US corpse abuse pictures fuel anger, NATO exit

[bemildred]

Source: AFP

KABUL — Pictures of US troops abusing corpses, on top of a series of outrages this year, have fueled anti-US anger in Afghanistan, with the president calling Thursday for an early exit of foreign forces.

"The only way to put an end to such painful experiences is through an accelerated and full transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces," his office said in a statement.

NATO has some 130,000 US-led troops helping Karzai's government fight a Taliban insurgency, but they are progressively handing over to Afghan forces ahead of a scheduled pull out by the end of 2014.

Updated plans for the withdrawal will be discussed at a NATO summit in Chicago next month, with polls showing Karzai's call for an early exit is shared by citizens of troop-contributing nations.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gIu8WSENrVE12kMRo1BEzNZOIeKA?docId=CNG.0797873dea9383d326577232afc17802.4a1

[Cali_Democrat]

1. Remember after September 11th when sheltered Americans wondered why they hate us?

Why do folks in the Muslim world hate us, many naive Americans asked themselves.

Well, perhaps it's the humiliation America has been dealing the Muslim world for decades. This is just another example.

Yup yup.

[xtraxritical]

2. Osama hated us because of our military base in The Holy Land

which is Saudi Arabia, where Mecca is located. This was the start of the trouble.

[Cali_Democrat]

7. Yes...Osama along with many others found our presence there humiliating

Just another humiliation in a long line of them.

[leftynyc]

4. You think this behavior is new?

Try and go back to any war where the enemy was not dehumanized and people taking trophies. Personally as these are the body parts of suicide bombers, I'll not shed any tears. To think this is an anti-Muslim thing is delusional.

[caseymoz]

10. Weren't they suppose to love us?

After we got rid of that pesky Taliban and rebuilt their nation? The old phrase was, win their hearts and minds? Besides, we already took over Afghanistan, remember? Did we get Japan and Germany on our side during their occupations by doing crap like this? Dehumanization should stop sometime after victory.

Yes, this goes on in every war. Yes, it's a common, psychological effect. So, shouldn't you be surprised, ten years after we "won" that this is still going on, and that you still think our situation is so precarious that this is expedient? It's a sign we've lost. If we're dehumanizing Afghans now, we're never going to accomplish our goals there.

All Afghans feel the insult, including those in Karzi's government. Islam has laws on how to treat the dead. To desecrate these bodies is anti-Muslim. Even if those guys were terrorists and didn't deserve a good burial, their families still need consolation. Funerals are for the living. You won't shed any tears, but apparently you've forgotten that desecration of the dead is considered insulting to any culture.

We didn't see law enforcement posing with John Wayne Gacy's body parts, and it would horribly unsettle people about police in general if they did, and that's within our borders. You simply don't do that when you're trying to bring people to order.

No one asked you to shed any tears in grief, only in defeat.

[leftynyc]

11. Do you remember anyone

on this board buying the "they'll throw us flowers" bullshit the bush administration was throwing around? I certainly don't. I'll save my tears for these girls:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=99882

As for myself - I consider poisoning girls who want an education far, far, far worse than desecrating the dead body of someone who blew themselves up.

[caseymoz]

16. False dilemma: why does one exclude the other?

Last edited Thu Apr 19, 2012, 08:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Like having compassion for those girls drains away your compassion for anybody else? Are you really claiming you have to ration your compassion? (There's a rap song in that rhyme.) I hope your father doesn't have a heart attack right now, just after those Afghani girls have been poisoned. Boy, I guess with Dick Clark and Jonathon Frid dying, too, you're just about dry.

That's one fallacy. A straw man would be the other. Did I, anywhere, argue for compassion for those terrorists? Did I, anywhere, say that people on this board "bought" the Bush administration bullshit? (When did I single out people on this board as an example?)

Definitely many in this country believed that's what we were there for, and definitely, the Bush administration thought they could "reform" the Afghani people. They thought Afghanistan just needed to purge their leadership and business-friendly democracy would blossom. And, yes, plan B was occupy the country and kill those who wouldn't be reformed, but they had their best-case scenario in mind. And it was their justification for staying in after they knocked out the Taliban.

Afterthoughts: there's another dimension to your straw man. I thought I made it as clear as possible that compassion for suicide has nothing to do with being outraged over desecration of corpses. Should the identity of the dead even be known for it to be upsetting to you?

WWII, Korean War, and to a lesser extent, Vietnam veterans at least seemed morally on-the-ball enough to realize it was shameful. They didn't take pictures of atrocities. Now that everybody knows dehumanizing is just part of the war process, it seems our soldiers have lost all shame about it.

"Dehumanization" has no place in an occupation, where the war is won and you're hoping to bring your forces home soon. Since, the only "reason" for it is to make sure your side kills more of the enemy.

[leftynyc]

18. I thought I had made myself clear

I have no tears for suicide bombers and I don't give a shit what they do to their bodies - they certainly had no concern for their own lives or those they were trying to kill - why on earth should I? If it wasn't this people were getting outraged at, it would be something else that completely ignores anything positive our military has done at the request of the person in the White House. Chances are our military built that school where these girls were poisoned. THAT is an outrage that will get far less attention than what was done with the dead body of a murderous asshole. While everyone is screaming out getting our soldiers out of Afghanistan, I hope they give some thought about what we're going to be leaving the women and girls there to. I'll save my outrage for what is going to happen to them once we leave.

P.S. As my father is currently dying from pancreatic cancer, I'll thank you to keep him out of your argument.

[caseymoz]

19. Does it occur to you that the person is gone . . .

. . . in those bodies, and how corpses are treated after death is for the dignity of the relatives, the society and, yes, the religion? So, to not respect is an insult to all that?

Don't even get into the positive our military has done. You yourself said nobody on this board believed the bullshit the Bush administration was telling us about rebuilding the nation. You can't have it both ways. Either you're too sophisticated to have ever believed we trying to help people, or you believe we're there altruistically. Those are contradictory positions, mutually excluding. You can't flip from one to the other.

The reason why nobody seems to notice the good our military is doing has nothing to do with anti-military sentiment or a conspiracy in the press. The military has to work both sides between building schools and bombing militants, who often look just like civilians. Guess which one people will notice most?

How is this different from any other organization? If the Red Cross ran hospitals and bombed innocent people while desecrating bodies and burning Bibles, which of those would be noticed? You think we'd forgive them? Make them immune to arrest? You think they'd be loved? If Catholic Charities helped poor people, and tortured the unfaithful, which would they be known for? Would we forgive one for the other?

No. We wouldn't tolerate it. You know this. We'd put them on a terrorist organization list. And that's how we'd feel when the organizations were run by Americans. Now imagine if it was run by a foreign power. What if China had an organization here that built schools, ran hospitals, and killed and tortured people, desecrated bodies, burned Bibles. Now imagine if the did this and they were immune to arrest, prosecution, or civil action. Hell, we'd be suicide bombing it.

Now, how do you think the foreign press would see these "good" organizations that sometime bomb people? The same way. Don't whine that people aren't noticing all the good things we're doing. You couldn't have expected anything else, and that won't change. Ever.

There's a real life organization that illustrates this: Hamas. They're not known for the schools and hospitals they build and run either. They also do charity work, and they're probably as clueless about why people never notice as you about why nobody notices our noble military. Israel has embargoed and quarantined them, they're said forget their charity work.

I feel also sympathy for the suffering women in Afghanistan, but I have one suggestion: leave. Get out. Saddle Afghanistan with a population that's only one-third women. If Afghan women did that, I assure you, the men there would act better toward the remaining women.

The oppression and abuse of Afghan women is heartbreaking, but being realistic: there is almost nothing we could do for them while they're living in that country. Period. We can't change the abusive douche bags living there, and if we kill them, it just makes the rest douchier. The best thing we could do, then, is not occupy the country, but give the women asylum and encourage them to escape.

And that's a test. If we're not willing to do that, then any of our caring for them was bullshit to begin with. Similar to caring about a character in a novel, but not enough care to prompt action.

I'm sorry about your father. My regards and best wishes for any possible recovery. Of course, I won't refer to that example again, and I didn't choose it knowing, nor did I think there was a good chance you were facing that very thing. That part was bad luck, and I'm sorry for the results. I'm hoping you trust I would have never went that direction if I had any idea.

But a false dilemma is still a fallacy.

[gratuitous]

20. I dunno

If my home town/state was being occupied by a foreign army, and that army was given to committing war crimes, atrocities and other humiliations of my fellow citizens, I'd certainly understand the motivation by some people to drive them out by any means necessary, up to and including the loss of one's own life in a suicide bombing. It certainly speaks to a deeper level of commitment and involvement than a person sitting in front of a computer screen thousands of miles away and launching a missile by remote control at a "suspicious" activity. I suppose that while this behavior of blowing people to bits with the click of a mouse has the redeeming value of actually being new to warfare, it seems no less reprehensible than a lot of other behaviors connected to waging war.

As long as we're considering what's worth crying about.

[4th law of robotics]

13. So they hate us because of how we treat their dead bodies

but give their own governments a pass for the horrific things they do to living muslims?

[Cali_Democrat]

15. No. They hate us for various things, not just how we treat dead bodies.

I thought I made that clear.

[TheMadMonk]

17. No they hate for the reasoning (lack of) behind the act.

Mistreatment of bodies and body parts is gratuitous, blasphemous or desecration, far more likely to enrage than coerce into submission.

Mistreatment of the living by a brutal regime is purposefully cruel.

Yeah it's horrific, but it's also coldly logical.

Sadly, I feel there IS a sort of purposefullness to the release of these photographs at this time. Same reason the Abu Grahib photos were "released". And same sort of timing! With a drawdown of troop levels in the near (or at least foreseeable) future, out come some photos of an outrage, along with a statement that there are worse/too graphic for TV or print media. Locals, who had been settling down to some degree, fire up at the outrage and suddenly: "Leaving ceases to be a viable option".

[indepat]

3. What is it about abusing corpses that is so

macho?

[marshall gaines]

8. complete

shows total, complete domination and subjugation of one's enemy to the enemy. That's war.

[Crowman1979]

5. But...but...but those soldiers are just letting off some steam!

I wonder of those uber-patriot teabaggers would say the same thing if one of those off-the-hinge soldiers raped their daughter. Will they use that letting off steam excuse then?

[freshwest]

12. Rush would say it's just a fraternity prank like Abu Graif. Great moral authority that he is...

As far as the daughter getting raped, she'll be told she was asking for it, forced to give birth and marry the bastard.

If she refuses and gets an abortion, she'll be disowned as a or just live with being called a slut the rest of her days.

They'll send a video of the rape to Rush as he commanded all women having sex to do. It's required now.

[marshall gaines]

6. huh

ya think?

[bemildred]

9. Yeah, "Gee, who coulld have predicted this?"

What I find interesting is that it is being treated as a morality and ethics issue (which it is), rather than a command and control issue, which it also is; and the latter seems much more important to me, or it should be. I mean this is supposed to be our professional all-volunteer Army, right? None of those disloyal draftees. But maybe that's why nobody wants to bring it up in public.

[freshwest]

14. They want to blame it on being at war because they'll be back in the USA soon.

And no one will dare to bring it up to their faces then.