# US troops use pics of dead Iraqis to buy internet porn credits??? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 26, 2005, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478 "2005-09-26T11:54:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/1 "2005-09-26T11:54:50Z")
> [@](#): > > If you want to see the true face of war, go to the amateur porn Web site [NowThatsFuckedUp.com](http://NowThatsFuckedUp.com) (NSFW, obviously… not safe for your soul either). > > For almost a year, American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking photographs of dead bodies, many of them horribly mutilated or blown to pieces, and sending them to Web site administrator Chris Wilson. In return for letting him post these images, Wilson gives the soldiers free access to his site. American soldiers have been using the pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses as currency to buy pornography… Someone please tell me this is a wind-up from The Onion… ☹ Must be reassuring for the people of Iraq to know that in the unfortunate event of their being dismembered by US troops, photos of their mutilated bodies will be swapped as currency for internet porn. ☹ Caveat… I’ve not looked at that site, I’m not that fucking twisted, but mates have and say it appears to be legit. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/2 "2005-09-26T11:59:27Z")
You have a quote, but do you have a cite for this? I’m not going to get all riled up without something to back up these claims. ---
**Author:** ![Hodge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Hodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hodge)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/3 "2005-09-26T12:07:25Z")
[The Porn of War](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/the_porn_of_war) (link to _The Nation_ article NOT nowthatsfuckedup dot com which is definitely NOT SFW. ---
**Author:** ![BleizDu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@BleizDu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BleizDu)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/4 "2005-09-26T12:12:11Z")
How weird, I was on this site yesterday. Yeah for gaining access for month and half you can either pay or post sex pics of your girlfriend or yourself if you’re a girl, or for military men, they can gain access by posting pics from their missions/where they are stationned/etc. There is a general area iraq pics on their forum, and a gory one, I had a look at two or three threads, highly gory pics indeed. The forum appears to be down at this moment. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/5 "2005-09-26T12:16:39Z")
From the referenced website: > [@](#): > > As a Thank-You for the work you do and the sacrifices you make I would like to offer you guys who want it the ability to get free access as a SUPPORTER member. > > Just post a picture of you guys hanging out, or saying hi, or of other cool stuff you see while your there. Something like the kinda pictures you would be sending home to your family and friends. Lets see some tanks, guns, the place your living in, **some dead Taliban** , just anything. I would like to get a glimpse of what you guys are seeing over there and I think everyone here would also. > > In return for your submission I will give you SUPPORTER access in the forums. When I get a few pictures I will setup a special forum called something like “Pictures From The Field” or something like that and post them all there for people to see. > > Just post your pics like you would in any other forum and if I approve them I will add you to the supporter group. All real pics will be approved. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/6 "2005-09-26T12:31:09Z")
More from the reference website: > [@](#): > > 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. I also do not want already published pictures that were taken by news people. This is supposed to be an area where we can see pictures posted by the solders themselves. > > Just post your pics like you normally would and when I see them I will approve you for free access to the wife and g/f area. There have only been a few people cheat from this but I do now know what kind of pics to expect from the guys over there. So please do not waste my time if you are not a military person by just posting iraq pics you found on CNN or something. > Keep up the good work over there guys, we love seeing your pics. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/7 "2005-09-26T13:06:43Z")
On the positive side, I often wish people would see more of the horrors of war, maybe they’d be a little less quick to reflexively support their leaders when they start waving the flag and beating the drums to invade. Of course, if this just results in a bunch of perverted gorehounds jerking off to splatter pics, that’s kind of counter-productive. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/8 "2005-09-26T15:44:33Z")
It almost seems like the site administrator was saying “dead Taliban” as a sort of joke (I know it isn’t funny, but it seems like he added that in there as an extra) The fact that people are actually doing that is pretty sick, though. I would venture to say that most soldiers/Marines/etc. are sending pictures of themselves or their friends, not dead people (just my WAG) ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/9 "2005-09-26T19:53:11Z")
Weird. I actually visited this site on a semi-regular basis (once a month?) prior because I’m more interested in sexy photos of “real people” than porn-actors. Anyway, I think that you should all visit the site later and look at it in totality if you’re really that interested. I guess what it shows is that, well, Marines will be Marines and one should consider carefully before trying to use a regular army as an occupation/peacekeeping/nation building force. There were a lot of photos from a lot of places on that website. Plenty of things that I’m sure 99.9% of this board would find interesting and non-objectionable. People posed next to tanks or Humvees, flying in helicopters, in front of one of Saddam’s palaces, those swords in Sadr City, drinking with friends, etc. A significant portion of the photos represent what a good number of people in the armed forces and elsewhere find morbidly fascinating. Dead bodies, injuries, etc. I never really spent that much time in the “gory” forums, and there was an understanding that some people had no desire to see that stuff or not. It was marked in the same way that spoilers or what not are marked over in Cafe Society. There were certainly a lot of things in there that made me sick to my stomach. These aren’t touching photos composed to show the subject matter in a delicate, balanced manner. The one that still sticks out in my mind was of a female GI. She had been involved in some sort of IED explosion and the lower portion of her leg below her knee had been torn apart. She was in a field hospital and a nurse has holding up this leg, presumably getting it ready for surgery. It was still a brand new injury, it looked horrible, and it was just bizarre to see a lower leg cross-sectioned like that as if it were part of an anatomy text and oozing blood. But why had this photo been posted in this forum? Because the photo used a flash and basically looked up her hospital gown where you could see her shaved vulva. The combination of the pain on that woman’s face, the injury, and the sexualization of her at that some moment was, in all honesty, one of the top three most disgusting experiences of my life (and I’ve seen some _fairly_ gross things). The fact that posters, including GI’s from Iraq could post jokes about a comrade and act giddy about, “seeing up her skirt,” was a defining moment for me. I recall that someone even Photoshopped up a mock Mastercard advertisement that ended with, “Having your leg blown off and your pussy all over the internet on the same day? Priceless.” What can I say? The psychology of what makes people go into the army is complex, as is what happens in the pressure cooker of a foreign war. Not all of it can be put into a recruiting poster or onto a website for military moms to be proud of. I highly recommend reading Anthony Swofford’s memoirs about his time as a Marine in the first Gulf War, _Jarhead_. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/10 "2005-09-26T20:06:57Z")
> [@threemae](#): > > I highly recommend reading Anthony Swofford’s memoirs about his time as a Marine in the first Gulf War, _Jarhead_. In case you didn’t know, the movie from the book is coming out soon: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418763/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418763/) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/11 "2005-09-26T20:14:20Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > It almost seems like the site administrator was saying “dead Taliban” as a sort of joke (I know it isn’t funny, but it seems like he added that in there as an extra) The fact that people are actually doing that is pretty sick, though. Yeah, I’d think the admin was just trying to be funny. Back when I had an active [NationState](http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi), that was our currency. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/12 "2005-09-26T20:17:17Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > In case you didn’t know, the movie from the book is coming out soon: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418763/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418763/) Holy crap. I’m seeing that… ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-troops-use-pics-of-dead-iraqis-to-buy-internet-porn-credits/323478/13 "2005-09-26T20:24:00Z")
It seems like he’s accepting any war pics for his site, but he’s set up a separate forum for the truly gory ones. I checked out one thread and yes they were pretty gory. You can see for yourself by going to the _Nation_ article that **Hodge** links to above. That article is fine and work-safe, but it does have a link to the site in question. Seriously though, I’d just take my word on this. The pics are pretty disturbing. Keep in mind that this is just one website and their are only a handful of pics. There are tens of thousands of soldiers in Iraq.