Wednesday, April 18, 2012

When You Wage Corrupt War It's Inevitable It Will Always Get More Contaminated

Photos Show U.S. Soldiers Posed With Afghan Body Parts

"KABUL — Photographs apparently showing United States soldiers posing with body parts of dead insurgents drew strong condemnation on Wednesday from American officials including Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and the commander of international forces in Afghanistan.

The Los Angeles Times published on the front page of its early editions a photograph of what it described as a soldier from the Army’s 82nd Airborne with a dead insurgent’s hand on his shoulder. It said the photograph was one of 18 of soldiers posing with the corpses of insurgent fighters given to the newspaper by a soldier who served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne’s Fourth Brigade Combat Team from Fort Bragg, N.C. The newspaper said the Afghan died planting a bomb, citing police.

The story was later posted to the newspaper’s Web site with another photograph of soldiers posing with the dismembered legs on another insurgent held upright by ropes.

The photographs were believed to have been taken in 2010, according to a spokeswoman for international forces in Afghanistan. She said it was not yet clear where the photographs had been taken, the number of service personnel involved nor whether they were still serving in the military.

According to the newspaper, the photographs were taken in Zabul Province in 2010. Zabul is a particularly impoverished province in the south of the country, and the Taliban has maintained a strong presence there.

The story said in one photograph two soldiers posed holding a dead man’s hand with the middle finger raised.

The revelation of the photographs followed video uncovered in January of four American Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters and appeared likely to complicate an already tense atmosphere for American forces in Afghanistan. There is a military investigation under way into the burning of Korans at Bagram Air Force base in February that touched off deadly riots. The military is also investigating the killing last month of Afghan villagers, including women and children, by a rogue American soldier in Kandahar Province, also in the south."

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