Porn: It’s (Still) Not Just for Infidels Anymore

This first appeared in The Havok Journal on September 30, 2014.

The latest fabricated outrage that is front and center in the conventional media thanks to NSA traitor Edward Snowden is this issue of the NSA’s monitoring the porn habits of jihadist “radicalizers” in order to “discredit” them in some way.

The ironic thing is that people think those porn revelations would be at all “discrediting” to jihadist extremists.

Our fundamentalist jihadist enemies are some of the most sexually frustrated people on earth. OF COURSE, they’re into porn.  And the closer they are to the actual fight, the more porn they consume.  Every time that we exploited digital media captured on the battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan, it contained porn.  Porn on the cell phone, porn on the laptop, porn on the external hard drive.  Porn, porn, porn.

Their prohibition on porn is just one more of the stunning hypocritical contradictions inherent in our enemies’ interpretation of Islam.   Maybe if these jokers actually got laid once in a while, they wouldn’t be so quick to want to get their “dirka, dirka” on and meet those 72 virgins.  Life’s got to suck if your prospects on earth are so bad that you’ve got to go to heaven to meet women.  But hey, I’d rather have them watching porn than engaging in another of their favorite pastimes, man-buggary and/or pedophilia. Which might still be better than the ultimate hard-up option, bestiality.

Now, sometimes we did have to be careful, because Al Qaeda and their ilk are known to try to sneak in hidden messages in porn images through cryptographic steganography.  But most of the time, it was just straight-up porn.  And, unfortunately for us, it was not even what most GIs would consider “good” porn either.  A lot of it was strange people doing strange things to themselves or others.  I guess if you have no actual experience with sex with actual women, that kind of stuff is interesting to you.  Whatever. Going to Afghanistan and Iraq all those times and sorting through all that digital media on a regular basis confirmed in my mind that jihadi sexual mores are as jacked up as their worldview.

Of course, jihadists aren’t the only ones to try to outlaw porn consumption by its fighting men. One of the many things that General Order #1 forbade US troops was the “introducing, purchasing possessing, selling, creating(!), or displaying of pornography.”  It also forbade sex. Even consensual sex. Like, between a man and a woman. Even if they were married… to each other. I guess all those condoms in the big glass jar at every FOB’s clinic were for the warfighters to put on the end of their M4 muzzles to keep the rain out.  At any rate, ridiculously unenforceable regulations aside, the rationale given in outlawing a deployed GI’s best friend  (we’re talking about porn) was that it “might offend Muslim sensitivities.”

Give. Me. A. Break.  The people we’re fighting hate us. They don’t need a reason to get bent out of shape; if we don’t give them one, they’re quite happy to invent one of their own. The only Muslims I’ve ever seen enforce the “no porn” thing were the customs officials at foreign airports. They’re quite happy to confiscate any “porn” they find Westerns carrying (including fitness magazines, which often leads to deportation of the Western offenders), but then they’re in the back office, queuing up to watch it when the shift leader goes to take a smoke break.  Not only are they not offended by porn, but they also want us to give it to them. And sometimes we did; call it cross-culture communication. Bottom line: even the most devout jihadi fundamentalist is into porn. They ALL are.

Think my assessment of “all” of them is a bit extreme?  When I saw on the news that the SEALs  killed jihadi mastermind Osama bin Laden, the noble epitome of “all that is pure and just in Islam,” and seized a treasure trove of digital media, I looked over at my wife and told her, with all seriousness, “Whatever they got on those hard drives, at least a quarter of it is porn.”

Well, as it turns out I was wrong.  It was closer to a third.

Our enemies love to point out the “decadent, corrupt West” and often use the porn industry as a scapegoat while touting Islam’s so-called “purity.”  But have you been to many Muslim-majority countries?  Ever wonder why there’s a satellite dish on top of every backwoods mud hut?

Well, let me tell you, it’s not so they can watch Bollywood musicals or catch the local imam’s televised sermon on Friday.  It’s so they can get porn.  Check for yourself:  six of the top eight searchers for Internet porn are Muslim-majority countries.  Leading that list is Pakistan, which also leads the world in bestiality searches.  Nice.

Advice for NSA:  You’re never going to get anywhere by trying to “out” a jihadist for being into porn.  Even if the guy in question does give a shit about people knowing he’s into DatSheepAss.com or whatever, he’s just going to rationalize it away as a frame job or some kind of US/Zionist conspiracy and an example of how the West corrupts the purity of Islam.  Stop wasting your time tracking their porn habits and start doing more pattern of life analysis to support drone strikes.  When you talk in  “Hellfire,” you’re speaking in a language that our enemies truly understand.

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Scott Faith is a veteran of a half-dozen combat deployments and has served in several different Special Operations units over the course of his Army career. Scott’s writing focuses largely on veterans’ issues, but he is also a big proponent of Constitutional rights and has a deep interest in politics. He often allows other veterans who request anonymity to publish their work under his byline. Scott welcomes story ideas and feedback on his articles and can be reached at havokjournal@havokmedia.com.