy-mouthed? That Arab newspapers do insufficient fact-checking? That Boston city councilmen do insufficient fact-checking? That there's porn on the web? That forksclovetofu wants to go to Canada? I'm so confused.
  • Well, that's just not sexy at all :/
  • I think I'll wait to get outraged until I hear it from a less insane source. No one's asking you to be outraged. Me personally? I'm not outraged but I'm upset. We've got enough problems with the real photos without these fakes getting reprinted in the Globe and, worse, Arab media (which is not known to issue corrections of any kind). I've got family and friends in the military, and these fake photos just add more fuel to the fire, giving insurgents more incentive to attack our people. I'm surprised, though, that political affiliations keep folks from getting angry when they see stuff like this. The photos came from a guy in the freakin' Nation of Islam, for crying out loud. That should have set off alarm bells right then and there. And that's besides the various media ethics issues that can be raised over something like this. In other words, printing these photos really was unnecessary -- and it just adds fuel to the fire in an already tense situation. And as for your critique of the Ombudsgod, I don't really see the problem. In the subsequent graphs of the post you didn't quote, he gave great context about the circumstances surrounding the real photos. Context is something that's unfortunately missing in a lot of media reports these days.
  • Yeah I saw those photos a couple of weeks ago via a link from Raed's blog. I'm relieved to know that they really weren't rape scenes. Raed himself was sceptical but his post expresses what's at stake here.