Calls for retaliation after video shows Taliban burning

Video footage of alleged abuse by US soldiers in Afghanistan, burning the bodies of Taliban militants, has angered a country increasingly wary about the four-year American presence. Some religious leaders called for "jihad" or holy war in retaliation for an act deeply offensive to Islam and ordinary Afghans voiced disgust despite their loathing of the insurgents responsible for unrelenting attacks.

"I think the people and the Muslims should not stay quiet - if they do, the Americans will become more impudent," said Ghulam Farooq, a mullah at one of the main mosques in the western city of Herat. "Jihad, we should do jihad against the Americans," he said.

Aware of the inflammatory nature of the alleged incident revealed in an SBS television report on Wednesday, the US military was swift to condemn the incident as "unacceptable" and promise a thorough criminal investigation.
The footage comes after abuse of Afghan prisoners in US custody and outrage at reports of the desecration of the Koran at the US camp at Guantanamo Bay.
"If those responsible are not punished, I think the Muslim nation of Afghanistan will rise against the Americans - no Muslim can tolerate such a crime," said Shamsuddin, another mullah in the southern city of Kandahar.


Besides breaching the Geneva Conventions, the burning of bodies violates Islamic tradition, which requires the bodies of Muslims to be buried. "It is good to kill Taliban, but it is very bad to burn their bodies," said Ghulam Farooq, a taxi driver in Kabul. "We Muslims never burn our bodies. We bury them with respect," he said. The allegations were particularly shocking because "we were hoping the coalition forces were now keen to repair their already damaged image," said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, a commissioner with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1488606.htm

one from the village claimed them and the bodies were bloated and starting to smell (the bodies were there for one day). I think the soldiers should have left them so the people of the village could bury them in the proper way. Maybe the village was afraid to do anything because our soldiers were there.

sensitive the soidiers should have gone to the "trouble" to bury them. it would have certainly saved the backlash that we don't need.

to fix things up??

which I would take with one very large grain of salt.

have gone to the village and requested a proper burial for the dead. They were also playing propaganda over the loudspeakers at the time this occurred so it seems to be a scare tactic. I was just relaying what the soldiers involved had to say.

with the intentions of shooting and killing anyone who came to retrieve the bodies for the traditional funeral.
And probably why they even tried taunting people to come and get them.
This is very sad behavior and will continue because it is known that no one will be held to account for this type of behavior.

wherever they were, and didn't much feel like living in close proximity to rotting corpses.

If the villagers rejected burying them, they rejected them: there's little point speculating about motive. There's already been a lot, and speculation easily is taken to be fact.

It's on a slightly censored video, and is rather enlightening to watch.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2682025

I went to watch the video, and it was disturbing, but I was wondering what you saw that was enlightening. If you could explain it to me (use small words, I confuse easily), I'd be grateful. I've been trying to wrap my mind around this nightmare since the story broke. It just doesn't make sense.

:dem:
powwowdancer out

I rewatched it, wondering at first why you didn't. The answer was simple. It was a 5 minute video when I first watched it, showing the psyche ops using their vehicle with a speaker on top to broadcast their jeering to the Iraqis watching. They were bragging about what they were doing, and pointing out that the corpses were being burnt with their heads facing away from Mecca. And they were calling the watchers cowards for not preventing the burning of the bodies.

Now there is only a 30 second video of the burning, with all that cut out.

Maybe you could answer a few questions.

The psy-ops, obviously, would have been in the local language.

The transcription of the Australian report indicated what was translated and what wasn't. Baker's text wasn't listed as translated. And it was immediately overwritten, so to speak, by two psy-ops guys' reports saying what their two messages were.

One comes away with two possible impressions: the psy-ops guys were embarrassedly trying to deny Baker's text was broadcast, when it had been; or Baker wasn't actually saying what was broadcast, and the psy-ops guys were dutifully correcting the record. The transcript was ambiguous between the two options, and I prefer not to intentionally read my own speculation into transcripts (and, for all I know, there's a third and fourth possibility).

Did the original report, or the video, explicitly claim to be translating the text as read over the loudspeakers? Were there subtitles or voice-overs by translators?

millions of "terrorists"?

more of same from the military that thinks Rush Limbaugh is policy

what is it with these people? Why are our troops allowed to keep doing these horrible acts IN OUR NAME??

if they did not have a clear indication that this was what their superiors wanted?

IIRC, we sent a crapload of body bags to the Middle East to contain corpses of dead Americans.

All those soldiers had to do was get a couple of those body bags, some rubber gloves, face mask, and a gurney to contain the corpses and give to the families. How much trouble would that have been?

were burning them because they were afraid the bodies were going to release the Bird Flu Virus into the air and wipeout the plattoon.

NOTHING, I MEAN NOTHING THAT COMES OUT OF GOVERNEMNT OFFICIALS OR SOLDIERS IS THE TRUTH.

Reuters tried to report the truth and what do they get they get their reporters locked up and killed.

handle it.

AND foreign policy is, at this late date, NOT TO GET??? The INSULTS to other heads of state and their citizens is INTENTIONAL. The refusal to hold anyone accountable for outrageous criminality is INTENTIONAL. The fomenting of further conflicts using false flag ops is INTENTIONAL. The aftermath of disaster in NOLA and on the Gulf is INTENTIONAL. The bankrupting of the Treasury is INTENTIONAL. The abrogation of the social contract is INTENTIONAL. The BETRAYAL of U.S. troops when they return home banged up beyond fucking belief is INTENTIONAL.

The only ones having a last laugh in '08 will be the neocons unless EVERY SINGLE ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE is REMOVED from the electoral process.

I ask again, WHAT is not to get? :shrug:

We are now responsible for giving impetus to those against the US occupation of Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan will get hotter and our puppet Karzai is made even more irrelevant.

Do you ever wonder if Osama is working for the Pentagon?