Posted on 10/20/2005 5:57:38 AM PDT by Hadean
The Army has launched a criminal investigation following allegations that U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan burned the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters and used the charred corpses in a propaganda campaign against insurgent forces.
According to The New York Times, video shown on the Australian TV show "Dateline" on Wednesday night depicts what is described as an American psychological operations team broadcasting taunts over a loudspeaker in the direction of a village thought to be sheltering Taliban fighters in an attempt to lure the fighters out into the open.
A transcript of the show posted on the Special Broadcasting Service Web site states that American troops set fire to the bodies of two Taliban fighters killed the night before and laid them out facing Mecca. Facing the bodies west appeared to be a deliberate mocking of Islamic requirements to face Mecca during prayers, while Islamic law prohibits cremation. One soldier is quoted as saying, "Wow, look at the blood coming out of the mouth on that one, f---ing straight death metal."
Then, PsyOps specialist Sergeant Jim Baker broadcast a series of taunts over the loudspeaker to bait the enemy. "Attention Taliban," Baker reportedly said in the local dialect, "you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve the bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be."
A second, unidentified solder then taunted a number of mullahs by name and said, "Your time in Afghanistan is short. You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Talibs but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion, and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are."
Once news outlets began reporting on the broadcast, the Pentagon said such acts were forbidden and opened the criminal investigation, according to the Times. Senior officials said preliminary indications are that the video is accurate, and the fear is that the incident could do further damage to the U.S. image in the Islamic world in the wake of the prison-abuse scandal at Abu Gharib.
The soldiers told a photojournalist who witnessed the scene — which the program said took place earlier this month in Gonbaz in southern Afghanistan — that they burned the bodies for hygienic reasons, but in the SBS program he said that claim made no sense since they were far away from the village. Freelance Australian photojournalist Stephen Dupont was embedded with the American unit to document its operations.
Human-rights organizations said the burning of the bodies was an act of desecration and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
"This command takes all allegations of misconduct or inappropriate behavior seriously," Maj. Gen. Jason K. Kamiya, the American commander of daily tactical operations in Afghanistan, said in a statement. "If the allegation is substantiated, the appropriate course of action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and corrective action will be taken. ... This command does not condone the mistreatment of enemy combatants or the desecration of their religious and cultural beliefs."
"Really bad news," an administration official who follows Afghan issues closely told the Times. "This is very serious," a senior military official said.
In a different interview on the SBS site, Dupont said soldiers from the unidentified airborne unit appeared to believe they were doing the right thing by laying the corpses out facing Mecca and setting them on fire. Dupont said the first group of soldiers told him, "We've been told to burn the bodies; the bodies have been here for 24 hours and they're starting to stink so, for hygiene reasons, this is what we've got to do."
But a second group of soldiers from a psychological operations unit told Dupont they intentionally used the burnt bodies as a propaganda tool. "They deliberately wanted to incite that much anger from the Taliban so the Taliban could attack them," Dupont told the Times.
You must have one of those new-fangled "double-barrelled" brousers.
I like it!
There should be a criminal investigation. Sounds like someone forgot the lard.
Guess so. Not sure what happened there...
This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be
Does Lady Boys = Girly Men?
This appears to be a duplicate thread.
...like women? Not American women.....
It sure does. I'm not sure who says "Lady Boys" - it doesn't sound very...ah, American.
And a link to MTV.com!
Looks like the left has their talking pointe for the day!
I guess the use of napalm is out of the question eh?
Did they stick apples in their mouths and twirl them around in a spit? That would've been a nice touch.
I'm guessing that the taunts were made in Pashtu, and "lady boys" is just a poor translation.
This is getting stupid. What we do to the enemy, as long we kill 'em, is the enemy's problem. We shouldn't worry about their "feelings" other than how we can better generate stark terror among 'em.
SO F'IN WHAT.
If true the guys who did it should be given medals and a ticker tape parade.
MTV.com??? What the???? Regardless, if our men in the field see this as helpful, alright!
Agree. Until we wake up to using tactics the terrorists fear the war will continue for decades. Swine guts come to mind.
Sounds to me like the people complaining about this want to turn our soldiers into girly men.
Lesson to be learned: "don't go to war if your not mentally and physically tough enough to handle the unpleasintness."
Yeah...I know...I know! :)
Now a Western nation's press is as likely to hire foreign correspondents who view certainly that nation's soldiers and perhaps the entire nation as the enemy.
I don't know whether burning bodies and taunting the sons of pigs is right or wrong. I know that far worse has been done on battle fields. But I do know that I'm sick and tired of the press - whether the it's press in America, England or Australia - using the military to further their careers. I'm tired of the men and women defending us and our freedoms being the subjects of exposes on Dateline and 20/20 and all the rest.
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