BoatBanter.com - OT U.S. Soldiers may have burned bodies

It just gets sadder, and sadder. The truly sad thing is, that the right
wing lemmings here will somehow act like this isn't a big deal!

Report: U.S. Troops Burned Taliban Bodies
By MERAIAH FOLEY, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Printable Version
Email This Article

(10-19) 22:12 PDT SYDNEY, Australia (AP) --

The U.S. military said Wednesday it was investigating a report carried
on an Australian television network that claimed American soldiers in
Afghanistan burned the bodies of two Taliban fighters and then used the
action to taunt other Islamic militants.

The SBS television network broadcast video footage that purportedly
showed U.S. soldiers burning the bodies of the suspected Taliban
fighters in the hills outside the southern village of Gonbaz, near the
former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

The network said the footage was taken by a freelance journalist,
Stephen Dupont, who told The Associated Press he was embedded with the
173rd Airborne Brigade of the U.S. Army earlier this month. Dupont said
the burnings happened on Oct. 1.

In the footage, which was seen by the AP, two soldiers who spoke with
American accents later read taunting messages that the SBS said were
broadcast to the village, which was believed to be harboring Taliban
soldiers.

Dupont said the soldiers responsible for the taunting messages were
part of a U.S. Army psychological operations unit.

The U.S. military said the Army Criminal Investigation Division had
opened an investigation into alleged misconduct that included "the
burning of dead enemy combatant bodies under inappropriate
circumstances."

"This command takes all allegations of misconduct or inappropriate
behavior seriously and has directed an investigation into circumstances
surrounding this allegation," Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya said in a
statement the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan.

Shortly after the bodies were burned, the soldiers from the
psychological operations unit allegedly read out taunting messages
about the act over a loudspeaker to the nearby village, according to a
transcript of the program.

"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," said one message read by a soldier, according
to the transcript.

The footage did not show the messages being broadcast, though it did
show some military vehicles were fitted with speakers and playing loud
music.

Dupont told the AP the messages had been broadcast in the local dialect
but were translated into English for him by members of the Army
psychological operations unit.

He declined to provide further information, however, saying his agent
was now handling all queries about the footage.

Cremation of bodies is not part of Islamic tradition, which calls for
remains to be washed, prayed over, wrapped in white cloth and buried
within 24 hours.

Dupont said the soldiers who burned the bodies said they did so for
hygiene reasons. However, Dupont said the incendiary messages later
broadcast by the U.S. army psychological operations unit indicated they
were aware that the cremation would be perceived as a desecration.

"They used that as a psychological warfare, I guess you'd call it. They
used the fact that the Taliban were burned facing west (toward Mecca),"
Dupont told SBS. "They deliberately wanted to incite that much anger
from the Taliban so the Taliban could attack them ... . That's the only
way they can find them."

Ameer Ali, the head of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils,
said burning a body would be considered a desecration in the Islamic
faith.

The SBS report suggested the deliberate burning of bodies could violate
the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of enemy remains in
wartime. Under the Geneva Conventions, soldiers must ensure that the
"dead are honorably interred, if possible according to the rites of the
religion to which they belonged."

Furthermore, the rules state that bodies should not be cremated,
"except for imperative reasons of hygiene or for motives based on the
religion of the deceased."