disgusting

Australian TV shows footage of Taliban burning
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian television on Wednesday broadcast footage of what it said was U.S. soldiers burning the corpses of two dead Taliban fighters with their bodies laid out facing Mecca and using the images in a propaganda campaign in southern Afghanistan.

The television report said U.S. soldiers burned the bodies for hygienic reasons but then a U.S. psychological operations unit broadcast a propaganda message on loudspeakers to Taliban fighters, taunting them to retrieve their dead and fight.

A U.S. military statement released in Afghanistan said Army criminal investigators had launched a probe "into alleged misconduct by U.S. service members, including the burning of dead enemy combatant bodies under inappropriate circumstances."

"This command does not condone the mistreatment of enemy combatants or the desecration of their religious and cultural beliefs," U.S. Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya said in the statement.

"This alleged action is repugnant to our common values, is contrary to our commands approved tactical operating procedures, and is not sanctioned by this command."

In Washington, the Pentagon expressed concern. "These are very serious allegations and, if true, very troublesome," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Reuters.

"It is the policy of the United States, as well as the Defense Department, to treat all remains consistent with the Geneva Convention and with the utmost respect. These allegations will be aggressively investigated and, if proven to be true, the individuals will be held appropriately accountable," Whitman said.

The "Dateline" current affairs program on the ethnic Special Broadcasting Service said the story was filmed in early October. The footage of the burning corpses was shot by Australian photojournalist Stephen DuPont, who was embedded with a U.S. unit.

Dateline said the two Taliban fighters burned on hills above the village of Gondaz north of Kandahar were killed by the U.S. soldiers the night before.

The footage showed flames licking two charred corpses, their legs and arms outstretched, and a group of five U.S. soldiers standing watching from a rocky ledge.

Footage showed two U.S. soldiers reading from a notebook two messages that they said had earlier been broadcast.

"Attention Taliban you are cowardly dogs," read the first soldier, identified as psyops specialist Sgt. Jim Baker.

"You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be."

The other unidentified soldier read a second message, part of which said: "You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Talibs but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion, and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are."

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This is scary and vile. How do they think that the enemy is going to respond to this? Can you imagine what will happen to our soldiers who are captured? Terrifying...