Posted on 10/22/2005 6:17:26 AM PDT by AliVeritas
There simply wasn't enough room on the rocky hilltop above Gonbaz village in southern Afghanistan for the U.S. platoon and the corpses of the two Taliban fighters. The Taliban men had been killed in a firefight 24 hours earlier, and in the 90 degree heat, their bodies had become an unbearable presence, soldiers who were present have told TIME. Nor was the U.S. Army unit about to leave — the hilltop commanded a strategic view of the village below where other Taliban were suspected to be hiding.
Earlier, Lt. Eric Nelson, the leader of B Company, I-508 platoon leader had sent word down to Gonbaz asking the villagers to pick up the bodies and bury them according to Muslim ritual. But the villagers refused — probably because the dead fighters weren't locals but Pakistanis, surmised one U.S. army officer.
It was then that Lt. Nelson took the decision that could jeopardize his service career. "We decided to burn the bodies," one soldier recounts, "because they were bloated and they stank." News of this cremation may have remained on these scorching hills of southern Afghanistan, had the gruesome act not been recorded on film by an Australian photojournalist, Stephen Dupont. Instead, when the footage aired on Australian TV on Wednesday, it unleashed world outrage. A Pentagon spokesman described the incident as "repugnant" and said that the army was launching a criminal investigation into the alleged desecration of the corpses, which is in violation of the Geneva Convention on human rights.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
You're right. I disagree. The bodies were a health hazard. The soldiers did the right thing. Even if they did the wrong thing, I wouldn't care. Screw the enemy. They are the enemy.
"Yet another reason that REALLY pisses me off about the Bush Administration: Syria and Iran shovel equipment, money and Jihadists into Iraq to kill our soldiers and undermine our efforts, yet all the Administration does is flap its jaws. But if our troops have a minor screw-up they get shafted. Bush is more interested in holding hands with terrorist-abetting Saudi Princes and inviting Jew-hating Abbas to the White House than he is in defending our soldiers in a time of (undeclared) War. Unacceptable!!"
And yet the bots treat him as the second coming of Christ.
Presidential Infallibility.
While personally, I don't have any great qualms about it, Hunt said it was unprofessional, that the military insists bodies will be treated in accordance with standard customs and practices.
The desecration of bodies cannot be permitted, he went on, because the standards are designed to protect soldiers. Killing is a difficult task and permanently changes the life of those involved.
The soldier must maintain standards of conduct and refrain from such acts lest they degrade into dehumanized practices such as collecting ears, etc. and lose the discipline of their actual purpose on the battlefield.
You would think liberals have discovered God in the form of theocratic Nazi Islamic terrorists.
Fine .. vote for Hellary
Can someone build a transporter I wanna go there. On second thought, does that mean I already exist there as a lib? Perish that thought!
Is there a difference anymore?
We will never win this war with a PC attitude like we have now. Let's just surrender.
Is there some kind of reading comprehension problem on FR? I have received several postings telling me the same thing. If you will read my post I said as clearly as can be that if they were burning them for sanitation purposes then it was not desecration and it was legitimate. I am not sure how much clearer I can state this. I don't give a rats ass about the Taliban. Mutilating bodies is bad for the men doing it, it is unprofessional, it is dishonorable, and it only leaves a lot of young men with emotional scars. We have to kill the enemy any way we can, but when he is dead it is absolutely wrong to mulitate the body. Ask any professional officer and he will tell you the same thing.
Well then, lets just pull them out of cars, set them on fire and hang them from bridges. Are we no better than the dirtbags we are hunting down?
No, apparently you agree with me. Read my posts again. I said if they were burning the bodies for sanitation reasons it was legitimate and NOT desecration.
Depends on why you are burning the corpses. If you are doing it for fun or to release anger it is the same as mutilating a body.
Thanks, apparently there are some people on FR who think part of fighting a war is to become butchers just because you can.
Where are the videos of schools opening, businesses forming and flourishing, and all the other good stories that are happening?
Since the old media refuses to show anything but bad news, why not employ Iraqis to report on the positive things happening in their country.
We need to get our side of the story out to the public.
Instead we get Pentagon spokespeople all too eager to pile on whatever minor mistakes our soldiers make in the field, trying to kiss up to the MSM and trechorous governments of our enemies. What they should be saying is that "it's being looked into" and nothing more, and at the most make those soldiers drop and do 20.
Screw the MSM and screw these Islamo-Fascists! Are we at war or not? (banging head against a brick wall...)
I had to walk a lot of the highway of death and check the dead for submunitions so that mortuary affairs and locals could go in an bury the dead .....used a hula hoop and a long line to do remote pulls from cover or distance on the bodies to see in they were resting on submunitions / uxo or had em impaled in the bodies.
Two things I remember was the smell of death and the gallons of chanel # 5 that had been looted by almost every one in those convoys......the perfume of death is not plesant even when covered by broken bottles of expensive girlie perfume.
Not sure what the deal was here but I'd have made a local dig a hole and bury em or drag em off down wind to rot.... I wouldn't have taken the time to "burn em.
Point is I wasn't there and they evidently did what they thought was right at the time. Everyone can second guess and make other decisions after the fact.......
Stay safe !
Context means everything, doesn't it?
So......I guess the use of Napalm and Big Blue 82 (MOAB) are now being reconsidered.
Why doesn't Rumsfeld simply say "Why all the fuss about these terrorists? They have no regard for the lives of innocent Afghans. They certainly don't deserve any consideration for their religion, their family wills, or their own wishes for their burials." Why the f**k are we so defensive over this crap? Why the hell do we care what the "Muslim world" thinks about us? We went in to Afghanistan to smash our enemies and avenge the victims of 9/11. Not to agonize over Muslim burial rights for terrorist thugs. Only under Bush do we cower and cry about this nonsense. Did FDR worry about Shinto funeral customs for the Japanese we slaughtered? Did FDR go to a Shinto shrine after Pearl Harbor and whine about the Japanese "culture of peace"? I am so sick of this phony cowboy Bush. He is all hat, no cattle.
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