Two dead terrorists, whom shortly after that photograph was made, split in two, replicating (as terrorists do when you kill 'em) their invinsible Uber-Islamoid-Fascist force over the rest of Fallujah.

"Squeezing Jello" is how the progressives at Commondreams.org like to characterize it.

"Give yourselves up.....Christianity is Stupid...Communism is Good....Give yourselves up.....Give yourselves up" -Negativeland

CBS is going down. AP - you're next!

Along with a little pointy-toothed Bush (a la Ted Rall) covering the picture and saying, "Move alawng, nothin' tah see here!"

Which pretty much sums up most of Ted Rall's ed-toons, now that I think about it...

"Funny" thing is, the bodies could have been boobi-trapped and killed the soldier checking to see if they were alive. Of course that would never cross the AP's mind. Ace' headline was right; Photopropaganda.

I know people who would pay to be tied up like those guys in the second photo

Why let the press take those photos? Could be hard to avoid when there are reporters moving with the troops, but may also resemble the way the military:

- let the press take those now-infamous photos of al Queda in orange jumpsuits arriving at Guantanamo.

- continued for months and months to make comments about possible WMD finds in Iraq until it slowly, slowly, ever so painfully dawned on them that they were being hung out to dry for even allowing the possibility that an untested substance might be WMD.

Those two examples, both completely avoidable, weren't from the same organizational source as the decision to recognize foreign observers for our recent national elections, but may flow from the same river of institutionalized stupidity.

These latest pix are probably just the start. In the Second Coming of Tet, Jenin Part Deux, every corpse and every pile of rubble will be photographed from multiple angles. We'll see them for months. All the more reason to finish clearing the Sunni Triangle before Sensitive Man starts seeing them on his TV.

It's a stretch, but I'm reminded of the decision to bivvy hundreds of troops in a single building in Beirut, and of our pre-(and continuing)-9/11 blindness. We have to get our ass kicked hard, again and again, before we even start to learn anything.

Uh,I don't get it.
I have no problem with these photos.I believe that we are fighting the scum of humanity who arrive with an incredibly destructive agenda.
In my mind they are already dehumanized so I could not care less how they are treated.The election is over and the losers lost.These photos are proof of victory(tactical I grant but victory nonetheless).Why should we not simply accept the images merely as trophies as our predecessors always did ?
When in doubt----- what would Conan say.

I'm a Greg S. too!

It's an imposter!

Tolja.

It's just a matter of time before Falluja gets all Jenined up.

That Anja Niedringhaus is no mere tool, she's a purposeful tool.

Playing the "the sole of the foot insult" for the Arab news consumer, its like, well the Americans are running yellow capitalist dogs... er ... sorry, wrong press outfit.

I'm with doug. We didn't tape their noses so they can still breathe. What's the problem? Click away, shutterbug! I'm sure the terrorized citizens of Fallujah will be disappointed we treated them so well.

Y'know, I was just sitting here watching Carnivale and drinking a Heinie when something that bothered me about those photos struck my forebrain. The corpses and clowns are in civvies. Will the AP ever mention how difficult it is to fight in a situation in which the enemy looks and dresses exactly the same as the people that you are there to protect? The same people who are killing our boys turn a corner, drop their piece and suddenly transform into innocent victims of the U.S. aggression. If the AP wishes to mantain any credibility they must present the ethos of our troops as well.

Personally, I'd like to see more of pictures like this.

not to mention how absurd it is that the msm showed so many pictures of abu ghraib (some of which were fakes!) but are not now showing many pictures of the serious torture that the marines have uncovered in falluja...

Just compare todays ABCNews.com's headlines with FoxNews.com
ABC- 31 U.S. Troops Killed So Far in Fallujah
Fox- Taking Control

Maybe Mark Halperin feels the US Military is lying and has to be "balanced".

I think the military is letting journalists take these pictures because their heads are still attached to their bodies and don't have bullet holes in them (in contrast to the treatment our fighters would receive)

Nope, this guy's not checking to see if they're dead... they'd stopped bleeding some time before the photo was taken. Looks like he's taking a giant step over the bodies to go do some work past them. Yes, he wouldn't want to mess with them on the chance they'd been booby-trapped.

The photogs just keep that shutter clicking and pick/choose out of the multitude of snaps the very few that will ever see the light of day. All too often, taken out of context to seem to be something it isn't

While these photos may be used for propaganda, they also serve to make opposing the USMC look like a very unglamorous proposition.

Who's going to sign up as a Warrior of Allah if this is the way you end up?

Well, it's not that the Marines are "letting" them. It's against the Geneva Convention to take pictures of prisoners because they could be used
as propaganda. We used this frquently to taunt those imbedded reporters tavelling with us in Iraq last year.

"Hey! You can't take his picture! You wanna violate his civil rights or something?"

You could tell they wanted to though, and these pics demonstrate the fact that many of them did it on the sly. Some actually learned the ranking system to actually seek out the most junior (and naive) Marines in order to get their more outrageous material.