US Panetta on Scandalous Photos: This is Not Who We Are

World | April 19, 2012, Thursday // 07:07
Bulgaria: US Panetta on Scandalous Photos: This is Not Who We Are A soldier from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division with a dead insurgent's hand on his shoulder. It's one of 18 photos given to The Times of troops posing with corpses.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has issued an apology following the leaking of photos of US soldiers posing with bodies of suspected Afghan insurgents.

"This is not who we are, and it's certainly not who we represent when it comes to the great majority of men and women in uniform who are serving there," he said.

Two scandalous photos were published Wednesday by the Los Angeles Times. They are among 18 provided by a US soldier who wanted "to draw attention to the safety risk of a breakdown in leadership and discipline," The Times reported.

Panetta said he had called on The Times not to publish the photos because the enemy uses these kinds of images to incite violence. Lives have been lost because of publication of similar images in the past, he said.

"This is war, and I know that war is ugly, and it's violent," Panetta said at a NATO meeting in Brussels, Belgium. "And I know that young people, sometimes caught up in the moment, make some very foolish decisions. I'm not excusing them, not excusing that behavior. But neither do I want these images to bring further injury to our people or to our relationship with the Afghan people."

One shows a member of the U.S. military in front of what appears to be the body of an insurgent. The photo shows the insurgent's head, with his eyes open and what may be his hand on the American soldier's shoulder. Another soldier appears to be looking down at the body, reaching his hand into the blanket covering it.

"A soldier from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division with the body of an Afghan insurgent killed while trying to plant a roadside bomb," the caption reads. "The photo is one of 18 provided to The Times of U.S. soldiers posing with corpses."

The second photo shows a group of people, including some American soldiers, standing with what appear to be legs from a corpse. One US soldier is smiling and giving a double thumbs-up, and another is also smiling at the camera. There appear to be Afghan police in that photo as well.

The paper says the photo was from 2010, when the division arrived at a police station in Zabul province and inspected body parts. "Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held -- and others squatted beside -- the corpse's severed legs."

Times Editor Davan Maharaj tried to defend the paper's decision to publish the scandalous photos.

"After careful consideration, we decided that publishing a small but representative selection of the photos would fulfill our obligation to readers to report vigorously and impartially on all aspects of the American mission in Afghanistan, including the allegation that the images reflect a breakdown in unit discipline that was endangering U.S. troops."

The military said an investigation is under way.

The photos were condemned by a number of American officials from the White House to the American Embassy in Kabul.

This is the latest in a string of incidents that have plagued the US military in Afghanistan this year.

In January, a video posted on a website showed four U.S. Marines urinating on enemy corpses.

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Tags: Afghanistan, US

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