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October 20, 2005
Burning Bodies: Another Abu Ghraib?
While it has become almost gospel in the Muslim world that American troops are culturally insensitive, news that US troops in Afghanistan burned the corpses of enemy combatants does not portend good things.
The background here is that an Australian news service broadcast footage depicting burning corpses atop hills near the village of Gondaz, north of Kandahar, all of whom were allegedly killed by US soldiers the night before.
The footage shows flames emanating from bodies with members of the 173rd Airborne Division looking on impassively. According to Aljazeera, the following was declared:
You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burnt. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be.
and
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.
This is explosive in a variety of ways: The bodies were left out for 24 hours, contrary to standard burial practices in Islam, and further desecration of bodies (burning, westerly positioning of a cadaver) is perceived as apostasy...but generally only if you're a talib, in the estimation of contemporary Muslim luminaries.
It is clear that this footage has the potential to engender even stronger anti-American feelings, in Afghanistan as well as Iraq and the Middle East as a whole, but the desecration of American security workers in Falluja brings into question a glaring problem: When does religious doctrine become convenient for political ends? Ulterior motives would seem to abound.
A good primer on this issue can be seen here, and if the rhetoric of these clerics is salient, it stands to reason that this could initiate a new cycle of violence epitomized by new forms of symbolic resistance.
One desecration begets another in this formula.
Posted October 20, 2005 02:38 AM
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