More Pictures

Graphic photos [taken in 2010] published in an American newspaper show US soldiers posing with the mangled bodies of suspected Afghan suicide bombers.

Senior US and NATO officials moved quickly to condemn the pictures even before they were published on Wednesday by the Los Angeles Times, which received the photos from another soldier.

At a meeting of NATO allies in Brussels, Belgium, Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, apologised for the photographs.

[...]

Panetta said: "My apology is on behalf of the department of defence and the US government ... Again, that behaviour is unacceptable."

He also said he regretted the decision of the Los Angeles Times to publish some of the photos, which he said might trigger retaliatory violence against foreign soldiers stationed in Afghanistan.

  

I think we are way beyond that. Our still being there is triggering retaliatory violence.

Such incidents have complicated US efforts to negotiate a strategic partnership agreement to define its presence once most foreign combat troops pull out by the end of 2014.

[...]

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO secretary-general, condemned the behaviour depicted by the images, saying they "don't in any way represent the principles and values that are the basis for our mission in Afghanistan".

Earlier, General John Allen, the most senior commander of NATO and US forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement that an investigation into the incident was under way.

"The actions of the individuals photographed do not represent the policies of International Security Assistance Force or the US army," he said.

  al Jazeera

But they do depict the policy of US soldiers, it seems. This isn't the first time “embarrassing” photos have been published.

Either the military has completely lost control of its soldiers – or this IS representative of US Army policy. They haven't thought to take away the soldiers' camera phones, anyway.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington DC, said the US military "didn’t want [the images] published. They asked the LA Times to not put them into the public domain". He said the US soldier who leaked the images did so because they showed "a breakdown in authority and discipline of soldiers serving in Afghanistan".

The Los Angeles Times defended the distribution of the photos in an article accompanying the 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," Davan Maharaj, the newspaper's editor, said.

  

But Julian Assange is a wanted man.


Go figger.

"Davan Maharaj"  ??   Oh, I think we can find a cell for him.