There is no excuse for offensive jokes like that. The USA is supposed to be liberating the country.
Look at the letter “u” in “up” on the faked sign, and compare it to the instances of “u” in “Boudreaux” and “rescued” on the real sign. The “u” in “up” has a little tail thing, whereas the others don’t. There are probably other handwriting differences, too. Unless two different people collaborated on writing the sign, it looks fake to me.
The guy who photoshoped that is most likely not a soldier in Iraq but an asshole in the US. And there is no excuse for offensive humor in the military or elsewhere. Being under pressure is a reason to maintain clear what the fight is for and offensive jokes are not acceptable under any circumstances. If a soldier were caught really doing such a photograph he would most probably be punished, and rightly so.
The joke is unacceptable as jokes about Americans killed 9/11 would be unacceptably offensive.
vibrotronica, if you need further convincing about which image came first, look closely at both pictures, with particular attention to “blank” areas which are occupied by lettering in the alternate images. This is the easiest way to make a judgement, since the negative space isn’t actually blank, it is necessarily filled with the pattern of the cardboard, and should be naturally shaded.
I mentioned the “d” on killed/saved, because it is the most obvious.
Looking at the “killed and knocked up” version, You can also see a bright “eraser mark” on the “d” of “knocked,” where the “d” from “saved” has been cloned over.
Now look at the “saved and rescued” version, and pay attention to the areas that would have to be erased if the it were the second version. (The places where the lines of the k’s extend up, for example, and especially the blank spot which would be under the second “my.” No signs of shenanigans.
Even more conclusively, take a look at the compression artifacts under magnification. You can tell that the “killed and knocked up” version has been compressed twice, because faint, blurry lines around edges have been sharpened into high-contrast artifacts. Minor blemishes from the first compression are underlined and become more pronounced. Look under the “e” in Boudreaux for a clear example of this. Faint ghosting has become a dark arc, as the compression algorithm treats an earlier artifact as part of the image and reinforces it.
Thanks Larry and Sailor, great work. We all appreciate the effort.
Photoshop has officially been reclassified as a Weapon of Mass Disinformation.
See, I thought that “saved” and “rescued” looked out of line in the “nice” version, which the text in the “mean” version looked convincingly kludged together (by which I mean, the “mean” version looked like it was written quickly and under duress. The fact that the kid’s hand covers up an “e” in “the” looks authentic to me as well–it seems like a faker wouldn’t let that happen.
This is the most convincing line of evidence to me. Despite my assertions above, I am now leaning toward the conclusion that the “mean” image is the fake.
Yahoo! reported this morning that the Pentagon investigation has been concluded and that the results would be made known soon.
I thought an appeal to human nature would make it obvious – who would want to Photoshop the image to make the folks in the picture look good?
Photoshopping the image so the Iraqi kids look like idiots and Lance Cpl. Ted J. Boudreaux Jr. look like a slimy murderer/rapist is exactly the kind of juvenile prank that gets big laffs at the local frat house (or, more likely, Fark.com).
After some of the things I’ve seen The Apologists do and say over the last year and a half, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them took it upon himself to cover for a cruel soldier. Anything For Bush! (AFB)
I find it far less embarassing then the quote you cited from the article.
Most of us in the civilized world have sense to realize such a joke would be in poor taste. Those in less civilized areas of the world seem to think it’s ok to murder someone to protect family honor.
Marc
For those who haven’t been following the GQ thread, I’m just popping in to say that I found a hi-res, low-compression .jpg of the “killed and knocked up” version which leads me to revise my opinion. It’s sure as shit not faked up from the “saved and rescued” version – the source of which seems to have some issues he likes to address through photoshopped images.
Unfortunately, you are wrong. The “saved my father and rescued my sister” is the obvious forgery.
See here:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/chris/2004_04.html#005221
There is no denying that “saved” and “rescued” were sloppily added after the fact, by someone less-than-skilled in Photoshop doctoring.
I think the other (“killed my father and then knocked up my sister”) was more-than-likely a joke, played on the unsuspecting boys by the Marine.
Interesting, if repulsive. If its real, its not all that surprising, war is a brutalizing environment, like prisons. If such an incident were the worse thing American soldiers are responsible for, I would be very pleased. This is not meant to indict or impugn American troops, I haven’t the slightest doubt they are among the most civilized and humane soldiers in uniform. The situation just inherently brings out the very worst in people.
And if its a fake, it makes me curious. Who and why, of course, but more curious about reactions. My first thought is that it was an “Arab” fake, meant to foment anger on the “Islamic street”. But how many people of such a “target” audience would read English? To infuriate them, why go to the trouble?
I gather the impression that a couple of our cronie’s first reaction was that it was a fake whomped up by perfidious, Bush-bashing you know the drill…in order to discredit the Iraqi war. Again, why friggin’ bother?
Of course, in either case you can’t entirely discount the possibility of sheer stupidity being the motive.
The other scenario, the one that most easily fits my prejudices, is that its an agent provocatuer, a set up fed to lefty sites so it can be retrieved from lefty sites as certain proof of the contempt lefties have for our troops.
Snopes weighs in…
verdict: maybe. Definitely maybe.
Two questions, which’ll hopefully be answered by the DoD release. 1: What do the negatives (assuming it’s a film camera) or the original memcard say? I hope to everliving God that it’s film (fuck you, all you digital camera lovers. Fuck you all to hell!) 2: Tell me which article of the UCMJ that this guy violated with this stunt?
Phew… interesting link.
This one is really hilarious.
:mad:
Before putting words into somebody’s mouth next time, go look for a better online translator. Fuckhead.
I don’t read German–what’s it say?
Daniel
who doesn’t trust babelfish to find its own babelass with both babelhands
It’s translated in the caption, “My father killed Americans”.
Revtim, I see that, but:
- Babelfish translates it for me as “My father amis getotet,” which isn’t terribly helpful; and
- fishcheer seems to be saying that the photo’s caption is a poor translation.
Daniel
“Mein Vater haben die Amis getötet” makes no sense.
The most similar phrase in correct German phrase would be “Meinen Vater haben die Amis getötet”, which does NOT mean “My father killed Americans”, but rather “My father was killed by the Americans”.
The image quality is rather poor, but I think that was the message originally displayed on the sign (which is questionable in itself, but not my topic here).
As far as I can see, the Doggod then edited out the “-en”, thinking that this would miraculously invert the statement. Which it does not. At all.