And yet again, more allegations of U.S. Military misconduct...
I'm still planning to post on my New York adventures, and hoped to have a break from these horrifying news reports, especially as a hurricane takes aim once again on my home state but new reports of shameful U.S. military actions have surfaced, this time from Afghanistan.
The Australian investigative news program Dateline has broadcast a report along with video that claims U.S. soldiers burned and mutilated bodies of dead Taliban soldiers. A transcript of the show and video interviews with the reporters can be found here.
The claim is that on October 1, 2005, south of Kandahar, just outside the village of Gonbaz two Taliban bodies were cremated facing towards Mecca by U.S. military personal while a loudspeaker broadcasted to villagers,"Attention, Taliban, 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 their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be."
Islam requires the dead be washed, prayed over, wrapped in white cloth and buried within 24 hours, not cremated.
Now clarification is needed here. It was members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade that did the burning of bodies. Reporters claim the soldiers did this purely for hygenic reasons as the bodies were beginning to decay, rot, and germinate. One soldier did apparently remark, "Wow, look at the blood coming out of the mouth on that one, fucking straight death metal." Such are the mental horrors of war.
However, it was a psychological operations team that recognized an oppurtunity in this otherwise intended to be benign but disgusting hygenic medical practice. They noted the direction the bodies were facing and pulled out loudspeakers to broadcast the message.
The Army has already begun an internal investigation.
Beyond obvious ethical repulsiveness, the point should be made that actions like these endanger American soldiers and Americans themselves by inciting hatred. 'Actionable intelligence' and the like is not gained by this kind of behavior. Just as with the torture scandals, from the most pragmatic viewpoint what is the result of all this? If nothing is gained then we stop seeing this as something of questionable morals designed for some perhaps greater good. We see it as a bankrupt "ends justify the means" scenario in which the end is nothing more than pure sadism.
The Australian investigative news program Dateline has broadcast a report along with video that claims U.S. soldiers burned and mutilated bodies of dead Taliban soldiers. A transcript of the show and video interviews with the reporters can be found here.
The claim is that on October 1, 2005, south of Kandahar, just outside the village of Gonbaz two Taliban bodies were cremated facing towards Mecca by U.S. military personal while a loudspeaker broadcasted to villagers,"Attention, Taliban, 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 their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be."
Islam requires the dead be washed, prayed over, wrapped in white cloth and buried within 24 hours, not cremated.
Now clarification is needed here. It was members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade that did the burning of bodies. Reporters claim the soldiers did this purely for hygenic reasons as the bodies were beginning to decay, rot, and germinate. One soldier did apparently remark, "Wow, look at the blood coming out of the mouth on that one, fucking straight death metal." Such are the mental horrors of war.
However, it was a psychological operations team that recognized an oppurtunity in this otherwise intended to be benign but disgusting hygenic medical practice. They noted the direction the bodies were facing and pulled out loudspeakers to broadcast the message.
The Army has already begun an internal investigation.
Beyond obvious ethical repulsiveness, the point should be made that actions like these endanger American soldiers and Americans themselves by inciting hatred. 'Actionable intelligence' and the like is not gained by this kind of behavior. Just as with the torture scandals, from the most pragmatic viewpoint what is the result of all this? If nothing is gained then we stop seeing this as something of questionable morals designed for some perhaps greater good. We see it as a bankrupt "ends justify the means" scenario in which the end is nothing more than pure sadism.