US Troops Posed With Afghan Corpses in Photos

[General Mung Beans]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... full.story (NSFW)

U.S. troops posed with body parts of Afghan bombers
An American soldier says he released the photos to the Los Angeles Times to draw attention to the safety risk of a breakdown in leadership and discipline. The Army has started a criminal investigation.
By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times

April 18, 2012, 4:30 a.m.
The paratroopers had their assignment: Check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. Try to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification.

The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan's Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse's severed legs.

A few months later, the same platoon was dispatched to investigate the remains of three insurgents who Afghan police said had accidentally blown themselves up. After obtaining a few fingerprints, they posed next to the remains, again grinning and mugging for photographs.
Two soldiers posed holding a dead man's hand with the middle finger raised. A soldier leaned over the bearded corpse while clutching the man's hand. Someone placed an unofficial platoon patch reading "Zombie Hunter" next to other remains and took a picture.

The Army launched a criminal investigation after the Los Angeles Times showed officials copies of the photos, which recently were given to the paper by a soldier from the division.

"It is a violation of Army standards to pose with corpses for photographs outside of officially sanctioned purposes," said George Wright, an Army spokesman. "Such actions fall short of what we expect of our uniformed service members in deployed areas."

Wright said that after the investigation, the Army would "take appropriate action" against those involved. Most of the soldiers in the photos have been identified, said Lt. Col. Margaret Kageleiry, an Army spokeswoman.

The photos have emerged at a particularly sensitive moment for U.S.-Afghan relations. In January, a video appeared on the Internet showing four U.S. Marines urinating on Afghan corpses. In February, the inadvertent burning of copies of the Koran at a U.S. base triggered riots that left 30 dead and led to the deaths of six Americans. In March, a U.S. Army sergeant went on a nighttime shooting rampage in two Afghan villages, killing 17.

The soldier who provided The Times with a series of 18 photos of soldiers posing with corpses did so on condition of anonymity. He served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne's 4th Brigade Combat Team from Ft. Bragg, N.C. He said the photos point to a breakdown in leadership and discipline that he believed compromised the safety of the troops.

He expressed the hope that publication would help ensure that alleged security shortcomings at two U.S. bases in Afghanistan in 2010 were not repeated. The brigade, under new command but with some of the same paratroopers who served in 2010, began another tour in Afghanistan in February.

U.S. military officials asked The Times not to publish any of the pictures.

Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said the conduct depicted "most certainly does not represent the character and the professionalism of the great majority of our troops in Afghanistan.... Nevertheless, this imagery — more than two years old — now has the potential to indict them all in the minds of local Afghans, inciting violence and perhaps causing needless casualties."

Kirby added, "We have taken the necessary precautions to protect our troops in the event of any backlash."

Times Editor Davan Maharaj said, "After careful consideration, we decided that publishing a small but representative selection of the photos would fulfill our obligation to readers to report vigorously and impartially on all aspects of the American mission in Afghanistan, including the allegation that the images reflect a breakdown in unit discipline that was endangering U.S. troops."

The photos were taken during a yearlong deployment of the 3,500-member brigade, which lost 35 men during that time, according to icasualties.org, a website that tracks casualties. At least 23 were killed by homemade bombs or suicide bombers.

Suicide attacks on two bases of the brigade's 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment killed six U.S. soldiers and four Afghan interpreters. The platoon whose soldiers posed for the photos was part of the battalion.

The soldier who provided the photos, and two other former members of the battalion, said in separate interviews that they and others had complained of inadequate security at the two bases.

An Army investigation into a July 2010 suicide attack in Kandahar that killed four U.S. soldiers found that senior members of the battalion had complained about security. But it concluded that force protection measures were "reasonable and prudent" in the face of limited resources.

Virtually all of the men depicted in the photos had friends who were killed or wounded by homemade bombs or suicide attacks, according to the soldier who provided the images. One paratrooper on the mission wore a bracelet bearing the name of a fallen comrade.

On the first mission, to the police station in the provincial capital of Qalat, Afghan police told the platoon that the severed legs belonged to a suicide bomber whose explosives detonated as he tried to attack a police unit, according to the soldier who provided the photos.

On the second mission, to the morgue in Qalat in late April or early May 2010, Afghan police told the platoon that explosives had detonated as three insurgents were preparing a roadside bomb.

The platoon was able to obtain some fingerprints from the corpses for a database maintained by U.S. forces, the soldier said.

The soldiers felt a sense of triumph and satisfaction, especially after learning that the insurgents had been killed by their own explosives, he said.

"They were frustrated, just pissed off — their buddies had been blown up by IEDs" — improvised explosive devices — the soldier said. "So they sort of just celebrated."

The Qalat photos were circulated among several members of the platoon, the soldier said, and soldiers often joked about them. Most of the soldiers in the photos were low-ranking — including six specialists or privates.

Col. Brian Drinkwine, then-commander of the 4th Brigade, and Lt. Col. David Oclander, then-commander of the 1st Battalion, said they were not authorized to comment on the photos.

The Pentagon declined a Times request that Army officials contact all active-duty soldiers in the photos to provide an opportunity to comment. The Times sent requests for comment by email and Facebook to seven soldiers in the photos. One, now serving in Afghanistan, declined to comment. The others did not respond.

The photos were taken during a tumultuous period in the brigade's deployment.

In January 2010, the commander of the brigade's 2nd Battalion and the battalion's top noncommissioned officer were relieved of duty and ordered home after slides with racial and sexist overtones were shown during daily PowerPoint briefings.

Separately, an Army investigation criticized Drinkwine for failing to prevent his wife from threatening and harassing some unit officers and their spouses during the deployment.

Ft. Bragg's commanding general, Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick, told the Fayetteville Observer in June 2010 that Drinkwine had created "a dysfunctional situation" in the unit. Drinkwine remained in command until after the deployment ended that August.

Fuckup in Afghanistan #41080234

[Eulogy]

The soldier who provided The Times with a series of 18 photos of soldiers posing with corpses did so on condition of anonymity.

He clearly doesn't want to become another Bradley Manning, and who can blame him for not trusting Uncle Sam to protect his whistleblowing? Try to stamp out those with a conscience, and they will just get more savvy and slippery. Good on the editor, too, for not bowing down to the Pentagon.

[madd0ct0r]

Initial response:
actually, given the origin of the body parts, for me this comes under the heading of 'silly thing to do' rather then 'oh fucking hell, again?'.

Second thoughts:
Still, if an afghan had done it with a marine body part it'd be less amusing, so I think the golden rule applies here.

[Tanasinn]

Not seeing this as particularly heinous, personally. It's in very bad taste, to be sure, but then again, 'taste' probably matters less when you're disrespecting someone who would otherwise be trying to kill you. It'll play poorly to the locals, though, I'm sure.

Not nearly as troubling as the cases of badly-investigated killings of civilians.

[Stark]

I guess the part where its a crime is lost on you geniuses. It's pretty funny to suggest fucking with the remains of enemies is ok, though. They're bad! Lol

PS making enemies isn't just bad or wrong, it's counter productive. I guess eternal war IS the American way.

[Haruko]

This is clearly in bad taste; I mean, the anonymous official did not ask the government's permission first. What's up with that?

[Thanas]

I guess the part where its a crime is lost on you geniuses. It's pretty funny to suggest fucking with the remains of enemies is ok, though. They're bad! Lol

Yeah Stark but don't forget the enemy does not have a right to do the same as the glorious american troops. Otherwise nobody would care about what the Iraqis did to the dead bodies at Hadhita. I mean, they were just fucking with the remains of their enemies, right?

Disgusting. There is a reason this is considered a crime.

[Aaron MkII]

My Convention is a little rusty, is illegal under the Hague stuff or Geneva?

[madd0ct0r]

I guess the part where its a crime is lost on you geniuses. It's pretty funny to suggest fucking with the remains of enemies is ok, though. They're bad! Lol

PS making enemies isn't just bad or wrong, it's counter productive. I guess eternal war IS the American way.

Oh christ, tell me something i don't know. But following abu grahib, waterboarding, shooting up a village for funnsies, that guy who was collecting 'souvineers' and random drones shooting people who are 'aiding the enemy' this one comes pretty low on my yuckometer.

call it war fatigue fatigue.

[Aaron MkII]

I agree that its low ln the scale of bad shit, but what's burned me out is the culture that permits it. Now we all know that some low ranking guy will take the blame while the overall attitude will not change.

And some point i threw up my hands in disgust, went "fuck it" and can't muster the outrage anymore.

[Thanas]

I agree that its low ln the scale of bad shit, but what's burned me out is the culture that permits it. Now we all know that some low ranking guy will take the blame while the overall attitude will not change.

Of course not. That would require the US military to actually overhaul itself.

Thing is, it should be a pretty trivial thing to stomp this out. Just actually punish the guys involved hard. Everytime. Don't give them slaps on the wrists.

[PeZook]

Yeah, this is pretty low-key compared to murder, but it's also something that should be trivial to eradicate, and also a symptom of the rot in organizational culture. The US Army likes to think itself as a professional, no-nonsense and enlightened fighting force, but instead of punishing troops who pull bullshit like that, choses to go after the whistleblowers.

[Simon_Jester]

I think it would actually be very hard to eradicate this among troops in a combat zone because of the way warfare affects people. If this were really easy to get rid of, you'd see wars where casual disrespect of the enemy dead didn't happen. I don't think you could find such a war, except perhaps by pointing to a poorly documented war and arguing that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Maybe I'm being unduly influenced by this, but to get an idea of what I'm talking about I suggest this essay by one antiwar veteran- antiwar in that he thinks war is a very bad idea, not something that you would want to have going on if you can help it, and who constantly tries to underline the negative effects of war on the human psyche:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/01/a-kind-of-humor

David Drake.

The really relevant point for this conversation is this:

A real combat outfit reverences nothing. I don’t think anyone can achieve a bone-deep understanding of that without having himself been in such a unit. Keith Bennett understood perfectly, and he made that understanding the point of his story.

It might be that he's simply wrong about this and you really can teach soldiers in the field who go through prolonged combat operations to not joke around with dead bodies. I'm skeptical of that.

[Thanas]

Nobody is really thinking one can eradicate the problem. Stick the idiots in a hole for a few years and you can pretty much make sure the idiots in question won't do it again, if only for the simple reason of them not getting another chance.

[General Mung Beans]

If you're disgusted by these pictures, pressure your government to stop this war and never start another one. That's the only solution.

"Never start another one"? You don't think any war is justified?

[Simon_Jester]

No. No he does not.

I can eradicate the problem without even having to stick any idiots in a hole.

Step one: DON'T SEND THEM OUT TO KILL PEOPLE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Problem solved. It's that fucking simple.

This is probably the solution Drake would go for too.

I'm all for it whenever possible.

[Aaron MkII]

If you're disgusted by these pictures, pressure your government to stop this war and never start another one. That's the only solution.

"Never start another one"? You don't think any war is justified?

Whether one is justified or not does nothing for the people who have to endure it, nor does it magic away the physical or mental scars. It's a shit deal for everyone involved.

[Flagg]

If you're disgusted by these pictures, pressure your government to stop this war and never start another one. That's the only solution.

"Never start another one"? You don't think any war is justified?

The operative word being "start".

[MKSheppard]

I can eradicate the problem without even having to stick any idiots in a hole.

Step one: DON'T SEND THEM OUT TO KILL PEOPLE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Problem solved. It's that fucking simple.


That removes opportunity for it to happen, and it removes the mindset of dehumanizing the "enemy" that makes it happen.

And best of all? None of our kids have to come home in boxes, and we stop putting Afghan kids in situations where they think strapping bombs to their chest is a good idea. Win/win.

The best way to implement this no war policy within a framework is to adopt massive retaliation again. If that's too immoral, we can just expand on what we are doing now, which is a drone campaign against the leaders instead of on the mooks. Just think! We could stop the Sudan/South Sudan war by putting a missile into Bashar's bedroom one night, instead of a bombing campaign that kills thousands of average people whose only crime was to join the Sudanese military.

[Gandalf]

The best way to implement this no war policy within a framework is to adopt massive retaliation again.

Based on...?

[Simon_Jester]

Here's the argument.

If your policy is simply "we never fight wars ever," then any dickheads out there in the world will have no reason to refrain from messing with you. At first, this may not be so bad, because you can probably ignore things like Foreign Country A conquering Foreign Country B, even if you kind of liked Country B. After all, you're not involved, and it's not your problem because you're being pacifist about such things.

But over time this will get worse, because people will realize there's really no disadvantage to using armed force to screw you over. In real life, countries have been conquered or robbed blind by invading foreigners when they were unable to defend themselves. This has happened many times, in many different places and cultures, so it's not something to take lightly.

So you need to give people some reason not to totally fuck you over, or sooner or later some asshole is going to do exactly that. You have to be able to draw a line and say "okay people, I'm a tolerant guy but don't cross this line." And have them listen.

Where you draw the line is your choice. You might draw it at "someone invading my friend." You might draw it at "someone invading me." You might draw it at "someone committing genocide anywhere ever." You might draw it at "looking at me funny." It really is up to you. But you need to be able to draw the line somehow.

One option is to have a big military of normal soldiers and jet planes and so on, which will fight an expensive ground war with anyone who crosses the line. This costs a lot of money and means you end up in bloody ground wars in places like Foreign Country A, if the A-ians cross the line. It's pretty likely some asshole will cross the line sooner or later- either because they're strong assholes, who think they can win a fight with your military, or because they're brave assholes, and are not afraid of your military with its puny machine guns and bazookas.

The other option is really crazy, but might just be crazy enough to work. This option involves building up an arsenal of horrible, insanely powerful weapons and not using them. And then you say "I'm a tolerant guy, but... if you cross this line, so help me God, I will use the horrible weapons." If people take you seriously, they are probably not going to take the chance of crossing that line. They don't want to get disintegrated or turned into jellyfish or whatever your superweapon does.


The problem is, if you want to avoid having to actually use your horrible weapons in a fight, you need to be sure no one is willing to take the chance of crossing the line. Which means making the consequences so horrible you'd have to be out of your mind to accept them, it's just not worth it. For example, the Soviet Union can build ten thousand nuclear missiles and say to the Americans "if you invade or attack us, we will throw ten thousand nuclear missiles at you and blow your country to bits." And the Americans will respond by saying "Well, shit. Better not invade those guys. I don't want to get blown to bits."

And this actually seems to work, even though it involves building huge arsenals of horrible weapons no sane person would ever want to use for any reason.

But to make it work you need that 'massive retaliation' doctrine: you need to say that you will use superweapons to flatten anyone who crosses the line, in a way so terrible that no one would accept it as a price of crossing the line. And you need to have that threat be believed.

If you have that, you can draw your line, and say "okay, we don't care what you do as long as you don't invade A, B, and C," but if you do that we'll break out the nukes and you're fucked." And hopefully the world will listen, and no one will start wars with you. Which, again, seems to work. And it's actually cheap to do this- the a nation could (at least three do) maintain a nuclear deterrent force no country on Earth would want to tangle with, for a fraction of the cost of the kind of huge interventionist army the US uses to invade countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Ironically, guys with machine guns are easier to use for starting wars than nuclear bombs. And a "limited" doctrine that says "if you cross the line we draw, we will invade you" is more likely to start wars than a doctrine that says "if you cross the line, we will nuke you." Because people are a hell of a lot more careful about where they draw the line when they know that they're agreeing to make that line the trigger for a condition of nuclear war.

[Thanas]

Simon, your scenario does not work because the US doctrine is only partly one of self-defence. The wars they have started so far are not wars of self-defence but wars of aggression (save the one in Afghanistan). In that context, what you are talking about is not a horrible weapon of defence, it is a horrible weapon that makes everybody obey you because they cower in fear.

The US needs to use its massive war machine if it wants to continue on the path it apparently has chosen for itself and so far it shows no sense of changing that.

[Haruko]

Along those lines, if I correctly understand, when American troops were amassing in Kuwait in the lead up to the Second Gulf War, Iraq, if it had the gall, would have been justified by international law if it struck first, since that would be a preemptive war. In contrast, America engaged in what is called preventative war, which is certainly not condoned by international law.

[SAMAS]

Technically, yeah. It's his fault that he didn't.

I get the feeling Bush would've been happy if he had.

[Simon_Jester]

Simon, your scenario does not work because the US doctrine is only partly one of self-defence. The wars they have started so far are not wars of self-defence but wars of aggression (save the one in Afghanistan).

So change the doctrine and stop picking unnecessary fights. It's still a hell of a lot cheaper. Your nation ends up being just as secure if you do this, really. No one can actually invade or conquer it, or any of its allies, or even do anything really horrendous that affects your trade and such... as long as you're actually willing to push the nuclear button when you say you are.

So my scenario would work fine; all it would require is a slight realignment of the US's goals and priorities, with less gratuitous beating people up for the hell of it.

Shep's suggested this before, and as far as I can tell he's not actually wrong- it reminds me of the time he once proposed to solve the Social Security crisis with nukes. No, wait, stop laughing, seriously.

His idea was to upgrade the bomber fleet so there'd be an effective deterrent force that could, coincidentally, do conventional bombing if necessary. Then we'd scale back more or less everything else in the military, saving... I don't remember, some twelve-digit number of dollars on annual defense expenses. Then we'd use the proceeds to keep Social Security afloat. As far as I can tell, he's not wrong about the math.

Of course, we wouldn't be able to invade Iraqistan any more, but really, who cares except the guys who view the Department of Defense as a gigantic penis compensator?

If your policy is simply "we never fight wars ever," then any dickheads out there in the world will have no reason to refrain from messing with you.

Let me stop you right there because there are other reasons than fear to refrain from messing with someone, such as trade disruptions and their own morality. Of course, leaders are pretty good at lying to get past their people's moral concerns, but trade is a big one and completely unemotional...

That works for small scale messing around, which is fine. It doesn't work so well for the big stuff like "Hitler decides to invade Poland."

Basically, the idea is that you use the horrible deterrent force to stop any real assholes from doing the big nasty stuff (for this purpose it doesn't actually have to be nukes, but nukes are the superweapon that works in real life so yeah).

Then, if you're worried about the little annoying stuff like unwelcome tariffs or people hassling your merchants or political oppression of some minority group you feel sorry for, that's when you start playing around with trade and things like that. It might not work, but you accept that, because ultimately it is the small stuff and if you really have to, you can just go "meh" and not sweat it too much. It's not the end of the world.

You use the little stuff to play tit-for-tat regarding the little stuff, and the big threats to deter the big stuff that is actually enough of a problem that you need to defend against it.

This was... actually pretty close to official US Cold War policy in some areas once upon a time. What happened was that the government couldn't resist the impulse to make lots of allies overseas as part of the whole Cold War thing, and it was (correctly) pointed out that the "massive retaliation" doctrine had a big blank spot in it as far as those allies were concerned. Because while we might have a treaty of alliance with Outer Nowherestan, it was very hard for anyone to believe we'd actually fight a nuclear war to defend Outer Nowherestan from the Soviets. If we didn't have a conventional army to back Outer Nowherestan up, they'd start thinking very hard about doing what the Soviets wanted, and the US security establishment of the time decided not to be willing to live with that.

Which was a conscious choice they didn't have to make that way if they didn't want to.