Posted on 05/16/2004 5:58:19 PM PDT by wagglebee
At the 1991 annual convention of the American Popular Cultural Association, an event best described as “the Gong Show of American Academia,” I presented a paper on the air war in Vietnam. On the panel before ours, a professor from a women’s studies program at an Ivy League university discussed her work on pornographic movies and the Vietnam War. She showed scenes in which porno actors in GI garb ravish a bound female Viet Cong, savagely cutting off her unique, “black leather” VC pajamas. According to the professor, the scene captured the depravity of American soldiers, reflected the corruption of the Nixon administration, and depicted the end result of capitalist-imperialism. Karl Marx and Gloria Steinem vindicated with each grunt and moan! Presumably based on scholarship attendant to watching historical footage from sources like her academic pornography the professor concluded, “The conduct of American GIs in Vietnam matched that of the SS in Europe during the Second World War.”
The story line was predictable whether the characters had been attired in outlaw garb and schoolmarm dress, or dressed as cavemen with their captive cave girl. The pornographic scholarship was about prurient sadomasochism and any stretch to American foreign policy or legitimate military tactics was as silly as the movie.
When our panel convened, the moderator, a journalist who covered the Vietnam War, began by denouncing “comments of a previous presenter concerning supposed similarities between the SS and American soldiers in Vietnam.” I chimed in, “It is incumbent upon historians to pursue the truth.” The audience response astounded me. “What truth? Do you mean our white, male, militarist truth?” The academic left denies the existence of objective, definitive truth. For them truth is a matter of perspective derived from race, gender, class and sexual-orientation.
Keep that in mind as we reflect on the disgusting antics and probably prosecutable actions of a handful of out-of-control Army Reservist military police at Abu Ghraib Prison. Imagine that the pictures and videos from Abu Ghraib were turned into a porno flick titled, “Baghdad Boyz and Gyrlz.” Would it accurately reflect the service and sacrifice of our soldiers in Iraq? Would accuracy matter to people who think a film like the professor’s pornography is a historical source? No, the radical left will use whatever it can to lambaste the Bush Administration, its foreign policy, the Pentagon or the war in Iraq.
By contrast, the stark horror of the Internet decapitation of Nick Berg reminds us of the awful reality of the War on Terror. The horror of its reality should blow “Baghdad Bad Boyz and Gyrlz” off the air. If those memories of the tumbling Twin Towers and the deaths of 3,000 innocent people on September 11, 2001 seems somewhat distant now, with a little time on the Internet you can get powerful images of the evil of that day. As you watch Nick Berg die, try to imagine the horror and pain he felt when the knife pierced his throat then sliced through his esophagus and larynx. Try to visualize the blackness that closed out his life when the knife finally severed Nick Berg’s spinal cord. It’s five seconds that will stay with you for a long, long time.
Let’s see what we have in terms of relative truth and morality. On the one hand, we have the image of a naked guy handcuffed to a bunk bed with panties over his head. On the other, we have a bound young man with his head being severed. There is a distinct difference in the two events. It’s the difference between facile, sick silliness of the professor’s pornography and the horror of the slaughter of Jews the Nazis filmed during the Holocaust. Abu Ghraib is indicative of perversely poor behavior, the murder of Nick Berg of unfathomable evil.
It’s time to put an end to the disgusting pictures from Abu Ghraib. This is a problem the Army is addressing. Meanwhile, we are at war with an evil enemy who aims to destroy us. Our soldiers fighting the War on Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world deserve our support. The Army Chief of Staff, General Peter J. Shoomaker, put the troops on notice with these words, “Integrity is non-negotiable. Everyone has leadership responsibilities when it comes to the legal, moral and ethical. Discipline is doing what’s right when no one is watching.”
Pornography’s sick silliness reflects neither the beauty of love nor the horror of war. The deaths of nearly 4,000 Americans, the vast majority of them civilians like Nick Berg, who have died in the War on Terror can attest to its deadly seriousness. Showing any more filth from Abu Ghraib is a disservice to those who have died as well as those who serve.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Earl H. Tilford is Professor of History at Grove City College. He enjoyed an extensive military career and after retiring from the U.S. Air Force, served as an associate professor of history at Troy State University in Montgomery and professor of military history at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College. In 1993 he became director of research at the U.S. Army's Strategic Studies Institute in Carlisle, Pa., where he worked on a project that looked at possible future terrorist threats. He has authored three books on the Vietnam War and co-edited a book on Operation Desert Storm. He has lectured throughout the U.S. and abroad on the Vietnam War and, more recently, the future of armed conflict.
I would go further... this is how the liberals pretend they are going to clean and heal the harm that was done to Nick Berg and close friends and family.
Oh, and feminists are a bunch of pricks.
Good article. Thanks.
"Dr. Earl H. Tilford is Professor of History at Grove City College. He enjoyed an extensive military career and after retiring from the U.S. Air Force, served as an associate professor of history at Troy State University in Montgomery and professor of military history at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College."
bttt
And that, my friends, is objective truth! For the left, any construct will do....as long as it fits their PC worldview.
(Grove City College = one of the few good ones in the country.)
On the panel before ours, a professor from a women’s studies program at an Ivy League university discussed her work on pornographic movies and the Vietnam War. She showed scenes in which porno actors in GI garb ravish a bound female Viet Cong, savagely cutting off her unique, “black leather” VC pajamas. According to the professor, the scene captured the depravity of American soldiers, reflected the corruption of the Nixon administration, and depicted the end result of capitalist-imperialism. Karl Marx and Gloria Steinem vindicated with each grunt and moan! Presumably based on scholarship attendant to watching historical footage from sources like her academic pornography the professor concluded, “The conduct of American GIs in Vietnam matched that of the SS in Europe during the Second World War.”
Remember that in the early days of legalized hardcore porn there had to still be "merit" to distinguish it from the obscene.
Calling it a "politial statement" made it socially "relevant".
Imagine that the pictures and videos from Abu Ghraib were turned into a porno flick titled, “Baghdad Boyz and Gyrlz.”
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Some of the images "FROM" Abu Ghraib actually WERE from a porn website.
Globe blames councilor for bogus 'rape' photos
Some of the other sexually graphic photos (in the sexual underground there are those who like urinating) were also hoaxes.
MIRROR BOSS QUITS POST(Admits photos are fake - "victim of a calculated malicious hoax")
It is a great article, isn't it? I think former 20 year USAF officer / professor Tilford needs more air time.
Check out Professor Tilford below, too, in a letter to the editor in 2003
http://www.presbyweb.com/2003/Letters/041101.htm
"I have one word for Simpson and the simpering Seminoles at FSU's Fellowship Presbyterian Church. "Freedom." It's worth fighting for. It's a peculiarly Christian concept."
His bio is at
http://www.gcc.edu/academics/faculty/history/tilford/default.htm
By contrast, the stark horror of the Internet decapitation of Nick Berg reminds us of the awful reality of the War on Terror. The horror of its reality should blow “Baghdad Bad Boyz and Gyrlz” off the air. If those memories of the tumbling Twin Towers and the deaths of 3,000 innocent people on September 11, 2001 seems somewhat distant now, with a little time on the Internet you can get powerful images of the evil of that day. As you watch Nick Berg die, try to imagine the horror and pain he felt when the knife pierced his throat then sliced through his esophagus and larynx. Try to visualize the blackness that closed out his life when the knife finally severed Nick Berg’s spinal cord. It’s five seconds that will stay with you for a long, long time.
Also don't forget that employees on the hijacked planes were slaughtered. We know this from the phone call made by one of the stewardesses.
If the left really wanted to see some porn in government, they should have had nanny-cams in the Oval Office from 1/20/93 thru 1/19/01. They could have seen all sorts of trailer park, cigar sliming sex, a few bribes and who knows how many rapes.
Allow me to go even further: if humiliating Islamofacist pigs would have saved BK Olsen's life on 9/11 I would gladly volunteer to do the humiliating, and more. The cell blocks in question were for suspected foreign infiltrators and terrorists, not average Iraqi detainees. Do whatever it takes to get data out of such villainous scum, then bury them and move on. ... But of course, this entire 'scandal' isn't about making use of methods designed to soften up prisoners, it is about degenrates in our military, as the instituion has been corrupted by the liberalism of the democrat party corroding every aspect of America. Oh, and about the democrat party calculating how to exploit an embarassment for the U.S. Military for dnc politicial points. The Democrats are despicable vermin.
And from what I've heard, no small amount of sodomy (male on male).
I didn't know that Hillary has a . . ., on second thought forget it, its too sickening a thought.
A great letter...thanks for the link!
Never see an expose on that scandal.
You're welcome.
To paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke, "Women don't fantasize about being ravished by accountants."
The Left believes that America is ultimate evil. And they hold us to a higher standard. Got it?
=== “It is incumbent upon historians to pursue the truth.” The audience response astounded me. “What truth? Do you mean our white, male, militarist truth?” The academic left denies the existence of objective, definitive truth. For them truth is a matter of perspective derived from race, gender, class and sexual-orientation.
Witness the effect of the Enlightenment and the glorification of Science by those who fell to the side of "Reason" in the great Lobotomy of the West.
They cannot think in terms of science as a tool for discovery of the world as it is. Nope. Statistics and data and empirical evidence the result of tests is gathered solely to prove whatever the Experimenter has decided should be true.
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