Photos of US Soldiers Posing With Dead Afghans Spark Global Outrage
Photos published by The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday of U.S. soldiers posing alongside the corpses of Afghan terrorists have sparked outrage around the world.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has responded to the photographs, calling the images "disgusting."
"It is such a disgusting act to take photos with body parts and then share it with others," Karzai said.
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The White House has also responded to the images, labeling the photos "reprehensible."
"That behavior that was depicted in the photos absolutely violates both our regulations and more important, our core values," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday at a news conference in Brussels.
The photos, given to the publication by an American soldier, were taken in 2010 and come at a sensitive time – in the wake of Afghan retaliation following a deadly civilian attack by a U.S. solider and the accidental burning of Qurans at a joint U.S.-NATO military base.
Some U.S. officials have also expressed fear that the published photographs could lead to reprisal attacks.
"We had urged the L.A. Times not to run the those photos," Panetta said at the news conference. "Those kinds of photos are used by the enemy to incite violence."
Despite the outrage, protests are not expected to erupt over the photographs.
"It is different from an American soldier going and killing children, or Americans burning holy Qurans. These issues and the suicide bombers are completely different," Hafiz Mansour of the Afghan parliament told The Associated Press. "I don't think there will be big protests."
Others have also said that despite the shocking images, protests are not likely to breakout across the country.
"The burning of Qurans and the killing of children create emotions in people, but there is no sympathy for suicide bombers who kill innocent people," another parliamentarian, Mohammad Naim Lalai, told AP.
The photos also come months after a shocking video of a group of U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban insurgents was made public.
The video, posted on YouTube, shows four men in uniform standing over bloodied Taliban corpses and urinating on the dead bodies.
At the time, some experts expressed concern that the video would hamper peace negotiations with the Taliban and many in Afghanistan condemned the acts as inhumane, but protests did not occur.
