New "shocking" photos from Iraq.

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Friday September 30, 2005 12:32

by Eamon Ryan

U.S. Soldiers pose with dead Iraqis

An "enraged" Ted Kennedy has reprimanded U.S. military chiefs on television by showing pictures of combat troops posing with the charred or bullet riddled bodies of dead Iraqis.
Obviously a new cycle of cynical political catfight between the Republican and Democrats is in full swing.

Of course though gruesome combat soldiers posing with the bodies of dead enemy is not especially shocking if one has knowledge of history.

In ancient times warriors slew "monsters" or other warriors and collected heads and body parts as trophies. In the Scandinavian myths of Beowulf or the quest for the mythical Sambo, the Celtic myths of Fionn, the classical tales of Hercules, Perseus and Jason. When Achilles slew Hector at Troy he dragged his body behind his chariot around the city walls.
In Africa tribes in the past and even still today often ate body parts to take possession of the strength and spirit of their slain enemy.
The two-finger insult originated after the battle of Agincourt after the English archers displayed their intact fingers necessary to draw their bows to the defeated French who traditional cut off them the hands of captive archers.
David slew thousands of Philistines and gathered their foreskins to satisfy Saul.
Herod had John the Baptist's head presented to Salome on a silver platter.
When Christ was crucified the Romans cast lots for his clothes.
In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the defeated antihero is slain by Macduff and his head is mounted on a pole.
In the 19th century the legendary British soldier Gordon of Khartoum was killed by Sudanese tribesmen and the Mahdi had his head put on a pole.

During WW1 and WW2 soldiers on both sides collected "trigger" fingers, watches, buckles, helmets and other items from the dead. In "Band of Brothers" a soldier shoots a German officer dead and takes his Luger pistol as a prize.
The Nazis tanned the skins of dead Jews and made lampshades and other leather produdcts or soap from their fat.

During the 2003 tank drive on Baghdad according to the bestselling book "Thunder Run" the crew of an American tank nicknamed "Creeping Death" advanced up the highway into the heart of Saddam's palaces playing the Metallica heavy metal song of the same name as they blasted at Iraqi soldiers and militia. The road was littered with burning wrecks of Iraqi tanks, APC's and commandered civilian vehicles and a carpet of mutilated corpses.
Again the soldier took photographs and collected trophies.

Meanwhile Musab Al-Zaraqawi slowly sliced off the heads of captured American Nick Berg and Briton Ken Bigley and broadcast the murders on the internet.

This litany does not condone such bloodthirsty behaviour but one must understand that in warfare individuals who are entirely normal in civilian life are driven to savagry in warfare.
Most men in these photos were not evil men before they posed with the dead Iraqis nor will they commit such behaviour once they return to normal life.

Nobody would suggest that fighting the Nazis was immoral but to fight a war effectively soldiers must be totally ruthless and be psychologically uninhibited about the reality of death as the likes of Major Richard Winters illustrated in Band of Brothers even though he was a caring human being beneath the veneer.

Soldiers are not politicians or diplomats they are trained killers. Whether a war is just or unjust is immaterial to them because the experience of all fighting men is the same - kill or be killed. If you do not enjoy the killing chances are that eventually your will to fight will give way to the desire for death and you will die. That is why trophy hunting always emerges in combat - before the pursuit of the hare the hounds must be blooded.

Ted Kennedy has lived a closeted pampered life as heir to the greatest political dynasty in American history. His brothers Joe and Jack learned what war was all about. The truth of the present is that the Islamic world wishes the destruction of America. Ted sympathises with the plight of the Iraqis but if the flag of the Caliphate rises above Capitol Hill not only will the likes of warmonger Dubya have his head on a pole so to will Ted himself.
The bloodthirsty killers Ted so obviously despises are like the servants who mow his lawn, take out his garbage, tailor his suits and chaffeur his limousine - they maintain his safe contained bubble.
War is hell. Whether you agree or disagree with the Iraq War will not save you from its horror.

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Comments (8 of 8)

when did the thing with kennedy happen

by Dave

Fri Sep 30, 2005 16:50

"An "enraged" Ted Kennedy has reprimanded U.S. military chiefs on television by showing pictures of combat troops posing with the charred or bullet riddled bodies of dead Iraqis."

I can't find any mention of this anywhere. When did this happen?

TO THE EDITORS

by Alert

Fri Sep 30, 2005 16:59

Eamon Ryans comment should be deleted

he states:

"The truth of the present is that the Islamic world wishes the destruction of America. "

The Islamic world covers over a billion people all across the globe and a statement such as that is religious bigotry, please remove this hate filled statement immediately

Welcome To The Wonderful (nowthatsfuckedup) World of Warporn

by eeekkkkk

Fri Sep 30, 2005 17:01

think this is what TK was on about

CORRIGENDUM

by I Protest

Fri Sep 30, 2005 19:36

Mr. Ryan alleges that ...
"The Nazis tanned the skins of dead Jews and made lampshades and other leather produdcts or soap from their fat."

Maybe he should read up on modern Holocaust research:

Aaron Breitbart, a senior researcher at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, agrees that the evidence is thin. "The leading scholars of the Holocaust are of the opinion that the Nazis did not make soap," he says. "It was a cruel rumor at the camps...."

Andrew Hollinger, a spokesman in the [Holocaust Museum] department of media relations...provided Moment with a document written by the museum’s historian that concludes: "Available documentary evidence and eyewitness accounts have been unable to corroborate in a conclusive manner reports that the National Socialists and their collaborators used human fat from their victims in the manufacture of soap." It goes on to say: "rumors that Germans made soap from human remains originated in French propaganda from the First World War."

Man thats SICK !!

by Barry

Fri Sep 30, 2005 20:26

More on the war/porno thing

These soldiers are just the lowest of the low
From Abu Ghraib to the battlefield these sickos have pornography , human degradation and gutwrenching violence strangely intertwined in their sick brains .

Al jazeera has more to say .

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/051644CC-5E6E-43F6-B7B2-5EFE296020BF.htm

Like with like

by Michael

Sat Oct 01, 2005 10:52

"From Abu Ghraib to the battlefield these sickos have pornography , human degradation and gutwrenching violence strangely intertwined in their sick brains."

I agree with you but before the 2003 invasion the exact same statement could be said for Saddam and his henchmen who used to torture prisoners by immersing their limbs in acid or hook them up to electrical currents at Abu Graib."Official defilers" were employed to rape the wives or children of prisoners in front of them in order to extract confessions.

And your point is ?

Sat Oct 01, 2005 14:49

The difference is those sickos never put it up on the internet in return for free porn .

The point of the war is to replace one bunch of sexually depraved sickos with another bunch who may be marginally less perverted ?

To replace brown trash with white trash who seem to be orientated to sexual and violent pornography in a major way ?

And there was me thinking it was about WMD

Sat Oct 01, 2005 14:53

sick as saddams regime was there was at least a purpose to their depravity , to wipe out dissent to a dictatorship .

What Im commenting upon is that this US depravity stems from its footsoldiers and their own mentality , not on the orders of some tyrant .

. Their society itself appears warped and orientated around internet pornography . This story and the Abu Greib atrocities seem directly influenced by a pornographic psyche among the Americans own mentality .

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New "shocking" photos from Iraq.

Comments (8 of 8)