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October 23, 2005
Lady Boys and Burnt Corpses on Video
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - The Pentagon announced Wednesday night that the Army had started a criminal investigation into allegations that American soldiers in Afghanistan had burned the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters and then used the charred and smoking corpses in a propaganda campaign against the insurgents.The events were shown on an Australian television program, broadcast there on Wednesday night, depicting what is described as an American psychological operations team broadcasting taunts over a loudspeaker toward a village thought to be harboring Taliban fighters and sympathizers, according to a transcript of the program. It was posted on the Web site of the Special Broadcasting Service, http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/. An American soldier, an Afghan soldier, and two Taliban had just been killed in fighting there, the transcript of the program said.
According to the program's translation of the taunts, which were delivered in the local language by American forces on the scene, a soldier identified as Sgt. Jim Baker, said: "You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve the bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be."
From what I understand, there is video of this:
The program's video was taken by Stephen Dupont, a freelance Australian photojournalist who was embedded in the American unit to document its operations. Mr. Dupont's photographs from the region have been widely published.In a separate interview posted on the network's Web site on Wednesday, Mr. Dupont said soldiers from an unidentified airborne unit appeared to believe they were doing the right thing in laying the corpses of the two dead Taliban toward Mecca, and then setting them on fire.
The video shows flames swirling around two charred corpses, their legs and arms outstretched, and a group of five American soldiers watching from a rocky ledge.
Posted by zeynep at October 23, 2005 12:17 AM
Comments
When I first read that story the "lady boys" insult reminded me of something I'd read here a while ago and a quick Google search turned up this:
http://www.underthesamesun.org/content/2004/09/the_taliban_are.html
Clearly psy-ops have come a long way over the last year...
Posted by: Disillusioned kid at October 23, 2005 03:54 PM