This Is Fucked Up

I haven't done a picture-free post in several months, but this one offers an appropriate window from which to leap from tradition. Via Eric Muller at Is That Legal?, we learn of an execrable website that solicits photos taken by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the website explains, the hosts are specifically seeking "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 soldiers themselves." Ordinarily, the website appears to serve as a dumping ground for amateur pornography -- I really can't emphasize this enough, but I wouldn't recommend surrendering to curiosity there, unless you're looking to swear off solid foods for a few days -- but now they're trawling through a different genre of obscenity, promoting a jingoistic necrophilia masquerading as an edgier version of the yellow-ribbon car magnets:

This site will not let pics of our dead or wounded be posted here. That is watched very close, and if someone did sneak one in, just PM a mod and they will get it taken off right away.

Big time rules here, as they push the envelope, but you will not find a better site admin. They do it right. This site lets everyone know that they will not be called names or spit on when they come home. It also lets people dealing with the shit know that there are a whole lot of people back home that realize it is less than perfect over there.

Good fucking grief. So let me get this straight. Photos of Iraqis disaggregated by cluster bombs and machine-gun fire, taken by American soldiers and posted to an amateur porn site will -- okay, I'm struggling here, but let me see if this works -- this will somehow honor the troops and and provide a much-needed source of commiseration and moral support? Is this the best the pro-war crowd can do these days? Right about now, I'm actually nostalgic for all the bullshit about WMDs and the ceaseless global campaign for democracy.