I just saw on the CNN news ticker that two Marines have been recovered from “shallow graves” in Nasyria.
Who buried them? Why?
I had two theories:
Iraqi toops, trying to hide the bodies for some reason.
Townspeople who either don’t want the dead lying around causing unsanitary conditions, or buried them out of respect.
Any thoughts?
Being caught with the bodies of dead Americans could be VERY hazardous to your health, or at least it’s logical to assume that’s how the Iraqis involved felt, as the Arabic culture embraces revenge pretty tightly. I’m sure it occured to them that they’d best skedaddle before the rapidly-advancing Americans catch them and whomp the poo out of them.
The irony, of course, is that embedded reporters make it pretty tricky for American forces to engage in blatant vengeance. If a valid case for a Geneva violation could be made, the Iraqis involved would most likely face war-crimes trials rather than summary execution.
Of course, reporters aside, it’s always possible some Yanks would gladly take these murderers out back and slowly kill them to death. Better to just stash the bodies out of sight to buy some time and hit the road, fast.
I expect this thread will be moved the IMHO if it remains profanity-free, or the Pit if it can’t. Then again, it just cries out for all sorts of nasty generalizations about the Iraqi character, so I’m not sure the thread will stay open long at all.
Maybe because we are burying their dead:
Nothing sinister about it. It’s what you do with corpses.
IIRC, there is Islamic religious custom requiring bodies to be buried promptly - it may simply be the Iraqis extending such consideration to their fallen foes as their religion demands.
If you don’t bury them, what are you going to do with them? You can’t exactly carrying them with you across the desert.
I’d just assumed they’d leave them where they fell.
Thanks, ** Steve Wright ** for the explanation of Islamic customs. That’s the explanation which makes most sense to me.
Well, it doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t make sense that they should have the decency to bury our dead, but torture them before they die. If this is part of their religion, I’m glad I don’t abide by it.
Well, if it made sense to you it would probably be part of your culture and religion.
It’s possible that Iraq’s population (around seventeen million according to a little factbook I happen to have handy) contains both decent and less decent people, and that it’s the decent sorts who are doing the burying …
I fail to understand the issue here. Why wouldn’t the Irakis bury dead ennemies? What else could they do with the bodies? Let them rot in the middle of the street? (Assuming that they died in some town or village…but it doesn’t make much of a difference if they were killed elsewhere).
Of course, I assume they wouldn’t stop in the middle of a battle to bury the deads, but if the americans withdrew from whatever place these guys were killed, or if they were infiltrated and killed somewhere behind the Irakis lines, it makes way much sense to bury them than to let them lie around. What would you do yourself?
I fail to understand the issue here. Why wouldn’t the Irakis bury dead ennemies? What else could they do with the bodies? Let them rot in the middle of the street? (Assuming that they died in some town or village…but it doesn’t make much of a difference if they were killed elsewhere).
Of course, I assume they wouldn’t stop in the middle of a battle to bury the deads, but if the americans withdrew from whatever place these guys were killed, or if they were infiltrated and killed somewhere behind the Irakis lines, it makes way much sense to bury them than to let them lie around. What would you do yourself?
I fail to understand the issue here. Why wouldn’t the Irakis bury dead ennemies? What else could they do with the bodies? Let them rot in the middle of the street? (Assuming that they died in some town or village…but it doesn’t make much of a difference if they were killed elsewhere).
Of course, I assume they wouldn’t stop in the middle of a battle to bury the deads, but if the americans withdrew from whatever place these guys were killed, or if they were infiltrated and killed somewhere behind the Irakis lines, it makes way much sense to bury them than to let them lie around. What would you do yourself?
I heard on the news that one of the bodies had been found “mutilated”.
Yeah, automatic weapons will do that.
From what I have been able to find out, the Iraqis will normally attempt to bury the dead in accordance with traditional Christian or Catholic beliefs. Don’t ask my how they figure this out, but it’s the best answer I can give to the OP.
Bodies get stinky and spread disease if they are allowed to rot in the warm sun. Sanitation is an issue even for the Iraqis.
I thing SW is the closest to being correct. I’m recalling from memory here but I believe there was some controversy about possible remains of the hijackers of the planes that hit the WTC. Relative want any remains (I don’t know if there are any) for burial according to Muslim custom. Of course, the Americans are infuriated by the mention of the idea.
Probably a practicing Muslim will bury a body because their religion requires it.
There is. My Muslim ex-bf actually missed his own mother’s funeral because he couldn’t get there in time, and she had to be buried by sundown on the day she died. He was in Leningrad when he got the news and took the first plane for Baku, but then there was a nighttime military curfew on (this was in 1990), so the military wouldn’t let him leave the airport.
(Jewish law has the same rule, by the way.)
Oh, and is there any reason to believe the people who killed the Americans were the same ones who buried them? Maybe they were killed by the military, but buried by others, maybe civilians, who found the bodies afterward.
Although the main question has been answered (Islamic Law and custom require prompt burial), this requires correction:
Does it now? Tribal cultures do, “The Arab Culture” covering everything from Urbane Casablanca and Alexandria, to tribal bedouine hardly 'embraces revenge" tightly.
Urbanized areas, in my long experience, are hardly centers of tribal honor killings.
They buried the bodies because they were evidence of atrocities (war crimes).
Muslims have very much the same respect for the Dead that Christians and Jews do. Folk of Nasariyah likely respected their shared faith and showed soldiers where the shallow graves were to allow them to be buried with honour. (I have no cite).