German press agonises over skull row
The scandal caused by photographs of German soldiers posing with human skulls in Afghanistan prompts some angry soul-searching in Germany's newspapers. The popular daily Bild - which broke the story earlier in the week and on Saturday published new pictures, one showing a beret perched on top of a skull - wrings its hands over the latest revelations. "How much filth is yet to emerge?" the paper asks. "Again pictures of bones have surfaced, again from Afghanistan, again with German soldiers!"
Concern has already been expressed that the photographs could spark a backlash against German troops serving in Afghanistan. In an interview with Focus magazine, Chancellor Angela Merkel seeks to reassure the Afghan people that Germany does not condone such behaviour. "It is important for Afghanistan to see that such acts are not tolerated, but are punished severely," she says.
A commentator in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung also expresses concern that the photos could be used to stir up hostility against German forces. "The desecration of corpses is unforgivable, and photos showing this are also potentially dangerous. They could be used by Islamist rabble-rousers," Peter Muench writes. Another commentator in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung wonders whether lack of respect for the dead is not just a problem in the military, but is something that affects society as a whole. "The basics of decency are laid down much earlier - in the family and in the personal sphere," Peter Blechschmidt writes. "Schools already frequently prove themselves to be incapable of counteracting dwindling respect for the physical integrity of others... Soldiers are trained to fight and if need be also to kill. On the other hand, they should treat a skull with respect," he adds.
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I read some comments about this saying stuff like "That's what soldiers do, it's no big deal", but the type of person to say that is probably the type of person who would do something so foul in the first place!
Being at war is no reason to act like scum - if you do then you lose any position of "right" that you might claim.
