U.S.
troops pose with suspected Afghan bombers' bodies
By Josh Levs, CNN
updated 9:47 AM EDT, Wed April 18,
2012
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is among U.S. and NATO officials condemning the 2010 photos.
“(CNN) --
The Los Angeles Times published photos Wednesday of U.S. soldiers posing with
what the newspaper said were bodies of insurgents in Afghanistan -- sparking
outrage and condemnation from U.S. military officials.
“The two photos published by the
paper are among 18 provided by a U.S. soldier, who wanted "to draw
attention to the safety risk of a breakdown in leadership and discipline,"
The Times reported.
“The military said an investigation
is under way.
“The photos, from incidents in 2010,
represent "a serious error in judgment by several soldiers who have acted
out of ignorance and unfamiliarity with U.S. Army values," NATO'S
International Security Assistance Force said in a statement. Gen. John Allen,
the ISAF commander, condemned the photos, as did U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.”
Cassi
Creek:
From the earliest battlefields, long
before written chronicles of war, bits and pieces of the vanquished have been
used as trophies. The reasons for using
the defeated to broadcast a message may vary.
Some tribes ate the vanquished in order to absorb their “powers,” and
incidentally their protein. Other combatants
mutilated the defeated in order to increase the terror associated with losing
in combat. One of the most effective
reasons was the unmistakable announcement of who really won the battle. No soldier surrenders his right hand or his
skull willingly. Those trophies were
used to enumerate the losses suffered by the defeated army, tribe, or nation;
and coincidentally to increase the psychological terror imposed upon them.
Soldiers who brought the largest number
of trophies to the post-battle reckoning were unmistakably superior in their craft
than those who made up the trophy pile.
As with any such violent craft, luck also played a role in determining
who won and who lost.
The Crusades, the wars for empire, various
religious wars and every battle that took place left piles of bodies missing
parts, and accoutrements. Anyone could
bring home someone else’s dagger, helm, or armor. Bringing home some bit of opponent spoke more
loudly of the horrors of combat.
We like to depict U.S. troops as
morally superior to all other soldiers down through modern battlefield
history. Some facets of modern warfare
make it easier to hold such opinions than it should be. We’ve never been that moral on the
battlefield.
Scalping was always used to paint the
defeated American Indians as barbaric.
True, post-battle mutilations were part of Indian warfare. Sometimes religion played a hand in such
activities. Quite often, it was the women who engaged in mutilations and quite
often the defeated was still alive when these sports began. Scalping was introduced as a means of
counting the numbers of soldiers killed in the French-Indian War. Scalps were exchanged for trade goods. They often made their way back to the
settlements and towns as heirlooms and curiosities.
The Sand Creek Colorado battle was
probably the worst demonstration of mutilation by Americans during the Manifest
Destiny period. The irregular army under
a religious fanatic leader displayed truly vicious and brutal behavior.
Photography began to be used as a
recording device during the American Civil War.
While truly horrible pictures were made, the process was labor-intensive
and not easily done by troops after a battle.
During WWII, American troops collected
skulls and teeth during the Island-hopping Pacific campaigns. The Japanese treatment of captured Americans
made their soldiers quasi-acceptable targets for such trophy taking. Cameras were somewhat more available and
developing film more easily done, so such documentation did take place by all
combatants. The German forces even went
so far as to photograph and document their inhumanity in conceiving and
carrying out the Holocaust. American and
other Allied forces were able to document the liberation of the various slave labor
and death camps.
VietNam with its brutal guerrilla
warfare involving the wholesale slaughter of villagers for political reasons
saw trophy taking. Teeth and ears were
commonly collected by those who found their way over the line. Taking pictures with prisoners was only a
short step from taking pictures with the bodies of the enemy. I’ve seen too many faded shots of grunts with
propped up Vietnamese bodies.
In order to teach our troops to fight
and kill, we have typically put them through a process of dehumanizing the
enemy. There is, within most of us, an
aversion to killing someone else. The
basic training we provide our soldiers is designed to overcome that aversion to
the degree that they are willing to follow orders when asked to kill
others.
The current generation of soldiers has
grown up playing 1sst-person-shooter video games; the participant is able to role-play
and to virtually destroy single and groups of “the enemy.” To a degree, infantry training and
re-training now includes some forms of these games, which require “shoot – no
shoot” rapid decisions. While the
trainee can lose, there is no physical penalty for failure.
With the inception of “killing games”
and the dehumanization of the enemy, it becomes easy to disregard the former
humanity of dead enemies. While random
killings and trophy collection are severely proscribed and certain to bring
heavy penalties, collection of digital trophies is now easier than ever.
When we inure trainees to the innate
brutality of warfare we strip away some of the all-too-thin veneer of
civilization that exists in young males.
The physical and emotional drive to contest with others for status is
partly involved in using weapons to achieve increased status among peers. There is no longer a reward for body
counting. In many ways, we are trying to
conduct a war with no killing and no casualties. This, when demanded of the troops who most
frequently take fire and casualties, is highly illogical and impossible of
execution. The confusion and frustration
that are engendered among the line units is a factor in these countless small
violations of the UCMJ. Trophy taking by
capturing digital proof of how one vanquished the enemy is going to carry
status in some cultural groups in uniform and out.
In my experience and in what I have
read, it is usually the least well educated among out troops who resort to
violations of the rules of engagement and UCMJ.
The U.S, populace will treat this in
divergent ways. The more progressive of
us will recognize the impropriety of such behavior and condemn it. Unfortunately, they will too frequently
condemn the armed forces as well. The
reactionaries will see little wrong and will ramp up the 2nd
Amendment and gun law arguments with the NRA encouraging the various militias
that are comprised of people who chose not to share the military risk, or who
may even have been rejected by the military as unsound to provide with modern
weaponry.
The armed forces have one purpose,
imposing our national goals upon other nations, and/or groups, by means of
force. That almost always involves
killing. Once we’ve told a young soldier
that it is permissible to kill at the nation’s request; it is very difficult to
rescind that request. Fortunately, most
of our soldiers are fully capable of reversing that training. For a few, there is little limit between
video games and video training. Those
are the ones who take pictures with bodies and who find other way to take
trophies. It is always frightening when we see such
actions carried out by young men and women in our uniforms. Change the national emblems and suddenly all
our pretence of moral superiority is peeled away with that thin overlay of
civilization.
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