Trading Death for Sex?

Jefferson Morley, at the Washington Post's somewhat stiff World Opinion Roundup blog, looks at the gore-for-porn story first highlighted by bloggers and two Italian newspapers in August and September. Better late than never, and one of Morley's hooks is that the New York Times and the Washington Post, who published stories on the affair, can't seem to agree on whether U.S. military personnel actually traded gory photos from Iraq and Afghanistan for access to the pornography sections of the Now That's Fucked Up website.

The Times does indeed have a bizarre headline, saying "Army Inquiry Finds No Evidence G.I.'s Gave War Photos to Web." It then goes on to say that "[l]ocal commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to stress to their troops that such actions could violate military standards for good order and conduct, and to demand an end to the practice." The latter clause seems to contradict the "no evidence" claim.

The Post was more precise in saying that "officials said yesterday that there is insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges," a considerably less assertive claim of innocence. The piece goes on to say that "Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said investigators have been examining the photos for clues to their origin, adding that commanders in the field are emphasizing that taking and posting such photos is unacceptable." And while he did add that "It is very difficult to establish they are in fact being submitted by soldiers…" the commanders seemed implicitly less certain that U.S. soldiers were innocent.

Among the messages here (other than the appalling nature of the gore-for-sex trade) is how long it took for the Times and Post to pick up on the story, but also both papers' apparent unwillingness to do a story on the Now That's Fucked Up website (which Morley refuses to link to or even mention by name) to see whether there is information there that might undermine the military's obvious diffidence in addressing the accusations head on. Evidently both the Times and Post share that diffidence.