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US tries to limit damage from Taliban body burning

By Sue Pleming

US Embassies around the world were told to explain what people saw in the tape did not reflect the actions of most of the US military or of US values overall

The United States on Thursday tried to limit damage from television images appearing to show US soldiers burning the corpses of two Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and using the incident for propaganda.

US embassies around the world were told to explain that what people saw in the tape shown on an Australian television report did not reflect the actions of most of the US military or of US values overall, the State Department said.

“I saw the news reports and the video myself. These are very difficult images to see,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, but he insisted they should be seen as isolated incidents.

Muslim-American groups feared the incident could worsen anti-American sentiments in Muslim countries where many people perceive the United States as being culturally insensitive.

The television report said US soldiers said they burned the bodies for hygienic reasons - an act which could be expected to deeply upset Muslims, whose faith prohibits cremation and demands respect for the dead.

After the burning, according to the TV report, a US psychological operations unit broadcast a propaganda message on loudspeakers to a nearby village thought to harbour Taliban fighters, taunting them to retrieve their dead and fight.

The US military has said Army criminal investigators were looking into the incident and that if wrongdoing was identified, the perpetrators would be prosecuted under US military law.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said “Clearly this is not something that is consistent with their (the US military command in Afghanistan) procedures because they immediately launched an investigation.”

Image problem: The US image abroad has been battered by a series of human rights scandals, from the abuse of inmates at Abu Ghuraib prison in Iraq to the detention without trial of foreign terror suspects at a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

More than 100 detainees have died in US detention in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US military consistently pins the blame on individuals and has denied there is any institutional tolerance of such behaviour.

In June, the US military detailed five incidents in which US jailers at Guantanamo Bay “mishandled” the holy Quran.

The airing of the latest videotape coincided with a trip this week to the predominantly Muslim states of Indonesia and Malaysia by US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes, whose role is to try to improve America’s image.

“I think certainly Undersecretary Hughes is fully prepared to address this issue on her trip,” said McCormack of the videotape.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights group, urged the Pentagon to conduct a review of policies and training related to personnel in Muslim countries.

“Given the growing number of such incidents involving American military personnel worldwide, it is imperative that the Pentagon launch a top-to-bottom review of policies and training to help prevent the war on terror from being perceived as a war on Islam,” CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.

Awad said reports of abuses of Muslim prisoners and disregard for Islamic sensitivities in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, were harming the image of the United States and serving as recruiting tools for terrorist groups. reuters

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