Pentagon’s War on Porn Spreads to Missile Defense Machines

Sometimes the Pentagon acts like a lumbering bureaucrat, other times like an outraged schoolmarm. When it comes to online porn, it acts like both, as evidenced by a new directive to stop employees of the Missile Defense Agency from browsing porn sites. It is only the latest offensive in the military’s open-ended war on wanking.

European Phoenix -- The Missile Defense Agency’s executive director, John James Jr., has warned his staff against “inappropriate” use of the agency’s servers — specifically, “accessing websites, or transmitting messages, containing pornographic or sexually explicit images.” As every visitor to such websites knows, they risk “the introduction of malware or malicious code.”

James’ employees and contractors are supposed to be on guard for incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. The absence of such a threat appears to have left them with too much time on their hands. In fairness, the former military chief of the agency, Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, apparently subjected the staff to a great deal of stress.

But don’t be too hard on James. He’s only following a longstanding tradition of Pentagon bureaucrats waging war on pornography. As with other non-traditional threats, the Pentagon is having trouble getting a grip, so to speak.

In 2006, some units began passing out handbooks promoting abstinence to troops presumed to be inappropriately sexually promiscuous. “Every Man’s Battle” instructed “You are sexually pure when no sexual gratification comes from anyone or anything but your wife.” (Note the “anything” formulation.) Schweinfurt-based chaplain Randy Brandt lamented to ABC News that porn was leading to an “epidemic” of marital infidelity, as deployed troops whiled away stress and boredom through internet porn: “They begin to compare their current relationship with the visual/internet/virtual reality that they are used to and unfortunately, the real woman — wife or girlfriend — rarely can measure up.”

Sexually explicit material isn’t supposed to be sold on military bases, but you’ll be shocked — shocked — to learn that physical-media pornography can occasionally be found in on-base post exchanges. In 2007, that caused religious groups to beg then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates to crack down on Playboy or even lad-mags like Maxim. They were aided by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), who warned Gates, “If soldiers want to read that stuff, they can walk down the street and buy it somewhere else… I don’t want (the military) to help.”

And yet, somehow, pornography has found a persistent audience in a military populated largely by males between the ages of 18 and 35. In the Morale, Welfare and Recreation buildings that house computer labs in Iraq and Afghanistan, warnings affixed to the walls prominently warn troops against accessing porn sites. The mini-markets on or near bases run by Iraqis or Afghans often sell bootleg porn DVDs. (Full disclosure: In 2006, I arranged for the NSFW website BurningAngel.com to send significant amounts of porn to an old friend’s unit that had deployed to Iraq; so I suppose I’m part of the problem here.) “I’m not saying I’m depending on Maxim to keep me alive over there, but it helps,” lamented a twice-deployed sergeant who considered lad mags good for morale.

None of this is to defend looking at porn at work. At a minimum, it’s creepy; beyond that, it could be sexual harassment to anyone who accidentally glances at your computer. But maybe the military might consider that porn isn’t the kind of enemy it can defeat.