Photos Of RAF Fighters Celebrating Death Bring Back Memories Of Thumbs Up At Abu Ghraib

IT’S ok to kill the enemy so long as you don’t give a thumbs up over the corpse. What else are we to make of news that two members of 51 Squadron RAF regiment have been captured on camera posing alongside the body of a dead Taliban fighter killed during a prolonged attack on Camp Bastion? The fighting saw two US Marines and 14 of the 15 Taliban on the raid killed. The 15th was detained. Eight British soldiers were wounded.

Is taking the photographs “inappropriate”? The RAF spokeswoman uses that political buzzword in her statement:

 “Inappropriate actions will not be tolerated in the armed forces; the RAF is treating this incident extremely seriously, and has launched a military police investigation. As this incident is subject to an ongoing investigation, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”

 

The Times recalls that in November 2013, Royal Marine Sergeant Alexander Blackman, a Royal Marine was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering an injured Taliban. But to us these photo brings back memories of the abuse US soldiers dished out to detained Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison.

It’s the jovial, up-beat thumbs-up sign. Its use in the context of a dead human being is suggestive of an unhinged mind, a sadistic twist on happiness.

The above is a picture of Crpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. posing next to a detainee who died during interrogation in late 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. The Army reservist from Uniontown, Pa.,was sentenced to serve 10 years for stacking naked prisoners into a pyramid, knocking one of them out with a punch and ordering prisoners to perform sex acts while other soldiers took pictures in 2003.

Graner was paroled from the US military’s Fort Leavenworth prison on August 6, 2011 after serving six-and-a-half years.

Others were also charged and jailed.

Lynndie England pointing to a naked prisoner being forced to masturbate in front of his captors.

It’s not inappropriate to give a happy thumbs-up over the body of a dead man. It’s criminally insane.