Posted on 04/18/2012 2:22:40 PM PDT by Starman417
Well....dead enemy.
Like Joe Darby (of Abu Ghraib fame), an anonymous soldier took 18 sensitive photos and "leaked" them to the press. Specifically, to the LA Times.
The photos have emerged at a particularly sensitive moment for U.S.-Afghan relations. In January, a video appeared on the Internet showing four U.S. Marines urinating on Afghan corpses. In February, the inadvertent burning of copies of the Koran at a U.S. base triggered riots that left 30 dead and led to the deaths of six Americans. In March, a U.S. Army sergeant went on a nighttime shooting rampage in two Afghan villages, killing 17.The soldier who provided The Times with a series of 18 photos of soldiers posing with corpses did so on condition of anonymity. He served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne's 4th Brigade Combat Team from Ft. Bragg, N.C. He said the photos point to a breakdown in leadership and discipline that he believed compromised the safety of the troops.
The only comment I want to make here is to question whether or not this anonymous "whistleblower" bothered to bring attention to these photos by first going through the proper chain of command. What compelled him to give these 2-yr old photos over to the Los Angeles Times? And why now?
Actually, it doesn't seem that the soldier was offended by these photos having been taken (which violates Army standards). He wasn't motivated by a belief that these photos were wrong to take. Apparently he's using them to draw attention to something else.
It would seem that personal security concerns are allegedly his motive, 2010 being a tough year for his brigade:
He expressed the hope that publication would help ensure that alleged security shortcomings at two U.S. bases in Afghanistan in 2010 were not repeated. The brigade, under new command but with some of the same paratroopers who served in 2010, began another tour in Afghanistan in February.
U.S. military officials asked The Times not to publish any of the pictures.
~~~ The soldier who provided the photos, and two other former members of the battalion, said in separate interviews that they and others had complained of inadequate security at the two bases.
And so by making these photos public, security for his brigade will improve...how?! How does that correlate? The photos are 2 yrs old and the brigade itself is under new leadership. Yet he feels that these photos will expose “a breakdown in leadership and discipline that he believed compromised the safety of the troops.” Unless what results is our immediate withdrawal and surrender from Afghanistan, does anyone believe public attention to this will increase the security of our troops?
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
They are just upset that this didn’t happen on Bush’s watch. No way to blame it on him. Remember the fury at Bush anytime the military appeared to do something wrong? Not going to happen to Obama. They will just excuse him from all focus of the crime. Meanwhile forgetting (or ignoring) they reported incidents like this to have been personally orchestrated by Bush just a scant few years ago.
This has been going on since people started taking pictures.
Why are we so sensative towards a group of people who want to kill us? The critics say it will enflame Muslims. But what dont enflame Muzzies?
fooling around with human remains like that is sick.
where were the leaders when these shenanigans were occurring?
If a journocritter does it, there could be a Pulitzer Prize for him.
If a soldier or Marine does it, there could be a court martial for him.
This set-up kinda sucks, no?
From what I’ve heard, this happened two or more years ago. I guess the soldier for the 82 Airborne who “leaked” the photos needed the money.
It's a war.
If you don't want soldiers to act like they're in a war, bring 'em home. I supported the Afghanistan War ten years ago. But if we're [obviously] not going to fight it to win, then let's end it.
Shades of Viet Nam.
If they were so offended, they shouldn’t leave their body parts laying around!
We sent them over there to kill people and break things, but God forbid that they not act ashamed of themselves for doing what we sent them over there for.
Should feed them to pigs. Show the muzzies the photos/film and let them fear for their future without virgins. Vlad the Impaler got into their heads and saved Europe. If that’s all it takes, it is cheap. Libs should just think what will happen to them in a muzzie takeover. All homosexuals would be dead. Christians into a slave status. - no abortions. Perpetual rape of all females. All dogs would be destroyed. Women will become an uneducated class. And that is probably just the beginning. It probably should have been called World War I as it has been an ongoing effort for world domination for around 1400 years.
CBC Canada, had a jolly old trumped up burst of indignation this evening. Showing the pictures. Popinjays all. Meanwhile, vile murders and assassinations continue. Brutal conduct to women and we are stuck with hissy fit city.
Of course this kind of stuff happens. Speaking from experience, war is an intrinsically dehumanizing thing. That is a significant aspect of its nature. What’s different now, as with all of our quasi-imperial entanglements, is that the public has no significant investment in the cause.
In WWII, body part trophies and desecration were common knowledge; there are plenty of photographs and records of it. It’s just that the public was totally mobilized and had a whole-hearted embrace of the cause. Our wars now are sideshows in which the majority of the public has no investment. It’s not that things like this are surprising; they just remind people without an investment in it that war is icky (not an infantryman’s description, to be sure).
But there’s also no way to stop that type of reaction, no matter how much we may want to complain about it. It’s an inevitable consequence of engaging in faraway wars that degenerate into the equivalent of bloody police actions. The right answer for policymakers is to finally get it through their enormously thick skulls that public support for these types of wars always diminishes with time. The public will always turn on these types of wars as they linger on and on.
There’s only so much you can do with someone else’s country. Figure out what that is, be ruthlessly realistic to yourself about it, and figure out one or two very specific, achievable things you intend to accomplish. Do that and leave. And if you can’t think of one or two very specific, achievable things, that’s reality telling you to not get involved in the first place.
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