02/27/2006
The Military's Ugly Double Standard on Gay Porn
A noteworthy if sad junction of events happened last week. It was the release of some FBI memos regarding the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and the announcement that seven paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division would be charged with engaging in sex for money on a website.
Here's one revelation from the newly released memos:
"Military interrogators posing as FBI agents at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapped terrorism suspects in an Israeli flag and forced them to watch homosexual pornography under strobe lights during interrogation sessions that lasted as long as 18 hours, according to one of a batch of FBI memos released Thursday."
And here's a point brought up in an opinion piece just published in The Nation.
"This confluence of events presents the unlikely but completely plausible scenario in which 1) military boys star in gay porn which is 2) subsequently used by military interrogators in Guantanamo to torture prisoners in violation of international law then 3) these same military boys are prosecuted for acts which are perfectly legal under civilian law but remain punishable offenses under a silly and discriminatory set of military policies while 4) the torturers and their supervisors get off totally scot-free. Ain't that America."
Food for thought.
Sphere: Related ContentPosted 6:34 PM EST by Andy in Current Affairs | Permalink
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>>military boys are prosecuted for acts which are perfectly legal under civilian law
It's grossly naive to compare civilian law to military law. Members of the military are not government employees, they are government property. They can't marry, run for political office or get a tattoo, without prior authorization. They can be punished for getting a sunburn, or dying their hair. They can be discharged for gaining weight, getting into too much debt, or for being gay.
It's no secret that being in the military requires serious personal sacrifice, and a willingness to submit to the rules.
What any of this has to do with GTMO is beyond me. The prison camp is one of the best run prison facilities in the world. They house the most dangerous people in the world. Practically every prisoner released from GTMO, has later been captured after they killed more innocent civilians, or made attacks on military personnel. Any other country in the world would have executed them all, long ago.
People who expect the Catholic Church to accept abortion, are in the same boat with people who think the military personnel are entitled to the same rights as civilians. It's just wrong headed to think either of these institutions will ever make a significant change in those directions. Most importantly, if you can't abide by their rules, you don't have to join either one.
Posted by: Jay Croce | Feb 27, 2006 7:52:50 PM
It really is sick and twisted genius, I can't think of anything more psychologically torturing to the types of prisoners (possible Islamic Extremists) at Guantanamo Bay than wrapping them in an israeli flag, making them watch gay porn, and an incessant strobe light (dunno about that one..). In all seriousness, these are acts of torture used to get people to talk about or confess to crimes. There is no excuse for this type of treatment; let a prisoner be a prisoner but don't claim to defend justice by committing torture. The ends do not justify the means, and it's important to remember that for whatever it's worth to you. I wouldn't kill one innocent person to save ten other innocent people.
As for Jay Croce, I don't think the military is a place of stagnant tradition -- rules change, personal values progress, and institutions evolve. I don't think the military is excused for whatever perfected behavior it is able to produce. Change can happen, and it does when people do things to make it happen. And regardless og how cheesy this sounds, I think it's sad to see someone try to take the hopes and dreams of others and step on them. You talk about it as if you yourself don't want to see change occur.
"Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better." -- King Whitney Jr.
Posted by: Scott A | Feb 27, 2006 8:09:05 PM
Doesn't this just capture the whole cycle of sadism [read war] in a nutshell, as it were?
Posted by: Cdn Looking South | Feb 27, 2006 8:34:48 PM
dear andy....
the irony could be amusing if it weren't twisted within the space of aiding and abetting future hatred and anger while further confusing their layers upon layers of some orwellian documentary on hoover and cohn replete with an equally sinister and subsversive homosexual agenda separate from the quite simple and natural fact that botticelli's venus is beautiful but my heart will always be with david. the irony could be amusing yet the denial on several levels is affecting the lives of many people in a manner that really isn't necessary. of course, some can shout out -- the bombs, kidnappings, burnings in the midst of "we really shouldn't be there" -- focus group or no focus group. good night.
Posted by: ricardo | Feb 27, 2006 8:53:25 PM
strobe, porn, add some drugs thats a party
Posted by: MikeLA2 | Feb 27, 2006 10:27:13 PM
ATTENTION Big-fat-lie-alert:
"Practically every prisoner released from GTMO, has later been captured after they killed more innocent civilians, or made attacks on military personnel."
This is *not* true.
It is vitally important that American citizens recognize that there is an intentional, organized effort to decieve American media & public about GTMO.
Embrace TRUE American values (LIBERTY, EQUALITY, and JUSTICE) and resist these lies.
Lies.
rob@egoz.org
Posted by: rob adams | Feb 27, 2006 11:22:40 PM
It is vastly ignorant to believe that showing homo erotica to the terroists at Gitmo cause any pain to these aholes.
The Arab+Mid East world is the gayest most homosexual world there is. These countries like India, Pakistan and all the Arab countries force gender seperation on the citzens and wonder why they all have sex with each other?
Homosexual activity was nothing new for those scummy bastards at Gitmo and was indeed pleasurable to them.
That is the ultimate reason it should be stopped.
Posted by: jasw | Feb 28, 2006 12:05:26 AM
It's times like these when we are reminded Towleroad should stick to things it's little mind can understand, like the next season of The Real World (you're 38 and still watch that?). Nobody in the military is allowed to make porno movies on the side. Gay or straight. Food for thought? Please. More like a blogger way, way out of his realm. Leave politics to ThinkProgress or DailyKos - people with some intellectual credentials, and leave Towleroad for gawking and objectifying straight soccer players, ok?
Posted by: real | Feb 28, 2006 1:31:16 AM
About 660 terror suspects from more than 40 nations are detained at the US naval base in Guantanamo in Cuba.
A report in Time magazine puts the numbers of those due for release at 140.
They are "the easiest 20%", a military official told the magazine.
The camp was set up in January 2002, to detain suspected supporters of al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.
The United States has already released 88 inmates - although many were re-arrested in their home countries.
At least seven former prisoners of the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have returned to terrorism, despite gaining their freedom by signing pledges to renounce violence.
The former prisoners who returned to terrorism include Abdullah Mehsud, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee linked to al Qaeda who oversaw the recent kidnapping of two Chinese engineers, one of whom was killed.
One of the two former prisoners killed is Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, a senior Taliban commander in northern Afghanistan who was arrested about two months after a U.S.-led coalition drove the militia from power in late 2001.
He was held at Guantanamo for eight months, then released, and was killed on Sept. 26 by Afghan security forces during a raid in Uruzgan province. Afghan leaders said they believed he was leading Taliban forces in the southern province.
A dozen prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to "the battlefield" to fight against the United States, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Wednesday.
"There are several people that we have released that we know have come back and fought against America because they have been recaptured or killed on the battlefield," he said after meetings in Brussels with European Union officials.
He said 12 people may have been recaptured or killed.
Posted by: Jay Croce | Feb 28, 2006 3:43:25 AM
"Most importantly, if you can't abide by their rules, you don't have to join either one."
Wow...such logic...in other words, in country where your basic rights and freedoms are supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution, a gay soldier should change his or her human nature (e.g. sexual orientation and behavior) to conform to discriminatory policies that are based on bigotry, ignorance and fear. Sorry, that might be the way that most gay Republican politicians (unsuccessfully try to live their lives, but thinking people realize this is bullshit.
Posted by: joeinsf | Feb 28, 2006 5:06:50 AM
I was in the military for 8 years I was an E-6 in the Navy Seabees. The whole gay porn thing happens alot more than one would think. Those army bros just got caught, just like Clinton. They weren't the first to do it they are just the first to get caught1
Posted by: Dyonysis | Feb 28, 2006 7:08:13 AM
Dear Real if you are going to make comments meant to demean the host of this blog you could at least be man enough (if you are one)to use a name and not hide like a coward behind REAL. Did you use that so we could all be sure that's what your keepin it?
I also read the blogs you mentioned and believe there is no MENSA going on there.
Let Andy be Andy. And if you are so unhappy here leave and don't come back, more room for others.
Posted by: Donald | Feb 28, 2006 9:57:41 AM
Ha. Thanks Donald. But don't worry, big bad trolls don't scare me.
Posted by: Andy | Feb 28, 2006 11:37:03 AM
The ban on openly gay or bisexual soldiers is an outrage. We are the only Western nation with such a ban. Moreover, so what if a person makes porn? It's their body and on their private time. The military should allow its soldiers to express themselves on their own time instead of trying to control personal expression.
Posted by: Mark | Feb 28, 2006 12:56:59 PM
But that's not really what the military is about. Expressing oneself freely does not win wars and that is the military's main job. I don't agree with banning gays but I do agree that soldiers should not be on very public web sites making porn. Having gay sex yahoo go for it but selling themselves on a porn site is another matter.
Posted by: Donald | Feb 28, 2006 1:20:39 PM
So, if 12 "may have been captured or killed", (although elsewhere in the story, the claim is 7 have returned to violence)and the US has released 88, then Jays' "pratically every prisoner released" statement isn't true.
Maybe not a lie. Maybe just a big fat distortion of the truth.
Posted by: Chris in SF | Feb 28, 2006 3:38:52 PM
I have been resisting the urge to read the posts in this thread until now. I was afraid that I would read a bunch of jingoist, anti-Muslim, bigoted nonsense. My fears were realized.
Mr. Croce, I like and respect you and find your views well thought out. In this, though, I feel you have fallen prey to the flag-waving, love-it-or-leave-it disinformers called the Pentagon. GTMO is an unregulated, dehumanizing place. The fact that the US would not allow ICRC officials to talk with prisoners reflects the inhuman (that’s the word I want, by the way) conditions under which the prisoners are kept. Chicken wire dog-runs is the best description of the housing in camp Delta.
JASW, your anti-Muslim ramblings reflects the wave of bigotry that is being fostered in this country. There are two groups whom it is not only ok to hate, but encouraged: those who embrace Islam as the best way to express their spiritual belief and those who embrace a person of the same sex as the best way to express their ability to love. This anti-Muslim prejudice is to America what anti-Semitism was to Nazi Germany. Hell, GTMO is our own little concentration camp.
REAL, you don’t know what you are talking about. 25 years ago, when I was in the army, porn was being produced by soldiers. You also don’t know anything about Towleroad if you think it is traveled by people without intellectual depth. I have to say, Mr. Towle, your sense of fair-play is extraordinary. I haven’t ever seen a posting that I would be as tempted to delete as that one.
Posted by: JT | Feb 28, 2006 4:49:36 PM
Right.
~
Andy,
I can't believe Real's ignoramus comment is STIll here!
Posted by: Gilli | Feb 28, 2006 8:00:28 PM
>>"pratically every prisoner released" statement isn't true
DuH!! That's why I posted it. I am able to admit an error, and prove I was wrong.
Posted by: Jay Croce | Feb 28, 2006 8:41:29 PM
JT, I readily admit to being zealous in defending the honor of the military, especially the people at Guantanamo Bay, which I know to be the garden spot of the world, run by some wonderful guys. I'd really rather be a prisoner in GTMO, than free in a lot of other places.
I can't think of punishment harsh enough for the scum that is presently housed at GTMO. They foul the earth with their unrepentant hatred and violence. By their own emphatic admission, they only want to kill and destroy all non-muslims, and that frightens me. It's not the way men are supposed to feel about one another. They are a cancer that needs to be cut-out and destroyed so that we don't have to live in fear of them.
I would take back every word of this, and really mean it, if they would only renounce their intention to destroy us. I'd gladly give them the benefit of the doubt, but they are unrelenting in their mission to annihilate us.
It makes me sad to feel this way, but I hope we find a way to stop them that is more permanent than a well-tended cage in paradise.
Posted by: Jay Croce | Feb 28, 2006 8:55:59 PM
Croce, you're not even a good liar. Most of the people at Gitmo are there by mistake, having been sold out by villagers for bribes. If you'd rather be in Gitmo than be free, all that tells me is that you've got a serious S&M thing going on. That's fine by me, but I think think the U.S. military ought to be in the business of imposing Jay Croce's sexual fetishes on innocent people who don't share Croce's tastes.
As for "hatred," the "hatred" I've seen is Croce's not anyone else's. The military's "honor" has been subverted by the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their toadying senior commanders, all of whom have committed acts that were punished as war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials of 1946.
Jay Croce writes that he "would take back every word of this if they would only renounce their intention to destroy us." But who are "they?" And who says "they" want to "destroy" us? This Iraq War is nothing other than a boondoggle for the military contractors; a mercenary war for Israeli interests; a political device for the Republican Party; and, for Croce, a thrilling S&M spectacle.
For everyone else, it's a disaster that is draining our treasury and ruining our national reputation.
Posted by: WCK | Mar 1, 2006 4:28:19 AM
I wonder if it has occurred to anyone that the soliders who were involved in the gay porn outed themselves on purpose to avoid perhaps another tour of duty in Jay Croce's glorious meat grinder. Hey Croce, have you ever served? In the military, I mean.
Posted by: WCK | Mar 1, 2006 4:31:39 AM
"At least seven former prisoners of the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have returned to terrorism, despite gaining their freedom by signing pledges to renounce violence."
So, we torture these people by wrapping them in the Israeli flag and making them watch gay porn. Then, before they're released, they have to PROMISE not to return to terrorism? Maybe there's a better way to foster good relations between us and the terrorists...
"I can't think of punishment harsh enough for the scum that is presently housed at GTMO. They foul the earth with their unrepentant hatred and violence. ... They are a cancer that needs to be cut-out and destroyed so that we don't have to live in fear of them."
The term "tolerance" is completely lost on you, isn't it? I realize that some things might be hard to understand for a person who only views the world through a good/bad filter, but a radical philosophy is just that. It's a philosophy. A set of beliefs. Simply thinking something does not generally make it a crime. Were these individuals to plan or execute some nefarious plot on the United States, I might think you would have a leg to stand on. As it is, since so many people are being freed from GTMO, it comes off as being resoundingly xenophobic and almost genocidal.
Posted by: tim | Mar 1, 2006 6:31:48 AM
Jay: I can completely empathize with fear about terrorists. As I see it, though, the problem--and it's not simple--is that there are over 400 people at GTMO, many of whom were sent there by bounty hunters who were paid $1,000 a head. Since no one outside of the people with dogs on leases and nasal gastric tubes get to interact with the prisoners, it's tough for any of us to know what the admit to doing and what they are capable of renouncing.
I'm reminded of the scenes from the play the "Crucible" where citizens of Salem were told to renounce Satan when they had no involvement with witchcraft. After lengthy torture and mistreatment and false promises, they renounced. Remember the play was written during the McCarthy period. Our current witchhunt for terrorists appears equally destructive to America, e.g. illegal wiretapping, indefinite confinement, secret courts that can order seizure of documents.
I whole-heartedly agree with everyone who says this is a dangerous time. I don't agree that the cause of the danger is exclusively Al Qaeda.
We, as a country, are sliding toward a horrific situation where we will be perceived as the enemy by most of the world. The current administration is hugely responsible, but it was elected by people who's irrational hate have made us prisoners to fear. Some people hate gays, so let's limit their civil rights and support fear that it will destroy the "family." Some people hate Muslims, so let's put them in prison and encourage fear that faith in one God and a Prophet other than Moses or Jesus equals terrorism. Some people hate racial minorities so let's subtly plant the seeds of fear that affirmative action is depriving us of the most qualified professionals and intelligentsia.
The most hideous thing though is that this administration has successfully made people afraid that the Constitution and our system of checks and balances is insufficient to protect us. The people in power feel that the executive is the only thing that stands between "THEM" and our certain destruction. THAT, my friends, is something to be scared of.
Posted by: JT | Mar 1, 2006 8:57:08 AM
>>Some people hate gays, so let's limit their civil rights
JT, Gay people aren't killing innocent civilians, blowing up embassies, bombing peacekeepers, or vowing to destroy all heterosexuals. Militant Muslims are committed to exterminating every non-Muslim. That's the difference.
If you want to believe that our government and your brothers in the military are evil, then you can believe that way. I don't. I haven't seen any credible evidence of wrong-doing at GTMO, and frankly, it would have to be pretty bad before I'd call it too bad.
Militant Moslems, Extremist Islam elements, Bin Laden followers, Fred Phelps followers, any group of people who seek to kill innocent people.... they all need to be stopped. Forget people who hate us. Concentrate on the ones who want to kill us.
Posted by: Jay Croce | Mar 1, 2006 11:47:26 AM