US Army PSYOP in A-stan

[Ravage]

After soldiers of a US 173rd Airborne company burn the bodies of two "Taliban" killed near the Pakistan border, members of the army's psychological warfare unit then broadcast an inflammatory message designed to taunt and bait the enemy.

WARNING ! NSFW ! WARNING !

[YOUTUBE]N77rjWtZVFY[/YOUTUBE]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N77rjWtZVFY"]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

 

[Marauder06]

Yeah, I remember the dust-up over this when it broke a while back.

Dumb thing to do, really stupid to let someone film it.

 

[Brooklynben]

One thing is clear; the video piece was a classic piece of propaganda against the American troops and the Aussie's involvement.

A cut and spliced footage with added sound to paint a story that, when taken out of context, may or may not be even partially accurate.

 

[TheGunDoctor]

Yeah, I remember the dust-up over this when it broke a while back.

Dumb thing to do, really stupid to let someone film it.

Speaking as a current member of the 173rd Airborne, I can vouch for the fact that there is in fact much propaganda involved with how the story was portrayed by the media. As if we burned the bodies to incite anger and for self-amusement. Just about anything in this day and age can be verbally exaggerated and even visually manipulated to get a reaction out of people.

The fact is that the bodies were burned to prevent the spread of disease to the surrounding areas at a time that required them to expedite the mission. The PSYOP involvement had nothing to do with our intentions and I'm not going to speak on the behalf of that unit.

The bottom line is that war is an ugly thing and there will always be times when you have to make decisions that may upset people or be perceived as cruel, but that is the nature of our business as soldiers.

My only regret about this incident is the fact that we failed to provide a higher level of cultural awareness prior to the deployment to eliminate this form of disease-control measure as a feasible option. Very few people were fully aware that cremation of bodies is against the Islamic tradition.

Coupled with the fact that they don't treat our fallen soldiers with equivalent respect, it makes me angry that this was treated as such an uproar.

An eye for an eye....at least we don't chop their heads off with swords like what they've done to both our brothers in arms as well as innocent civilians.