Testing Decency.. funny or not?
 

http://www.cair-net.org/images/lcpl11.jpg

I'll be honest with you, I read this and thought two things at the same time. One was.. holy shit, that's terrible. The other was HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

It takes a healthy amount of detachment to find many things in life funny. I try not to spend my emotions on feeling bad for people in photographs... does it make me a bad person if my heart doesn't break for every sucker I see on the internet?

I laughed too.

To quote Homer Simpson:

"It's funny because it's not me."

That pretty much sums up what I think.

Too much shit going on in this world not to have a laugh at every opportunity you get.

That's funny, I don't care.

i have to also admit that i had a good chucle for this but that dude is an ass for pulling that.

I don't think it's funny, I'll take a risk, I don't care.

I think it's tasteless, it takes something that is impersonal, and brings it to a very personal/family level.

Actually upsetting ;)

Well, I don't think there's really much of a reason to not find that funny.

My guess is that the military-man in the picture is Lt. Corporal Boudreaux and that he did not in fat do those things. The picture is meant as a joke in the first place. Nothing bad about it as far as I can tell, besides perhaps that the kids don't know what it says. But the whole point of the picture I think is that there are accusations of such things and they're making fun of it since it's generally not true.

People of every culture (and indeed sometimes based only on lack of language understanding) make fun of those who don't speak the language, nothing new.

Can't tell you the number of times I've heard spanish directed at me with the word "gringo" being thrown in with the punchline... thing is, I'm totally white, but I know spanish (gringo means "white person", btw- and is more a derogatory term) and usually just laugh at the joke- that freaks them out. lol

I laughed my ass off, it's too funny. :)

pardon me for my ignorance, who is Lcpl Boudreaux? Is it the soldier that stand next to those kids?


Anway, ummm...I can't take that seriously at all and I can't laugh either...

Is it real or photoshopped? If real then It's funny, if fake then then it's not really :)

Well shit, there does seem to be that level of humor in war and some military situations.Not humor I'd use cause I'm sure as hell not there. Stanley Kubrick summed it up in just one scene:

If I were at war and my buddies wanted help with a joke I'd tell them to make the name something like Lt. Col. Kilgore or LCpl Folamour; no sense risking your own name for something stupid and irresponsible.

I was going to post this last week.

I don't think it's funny. I guess the gag about killing the father "ruined it" for me. I think it's tasteless. The kids are obviously being friendly.

Haha... let's make fun of them.

And the US media wonders why the people of Iraq are going dipshit?

This picture is making the rounds of the internet. I would imagine that GI is probably in for a shitload of trouble from his officers. Aren't there rules against bringing the services "into disrepute" etc?


Mr Mephisto

What a dipshit. This guy is going to get into serious trouble, if he hasn't already...

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Number=1403372
http://electroniciraq.net/news/1444.shtml
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/stor...25-2810106.php
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1872
http://www.dirtygreek.org/journal.php?journalId=470

Bah... just google it yourself.

It's funny (funny strange, not funny haha), because when I first saw this picture I thought to myself "That guy is a fucking idiot. Even if he was only joking, he's gonna regret taking/posting that pic"

Oh well.

Just like in my post on the GI's who "punished" the looters in Iraq, all I have to say is "All this proves is that soldiers are people. And some people are just plain fucking assholes"...


Mr Mephisto

That simply is not funny. Good humor deals with difficult subjects and helps alleviate pain, but there is a fine line between good humor and simply causing offense. Part of maturity is finding out where that line is, largely by trial and error. This is so far past the line, there is no doubt his superiors are likely to come down hard on him.

Reminds me of an old National Lampoon cover. 'That's Not Funny, That's Sick'

usually humor is derived at the expense of someone else.

don't believe me? find something funny and look at it from that point of view.

i don't find it funny. just asinine, those of you who do find it funny, that's great, but what if it was YOUR father or sister? not so funny anymore is it?

I'm also in the "that's not funny, that's tasteless" camp.

It's stupid making fun of people like that especially with all the serious murdering and destruction going on.
YOU DO NOT JOKE ABOUT KILLING PEOPLE.

Enough iraqi and american families will not see their father/husband/son/whatever coming home because of this conflict. To belittle the people like that with such a serious comment is sick.

Actually this picture is very like how opposers of the war feel:
The american's (soldier) killing off all resistance and authority (father), while raping the country for resources (sister), and disregarding the civilian population (kids) while promising them democracy and autonomy (the kids actually believe he's nice to them).
edited for spelling

Nope. I don't find it the least bit funny. I find it immature, tasteless and condescending. We tell the world that we are there to help these people. Then we make them the butt of jokes? All I can do is shake my head in disgust. However, I don't think that Lcpl Boudreaux has much of a future left, in the military.

I find it tasteless. It seems to me to be faked sortof. I don't see how those kids would want to be near the guy if he had done those things. For him to joke about it is tasteless though.

It just goes to show how little really humorous things you could find in war. It's just a sad depressing thing all around.

Bill O' - for once you beat me to it. Ditto everything you said.

Not funny in any way, shape, or form.

so thats the way the USA wants to win the hearts of the iraqi people ...

Moving away from the ideas of brutal and degrading humor; there's another way of thinking of this picture. The mission to win hearts and minds is meant to be an integral part of the military campaign. The soldiers who give cultural training have an important mission just like the ones who fire a gun or drive a tank.

This guy has created a picture that can be spread around the world via the internet. He has actively created a powerful propaganda weapon that can be used against the United States.

By the rhetorical standards of political argument in the US he has committed an act of....

*puts on bizarro liberal Ann Coulter wig*

TREASON.

I find it very funny. I don't much like many of the kids that are in the middle east, and with good reason. Every convoy we went on in which we drove through a small town, kids would surround the trucks asking for handouts then try to steal shit out of the trucks. I know they were probably told to do that by their parents, but that's not a good enough excuse for me. This sign was meant as a joke, plain and simple. We did things similar (although not as harsh) to this all the time. We didn't do it because we wanted to upset others, we did it because it made us laugh, and it didn't hurt anyone.

BTW, I think this was supposed to be a personal picture, but it got in the wrong hands and was spread around. Happens all the time.

My take -- Just a silly American soldier trying to amuse himself. I'm sure that they need some humor over there.

They could've done that with "Hey I'm holding this sign, but I have no idea what it says." or some of the like.
While it is still humor at the expense of others, it keeps on the right side (IMHO) of the fine line between humor and disrespect.
I can see where the humor is meant to be, and I can very much imagine that they need something to relieve the stress even a little bit. But this was wrong.

I don't know... it's borderline to me. Yeah, within myself I laughed, but I didn't do anything (physically) to show I liked it or hated it.

But you look at that and look at Fallajiah (however you spell it), is that REALLY testing decency?

Who knows? I guess it all depends on your sense of humor.

I think that is a bunch of crap.

As far as my opinion goes,

some people are assholes

The army has a representation of all members of society. Therefore there will be assholes in the army just the same.
The army is supposed to train people like that to behave in a different manner, especially troops sent there to "guard the peace".

This guy is obviously not ready for his task. Get his ass back and educate/train him. Get some common sense in his skull. It would send the message to sources outside that this is the act of an irresponsible individual, who will be dealt with.

That is *IF* this is a real picture. I can photoshop you an even worse message with the same realism, so not quite sure what my verdict is.

Pretty much how I feel. It would have been funny had the message been more harmless. But joking about rape and murder just isn't funny to me.

to me i don't think it was, the only thing funny about it is the fact that guy might get an ass reaming from his CO, It did not offend me, but i felt sorry for the kids. and it just shows no respect, for himself or the military or the people he is over there protecting.

I think I'll reserve judgement until I've been over there a year enduring what they've been going through.
And since that'll never happen, I'll just pass on judging Lcpl. Boudreaux and his momentary lapse in judgement.

I think he'll already be judged way more than is necessary between now and civilian life.

I'm still laughing. And I've emailed it to all my friends.

It is real. Check out the link to Marine Corp Times online. Here's an extract:

"Boudreaux is a reservist with Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines, according to Capt. Jeff Pool, a Marine Forces Reserve spokesman. The New Orleans-based infantry unit deployed to the Kut area of Iraq in May and returned home in mid-September.

Pool said the command began an investigation shortly after it received the photo via e-mail several weeks ago.

Investigating officers have spoken with Boudreaux and are working to determine whether the claims on the sign are true and what, if any, charges to bring against him, Pool said. Investigation results were not expected to be released for another week or two, Marines Forces Reserve spokesman Capt. Patrick Kerr said April 8."

Why? Would you pass on the "momentary lapse in judgement" that caused a driver to crash a car whilst speeding? Or a robber to pull the trigger on a gun during a hold-up?

In Nothern Ireland during the Troubles, there were soldiers who were convicted of murder for shooting civilians in situations that make this look farcical. Their "momentary lapse[s] in judgement" cost them years in prison and rightly so.

Oh, and for the record, if this was "momentary" then I'm a fucking flying pink elephant who invented the internet AND Coca-Cola.

1) He convinced the kids to pose with him
2) He wrote the sign
3) He posed with that smart-ass grin and thumbs up
4) He got someone to take the picture
5) He presumably mailed the picture to some friends ("Hey, look at me... I'm fighting to free Iraq from oppression and spread the good will of the United States!")


Momentary my ass.

If he brought the Marines into disrepute by a systematic and planned set of actions, he should be fired.

Plain and simple.


Mr Mephisto

Concept is often funnier than reality. Had this been a photoshopped picture, or had it been some sort of joke passed on to me orally, I'd have laughed my balls off. But this is real, the fighting and death is real, and for this man to stand there and proclaim, whether true or not, that he'd just killed these kids father and fucked their sister is just stupidity on his part. He should be dishonorably discharged.

I don't know....I'm usually up for stuff that most people will call tasteless, but I didn't find this funny at all. Yeah, chances are this guy didn't really kill this kid's dad and fuck his sister, but people are really dying over there and I don't think it's funny. I agree with Memnoch that a dishonorable discharge might be in order.

I'm not laughing. Not even a bit.

I would not find it funny, IF it was true. But I am 100% certain that Lance Corporal Boudreaux did not kill the boy's father and impregnate his sister. All he did was make a tasteless, but hilarious photo.

First, anyone who has been in combat or a combat zone knows that you have to laugh or you will cry.

Second, you become ver blassie' about death.

Third, GI humor is rough. This particular example is actually quite tame.

Don't believe me? Check out another example:


So before any of you are too harsh on Lance Corporal Boudreaux, here is another quote to ponder:

I think if the Kids knew about it, sure, seems all right, but otherwise,
it seems kind of evil ........

It should be hard enough to take another man's life...terrorist's life or not. And to make a joke about taking a child's father's life away, AND having sex with that kid's sister is digusting.

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

- sometimes attributed to George Orwell

This doesn't mean that those rough men are suddenly excepted from rules of "decency," as Hal put it. I can't imagine that the guys who flew the planes holding the first atomic bombs were too thrilled that they had a hand in killing hundreds of thousands of people. I don't think they'd make a sign saying "I fucked this Japanese chick, and our baby is going to have tentacles from the radiation I poured on its mommy!" I understand the need for humor, I understand that it's incredibly hard to deal with the violence and death day after day. But if you can't handle it without losing your sense of humanity and decency and dignity, you shouldn't have fucking signed up in the first place. I feel no sympathy towards soldiers who are part of a volunteer army - this was Bourdreaux's choice, so he must live with the consequences, and should do his damnedest to make sure no one but himself comes to any disrepute or indignance because of his poor judgment.

If you're saying Ann Coulter is a liberal, please rethink your entire life. She is the one, after all, who said, and I quote directly from her article located at http://www.nationalreview.com/coulte...er091301.shtml , "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

:):):):)

liberal Ann Coulter being "the liberal version of Ann Coulter" if such a strange creature could exist on this earth. "Bizarro" refers to a character from the Superman comics who comes from an alternate dimension where everything is it's exact opposite.

The whole thing is really an absurd mental image. But we live in absurd times, so it fits.

If the shoe was on the other foot I'll bet people here that find this shit funny would be jumping up and down with rage.
The only thing that's funny about it is the guy will get in shit...

So, what's the caption in Arabic say?

I've looked back over this, and i've thought about it again. The guy is serving in a hostile land where people die everyday. He makes a poster, and has some kid hold it. Big shit. I doubt he did either thing. He could die tommorow, if he wants to have a good story to tell at the bar, let him.

Get of this guys case, if you think its so not funny, why not step in his shoes and serve. Think of the stress that guy is under. and what he goes through everday, and has to see everday. Its a god damn joke. Get off his case, he probably gave the kids some food as well, or some money.

Regardless, it's a joke.

Laughed hard, but I saw it a few weeks ago. Still damn funny tho.

The arabic says the exact same thing that teh soldier wrote, and then in yellow it says 'The soldier has written' .. Make sense?

I feel the same way.

I don't find it funny, I think its actually kinda sad. Those people arn't a joke, we're supposed to be helping them :(

lmao

That's too much! :lol:

Pretty sad yet funny... I understand the need for humour when you are surrounded by death
Sanity holds tight in the balance...
The unfortunate bit is that he chose the wrong thing to say,
So you know that there will be repercussions that won't be funny!

Perhaps they should have sent this around Sooner!
*People who were offended ealier SHOULD look at this!
http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=59682

Making light of things might NOT be a laughing matter ~:BClonghair:~ :lol:

thaks for the other pic BClonghair, looking at them both, then probably the "tasteless" one is a fake. i think, hard to decide because I am not a phototshop expert.

Well, it is probably not a step towards winning the war, or good PR, but it's freaking hilarious!

I think you're wrong, (but i'd be relieved if you were).
I'm no image expert either, but the writing ("font" if you will) seems pretty consistent over the complete text in the "tasteless one" while the differing text in the "humorous one" looks a little more improvised.
But both can be passed as authentic to me, if I hadn't seen both of them. Depending on photoshop quality, a careful examination will reveal which is the original... ( perhaps neither....)

I do not find this funny. I also am not passing judgement on the Lt.. With what they have to endure over there, I can see how poor tastes in judgement, humor, and general ways of acting don't always pass muster. We, as Americans, expect our soldiers to go over there, clean house, and send us back a message of humanitarian acts, heroism, bravery, and courage. Unless you actually fight in a war, you don't know what goes on and I can bet it sucks! This is no excuse to belittle and disrespect another countries people, especially children, but I do feel it was a bad joke among friends that got out of hand. He should be reprimanded, but not discharged. Make him clean the toilets for a week and set an example of his poor judgement.

You're welcome to that opinion, but it seems a little melodramatic to be comparing this guy to the dropping of the atomic bomb.

Well,

Congratulations to all of you wanting Lance Corporal Boudreaux's head.

You may just get your wish.

*shakes head with disgust*


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK

Islamic group demands inquiry into ‘gag’ photo
Reservist under investigation for claims in image

By Laura Bailey
Times staff writer


An Islamic civil liberties group has called for a Pentagon investigation into an apparent gag photograph of a Marine in Iraq taken during the last year.

In the photo, a smiling Lance Cpl. Ted J. Boudreaux Jr. is standing next to two Iraqi boys. All three have their thumbs up as one of the boys holds a cardboard sign that reads “Lcpl Boudreaux killed my Dad, th[en] he knocked up my sister!”

The photo has been circulating around the Internet for at least a month.

On April 2, a Muslim upset by the image e-mailed the photo to the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. The organization, which describes itself as America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group, promptly issued a press release calling for an investigation, said organization spokesman Ibrahim Hooper.

“We’re asking ‘was it legitimate, what were the circumstances, did this guy do these crimes or was it a joke?’” Hooper said April 5.

In the April 2 release, the council called on the Defense Department to take action “to let military personnel know that such behavior harms America’s image and will not be tolerated.”

“If the United States Army is seeking to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, this is the wrong way to accomplish that goal,” stated council executive director Nihad Awad in the release.

Boudreaux is a reservist with Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines, according to Capt. Jeff Pool, a Marine Forces Reserve spokesman. The New Orleans-based infantry unit deployed to the Kut area of Iraq in May and returned home in mid-September.

Pool said the command began an investigation shortly after it received the photo via e-mail several weeks ago.

Investigating officers have spoken with Boudreaux and are working to determine whether the claims on the sign are true and what, if any, charges to bring against him, Pool said. Investigation results were not expected to be released for another week or two, Marines Forces Reserve spokesman Capt. Patrick Kerr said April 8.

One Arab-American Marine who teaches culture to fellow military personnel called the photo “deplorable” and said such behavior is a serious issue to be addressed.

Gunnery Sgt. Jamal Baadani, the president and founder of the Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military, is on a one-year tour in the Middle East. There, he gives cultural lessons to newly assigned personnel and is Chief of Host Nation Training Support Coordination.

“This picture and sign directed towards a Muslim family is inexcusable,” he said via e-mail. “Inexcusable because if this lance corporal was given a basic class on Islam, he would have known that remarks such as ‘knocking up’ a Muslim Arab woman is not tolerated and violates the honor of a Muslim woman and her family.

“If it was a local Iraq Arab that did this, he would have been shot by a family member on the spot for violating their family honor,” he said.

But do you have to laugh at the expense of the people you are there supposedly to protect? And who said crying was a bad thing?

This shouldn't excuse you from knowing that you are a representative of your country and not everyone else is quite as blase about death as you are.

I don't know how this picture wound up on the internet. Maybe Boudreaux just wanted the photo for himself, but if he had any hand in putting it on the internet, he had to know right then and there that it would/could be widely viewed. At a time when we are desperately trying to make diplomatic inroads with moderate Muslim countries, this kind of tasteless joke is irresponsible. Boudreaux just handed the Muslim world one more piece of evidence that Americans are crass, insensitive, and immoral. If he needs to laugh, let him watch Monty Python or something instead of mocking the locals.

Hmmm...

It was and it wasn't funny.

Honestly, you and I have NO idea what these guys go through is all I am trying to say, and taking ONE picture and making a huge deal out of it ignores the long history of grisley soldier humor.

The worst thing Boudreaux did was exhibit poor judgement and for that he should get a reprimand.

But the people who think this is an international crisis are way over board.

the downfalls of digital photography, once you move it from camera to your pc (then erasing it from the cameras' memory) there is no easy way to tell if it has been altered or not:(

Funny? I think so. In poor judgement? Yeup, but the kind that gets you a thunk in the head, and nothing more.

Not Funny at all.

Absolutely. It's not My Lai, for chrissakes.

Who is making this an international crisis?

It's YOU who is exaggerating now.

The consensus here is that this was in bad taste and the guy deserves to be punished.


Mr Mephisto

Well, I think he should be reprimanded for his stupidity.

I don't care much what the grunt is doing for fun. He's part of a war I have neither the appetite for nor the inclination to jump into, so, if this is the way for him to get his jollies before the next "encounter" then so be it.

I do, however, believe that he should be reprimanded for his ineptness at covering his own ass. He should have known this was going to get out and cause the masses to get all in a tizzy. The world is a much smaller place than most realize. Obviously, Lance Corp. Boudreaux didn't.

Was it tasteless? Sure, no doubt about it; I totally agree on this issue. I've seen some pretty tasteless shit from both sides of the isle so this one is just par for the course. Of all the things to get up in arms over this photo ain't one of them.

I've reread the entire thread and just a smattering of words used:

"Fired"

"Treason"

"Dishonorable Discharge"


So I stand by my original statement.

Humour is all about context.

As Spived2 points out, it was harmless fun when it was taken for personal amusement. Yes it was tasteless but a lot of humour is tasteless.

However, as others have pointed out this tasteless joke has now burst into a new context a context where the stakes are much higher and the humour is not funny.

He should be reprimanded.

As someone who has done quite a bit of Photoshop and Digital Imaging work, spending hours at a time to make a picture look accurate and seamless, that first photo is pretty obviously doctored. It wouldn't be hard to make it believable, but when compared to the picture provided by Image dump (http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=59682)
it's pretty easy to tell where it was doctored. Poorly done and highly publicized makes it gospel truth I guess.

Very interesting rat!!!
I hope that this is the correct photo.

I agree with you lurkette. Especially about: "Boudreaux just handed the Muslim world one more piece of evidence that Americans are crass, insensitive, and immoral." IMO, it is some of the comments in this thread, people who think this is funny and people should lighten up, that give us the reputation Americans have. Maybe....just maybe, is we showed a little more compassion and understanding of other cultures, then we won't find our own people hung from bridges after we have been tortured, or mindlessly butchered only because we are American, or have continual attackes against us because of our attitude towards others. America needs to be humbled.

Why should it be hard?
we were built to survive, and if that means killing someone, we should be able to do it as efficiently as possible.

And if they are going to make you go to all the trouble of killing them, you might as well have a little fun at their expense.

Greg: that makes as much sense as giving a toast because you just farted.

[ comment removed ]

I find it very funny and very much in keeping with the sense of humor that is generated by a bunch of grunts on the ground that have been living and fighting together. This is war, it's not pretty, it's not nice, and far from losing your humanity a sense of humor helps you keep it. He should get in trouble for being so stupid as to let this get out since now we get to hear how heartless and terrible this is and OMG what if it's TRUE. I'm sorry but I'm more concerned about the safety of our people fighting than in hurting somebody's feelings over a picture.




War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)

It's pretty funny. Not "offensive" in the least. I wouldn't call it tasteless, either, although it sure ain't Seinfeld quality.

in case anyone's interested, someone made a sign generator out of this picture: http://www.ryano.net/iraq/

i'd have to say it's real; to me the biggest tip-off is the arabic at the bottom. i speak some arabic, i can confirm that it does indeed repeat the message on the sign. i find it unlikely that an arab speaker would go to the trouble to doctor a picture like this...

then again, this picture could be from a broadcast of the already doctored image. *shrug*.

If I were in charge of the fate of this man, I wouldn't do anything until the original picture can be found and confirmed. It's all too easy to modify the picture and send it around the web, and it certainly doesn't take a master "Photoshoppist" to do it.

How would the media over there find out about the photograph? Certainly Boudreaux didn't send it to them, I'd think. It must have been around the web for a while by that time. By then, any alteration could have been made to it. I can't believe such accusations are being made based on such easily manipulated "evidence." Until the original is found (there's a good chance it won't be if it was taken by a digital camera) everyone should hold their horses before jumping all over him and condemning him.

I'd imagine that war can do some twisted things to a person's sense of humor.

Not terribly funny, that sort of thing isn't my taste. Sort of low brow humor at best.

I have to admit that I laughed at it. That doesn't make it appropriate.

On the other hand, just because something's innappropriate doesn't make it unfunny.

No doubt these guys are under a lot of stress. No doubt that sick and innapropriate humor helps people deal with this sort of stress. It's still sick and innapropriate.

If this had been an inside joke, if this had not have gotten out for public consumption, it would still have been innapropriate. But now that it has it's particularly unfortunate. Does America need any more bad press?

i feel the same way. this isn't the kind of thing i'd find myself laughing at...even though there have been times where i've laughed as some pretty sick things...

hmm, maybe this is the real one:

http://homepage.mac.com/deeprave6969...248E4111D8.jpg

I didn't find the first one very funny when it arrived in my email a while back.

Why? Would you pass on the "momentary lapse in judgement" that caused a driver to crash a car whilst speeding? Or a robber to pull the trigger on a gun during a hold-up?

In Nothern Ireland during the Troubles, there were soldiers who were convicted of murder for shooting civilians in situations that make this look farcical. Their "momentary lapse[s] in judgement" cost them years in prison and rightly so.

- Mr Mephisto

No matter how "momentary" this lapse in judgement might have been, those kids don't look as if their father was just killed, so I don't think the message on the sign is true. In that case, why is this soldier being compared to Irish soldiers that killed civilians. So this soldier made fun of some kids. Should he put put in prison for YEARS of his life? C'mon?

That's not what I meant, and I think you know it.


Mr Mephisto

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/boudreaux.asp

Check that out. I doubt any marine would be dumb enough to write something like that and then get it photographed, especially with the technology we have today, he must have known it would only be a matter of time before it would get leaked onto the net.

It's not funny, but it's gotta be a fake. I mean, who the hell would be stupid enough to pose for THAT picture. This isn't civilian life where the asshole would get a 60 second slap on the wrist on the talk show circuit, this is the military, where he'll be busted down to private and shipped off to Antartica to guard the penguins.

It's a funny, funny pic imo. That's definately on the top 10 things to do when occupying a country from a soldiers standpoint, I'd say. The uproar over it is unfounded, just a case of things like this reaching more people than they did in the past.

Also, funny and moraly right aren't linked in any way whatsoever.

it is funny, but i heard it was shoped. the original photo is suppose to say something else(or at least that is the guys defence.)

I found it hillarious, but not because of the sign, but because of dumb ass Boudreaux who was stupid enough to appear in the photo. I bet Boudreaux's ass will be served on a silver plate, specially now with all the "US army iraqi abuse".

Same thing here. I know it's wrong, and that man should be ashamed for doing that if he did trick the kids into that stunt...but at the same time, I still see the humor in what he did and can laugh. I just didn't laugh in this particular instance.

Thats not funny, what would have been funny is if Boudreaux was shot in the head while posing for that picture, and someone held a sign over his dead body making a fucked up comment.

God I hope you burn in hell. That would be funny too.

That's how I feel. Maybe I have a different sense of humor, but it's just not funny. I don't give a damn about the fact that it's tasteless and mean...it's simply not funny. Sorta like all of the new "owned" pictures on the Internet that make no sense and aren't owned pictures at all.

-Lasereth

That one is about ten times funnier than the other one. A soldier bragging about how many people he saved is actually funny. It creates a line in between "he's a good guy, saving so many people" and "he shouldn't brag." He shouldn't brag, but he DID save people...

-Lasereth

I think its funny. The soldiers over there are not politicians giving speaches. They're human. They need a little fun to break the stress. I don't think this is evil in any way, nor does it imply that he hates iraqis. I've done similar enough things to my own friends. Nobody gets offended. Men making crude jokes at the expense of others is common and meaningless.

Most importantly, this didn't hurt anyone!

I think it's funny.