From SBS Television's "Dateline" program, which I saw last night:

Archives - October 19, 2005
      
Psych War in Afghanistan    

Since September 11, we've all become uncomfortably familiar with 
names like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah and maybe even Bagram 
in Afghanistan. They're all places we now associate with human rights
violations or worse - military atrocities and possibly potential war
crimes. But after our first story tonight, you can add another
placename to that list - Gonbaz in southern Afghanistan, about 
a 100km from the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

[... ...]

REPORTER: John Martinkus

This is how the Americans are now fighting in Afghanistan - loaded up
with guns and loud music. The racks of speakers on top of this Humvee
are a bizarre weapon dreamt up by the army's PsyOps unit - experts in
psychological warfare.

The idea is that the music will flush the Taliban out of their hiding
places in the mountains.

The Taliban banned music when they ruled Afghanistan so these troops
are hoping that the sound of Fleetwood Mac will provoke them into an
attack.

No-one can say if the music is having the desired effect but the
Afghan special forces, travelling with the Americans seem to
appreciate it. 

[......]

At the top of the hills above the village the soldiers have taken the
tactics of psychological warfare to a grotesque and disturbing
extreme. US soldiers have set fire to the bodies of the two Taliban
killed the night before. The burning of the corpses and the fact that
they've been laid out facing Mecca is a deliberate desecration of
Muslim beliefs.

SOLDIER: Wow, look at the blood coming out of the mouth on that one,
fucking straight death metal.

PsyOps specialist Sergeant Jim Baker then broadcast an inflammatory
message over the loudspeakers in order to taunt and bait the enemy.

SGT JIM BAKER Attention, Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You
allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You 
are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies. This just 
proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be.

SOLDIER 2: The first message we sent was - Attention, Mullah Tahir,
Mullah Sadar, Mullah Kairadullah, Mullah Abdullah Khan and other
Taliban, we know who you are. Your time in Afghanistan is short. 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.

And the second one. Attention Mullah Tahiir and other Taliban
fighters, we have you surrounded, there is no way for you to escape.
Come down from the mountains now and you will not be harmed. We will
give you food and cold water. If you persist and stay in the mountains
it will become your graveyard.

The soldiers say they're burning the bodies for hygiene purposes but
out here, far away from the village, this appears to make no sense.

These soldiers have clearly been trained to denigrate and enrage
Muslims. Such blatant disrespect for the corpses of their enemy is a
breach of the Geneva Convention. It also heightens the perception of
local people that the Americans are just as barbarous as the Taliban
say they are.

Australian troops operate out of the same army base and in the eyes of
the locals, as members of the same coalition, there is no distinction
between American and Australian forces.

This is what happened in Afghanistan the last time American soldiers
were accused of mocking Islam. In May this year, reports that the
Koran had been desecrated in Guantanamo Bay sparked unrest in the
eastern city of Jalalabad. Rioters forced the foreign aid community to
flee and destroyed their offices and vehicles. 

[... ...]

Full transcript at SBS "Dateline"
http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/index.php?page=archive&daysum=2005-10-19#


Cheers, Steve..

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