Yesterday, a video, purportedly of U.S. soldiers burining the bodies of taliban fighers, was released. The video was reportedly shot by an Australian freelance videographer on October 1 of this year. I've seen portions of this video and cannot determine (one way or another) from what I've seen if it is what it claims to be, but I leave that up to experts.

Of course this video, if true, is another mark of shame on the United States military. What is important, at this point, is how the U.S. military handles the issue. The Pentagon has stated that situation will be investigated and the soldiers will be prosecuted.

In other recent cases, the U.S. military has indeed prosecuted soldiers who did not act within the rules of warfare (e.g. Geneva Conventions rules and U.S. military ordinances). I would hope that we see the same prosecution if the video and its actions are found to be authentic.

It is normal, in any population, to have anywhere from 1% to 5% of people who commit crimes. The U.S. military is not exempt from this. With over 400,000 troops involved in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the past 2 years, we'd expect anywhere from 4,000 to 20,000 of them to have perpetrated criminal actions. We've seen far, far fewer.

Thoughts?

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan

It is indeed real, I have seen most of the footage and it clearly shows atleast one body in the fire, and a US soldier reading out a message mocking the taliban for being cowards for not claiming their dead.

An army isn't mean to have that % of crime rate because they are meant to recruit people who arn't criminals and/or retarded, which obviously they have since there isn't 4000 - 20000 complaints of criminal activities.

I personally haven't seen the video but if it is what they say it is then this just shows yet again the inhumanity of people...


Those people might have belonged to the Taliban but that doesn't mean that their dead bodies should be handled with such disrespect. Everyone deserves a proper burial...

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I don't know about that percentage. Although of the entire US army, it might be true. There are also inside stuff, like the rape and whatnot that happens to women. A whole episode was dedicated to that on "Oprah" a while ago, imagine how many women don't speak out.

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Oprah, huh? Not the paragon of investigative journalism. Still, I suspect that there are indeed unreported crimes in the military. It is still far less than a general population. My point in mentioning this is that the media portrays the U.S. military as a brutal, out of control group of thugs who don't care at all about laws or humanity. They suggest that the coalition forces perpetrate all manner of criminal actions against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. This doesn't appear to be true from the numbers. The numbers suggest that the coalition forces tend to be better behaved than a general population and actually go out of their way to avoid impact on the civilian population where possible. They aren't all angels, but they aren't all devils either, and it appears that there are more good than bad.

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan

You can say that.
I mentioned Oprah because she had women from the army talking about this. I know she's not exactly the person for this, but it proves that those things exist.

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You have to think about why they burned the bodies though, they allowed time for the bodies to be claimed and no one collected them so to avoid the risk of disease or to dispose of them before they began to rot it was either burn the bodies or dig a deep hole in the heat of the Iraq desert, I know what I would choose.

Digging a hole in the Afghan desert would have avoided this as a news item at all. It's a shame that it wasn't done (it would have saved some serious paperwork and investigation time that the military will now have to go through).

It appears that there is some additional information coming out from this story. The Geneva Conventions do allow for cremation for hygenic reasons and it appears that this is exactly the reason that the U.S. troops burned the bodies. Reports of taunting of the Taliban using loudspeakers occurred some time after the burning, so the two weren't necessarily connected.

All that said, I'm going to have to stand on the side of human decency. According to reports, the bodies were out there for over 24 hours. During that time, nobody was able to dig a hole or acquire a body bag? If they were under fire, then they wouldn't have had time to set up a funeral pyre. If they had control of the area (as it appears from the video and pictures), then they would have had time to do some digging or at least pull out a body bag. It may very well be that the soldiers didn't do anything "wrong", but that doesn't mean that they did all of the right things either. The reports that I've read suggest that the bodies couldn't be moved, but that doesn't really fly since someone had to arrange them together and put enough combustible material around and under them to burn them.

The U.S. is held to a higher standard than any other military, both internally ane externally. That means that the U.S. soldier has to take extra effort to make certain that he doesn't run athwart of Geneva Conventions rules and common decency. No other military is under the scrutiny that exists in the United States military, and generally speaking, the U.S. military holds up to that scrutiny pretty well. When the military screws up, they prosecute their own. When they do well, they know they won't get thanks or credit in the media. That's ok, they're tough, they can handle it.

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan

I don't think the world holds your military at a higher standard then other's to be honest... At least your infantry anyway.

Think not? How many Reuters articles do you see regarding abuses by the British Military in Iraq? Do you think it is because they don't happen? I've seen a few, but the world media went on at great length for months about Abu Ghraib and other U.S. military abuses. I don't see the same treatment of others by the press, and certainly I don't see the same treatment about Hussein's Iraqi army or the Taliban, or other millitaries (except possibly Israel's).

The British don't get the same level of treatment partly because of their laws. In Great Britian, in order to publish something negative about someone (including their military), you must be able to prove it (in a court of law if need be). Reporters attached to British troops have to follow those laws. In the U.S., the press can print anything negative or positive without regard to proof or evidence. Reporters who report on the U.S. military, therefore, can hold the military to a higher standard simply by reporting on every action, whether a crime is committed or not. The world reads these reports and therefore also demands that the U.S. military be above reproach (or demands war crimes trials).

If you personally don't hold them to a higher standard, that's your call. I know that the U.S. does indeed hold its military to a higher standard and I don't have a problem with that, but it does indeed mean that in a matter like this one, they should have erred on the side of burying the bodies instead of burning them.

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan