A group of United States Marines stood around some dead Taliban fighters and pissed on them. They videotaped it and the footage wound up on Youtube. Now, everyone is rushing to condemn the marines’ behavior. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said:
“I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms. Those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent.”
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos commented similarly:
“I want to be clear and unambiguous, the behavior depicted in the video is wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct and warrior ethos that we have demonstrated throughout our history,” Amos said in a statement.
“Rest assured that the institution of the Marine Corps will not rest until the allegations and the events surrounding them have been resolved. We remain fully committed to upholding the Geneva Convention, the Laws of War, and our own core values.” (source)
Lets think about this: Our policymakers decide to bring us into two wars, one of which was entirely unsupportable (Iraq) and the other was just plain stupid (Afghanistan). We torture live prisoners. We keep the illegal Guantanamo Bay gulag open. All of this done at the behest of our so-called elected leaders.
Those at the top piss on the rule of law, piss on justice, and piss on reason, and they get nice big pay checks for it. Four guys who are living in a hole in a shit hole of a country, getting shot at by these guys every day, who are doing it all for nothing — they relieve their stress by relieving themselves on some dead bodies, and all of a sudden THEY are being judged by their so-called “superiors?”
Piss away, Leathernecks. You’ve earned it.
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The fact that the Marines created the corpses and people are only focusing on the pissing is what gets me.
Of the two acts, I’m going to guess that it is the former that the dead guys have the biggest problem with.
Yeah, I’d rather be peed on than shot.
Also, at what point will military units hit upon a policy of “beat the crap out of the jackass with the camera”? I get that reporters would be exempt from this rule, but by now you’d have thought that pulling out a digital camera and snapping pics of your buddies would get your ass beat.
Right on.
peeing on corpses doesn’t bother me a bit–they’re dead, what do they care? recording it is the issue.
would you enjoy a video of some one pissing all over the body of one of your dead relatives? doesnt bother you huh? recording it isnt an “issue” but it sure is STUPID
As usual, you’ve won the race to the bottom.
Marco, this is a bridge too far. I don’t want to diminish your points about how we ought to be at peace instead of at war in the first place, or how our leaders (from both parties) have shown an appalling disregard for the rule law, the most minimal imaginable levels of morality, and common sense. Really, those are important things to say, and to keep on saying.
Given that we are at war whether for good or ill, and given that the objective of this war is political — to win hearts and minds so that Afghanistan becomes a nation friendly to us — descrating the corpses of people with whom the Afghan civilian public could potentially identify is a really good way to literally piss away whatever even small amount of political purchase we’ve gained with so much blood and treasure over the past ten years. It’s four guys saying, “Our frustrations with the futility of this war and our contempt for the enemy are more important than the efforts of the hundreds of thousands of other soliders who over the past ten plus years here have somehow miraculously managed to sufficiently discipline themselves so as to not violate one of the most fundamental and universal taboos in global civilization.”
Our government’s failure to hold the brass accountable does not excuse the guys with their boots on the ground from their own misdeeds. The problem with Abu Ghraib was not that we came down hard on the shit-for-brains soldiers who tortured their Iraqi prisoners. We SHOULD have come down hard on them. The problem was that we did not ALSO come down hard on their superiors who got them in that position in the first place.
But we were right to condemn the actual hands-on torturers. They were not innocent. And we are right to condemn these now empty-bladdered Marines for the same reason.
This type of thing happens in wars; I can recommend Sledge’s book “With the Old Breed”. He describes (and condemns) this happening on one of the islands. Yes, he fought in the invasion and on the land battles.
Bottom line: war can turn human beings into savages.
Those dead Taliban really tied the room together, dude.
Sir, you just won comment of the year.
you sure that’s what they’re doing ? I mean, these guys got NO junk – not sure what’s more embarassing for this country, that guys would piss on another man-in-arms or that they go into battle with such pitifull weapons. We want to be known as a nation of cocktail wieners ?
“better to have men think you got a small one than to open your fly and remove all doubt”
Your looking at their Junk… Wow…
of course . . . all guys do
except usually its on the sly and course we never admit it
gotta feel kinda sad for these guys huh, must have been behind the door when the real peckers were gave out
Get a grip everyone. The pissed upon ENEMY were trying to KILL, MAIM, and other ATROCITIES to those Marines. Believe you me this has happened time in memorium and worse. Indians scalped their victims, africans cut off anf shrunk heads, others mutilated far worse!
The real part of war is this: SEND THE ENEMY TO HELL.
Our Leadership is willing to allow our troops to be killed not the enemy! They all need to be voted out or fired by the real heroes, our troops. If someone who just kills your friend and then trains his weapons sights on you … you will do much worse to them than this or wish you did.
The enemy deserves to be killed, yes.The war also deserves to be won, wouldn’t you agree?
This war will not be won merely by killing the enemy. It will be won when further enemies are not generated spontaneously out of the Afghan body politic. Our soldiers pissing on Afghan corpses is counterproductive to that goal.
Which is why the Taliban has come out saying that they didn’t give a damn about the Marines pissing on the bodies…
Wait, what?
Yeah, the Taliban finds it far less offensive than our twisted-panties political set.
[Citation needed]
“An Internet video showing what appear to be U.S. forces in Afghanistan urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters will not affect efforts to broker peace talks, a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban said Thursday.”
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/12/10131666-deplorable-us-defense-chief-condemns-urinating-marines-video
I wish these WUSSY LIBERAL reporters would have gotten this upset when they drug our Rangers through the streets of Mogadishu ………They are going to do more than piss on us when Obama lets them get a nuke .
do these soldiers have any dignity, do they not at least have respect for another human being in death?
I dunno about you, but MY respect for someone wanes significantly after they shoot at me.
Yeah, to be perfectly honest, if someone tried to kill me and I killed them instead, I most certainly, without a doubt, would piss on their body. I’d probably take a shit on it too.
As a vet, I think that pissing on the dead bodies of the bastards that tried to kill you is all together fitting and proper.They should have ripped there heads off and shit between there shoulders. Is it OK to kill women and children but wrong to piss on a body,,This country trained and sent them to do a job.JOB WELL DONE
Well after watching this video I have one question. If they were pissing on the dead bodies where is the piss on the ground? I see no puddles forming no running streams no piss coming out nada zip zero.
I think the biggest chuckle I got out of this was listening to a News Report where they have their foreign correspondent say “…urinating on a dead body, is considered an insult in Muslim Society”.
I’m curious as to which society doesn’t consider pissing on the dead an insult.
I’m sure they all do, but there’s only one religion – that I’m aware of – that frequently kills (or threatens) people they feel have “insulted” it.
I don’t recall, though I may have missed it, death threats for the “Jesus in urine” bit of art…
A quick google search will show lots of Christian Death threats for all kinds of reasons, Piss Christ was a popular one, but so Christians protesting against atheists who don’t want Cruxufixs erected etc.
Pulling a trick from xkcd.com a Google Search for “Muslim Terrorist” has 80K Hits, while oddly “Christian Terrorist” has 504K Hits.
I’m of the opinion that most deeply religious people are all little off. If you hear Jesus/Allah talking to you I’d recommend some anti-psychotic drugs.
Their conduct wasn’t as bad as their superiors’ conduct. Therefore, what they did was okay.
Rationalize much?
One thing being wrong does not stop another from also being wrong.
I’ve been on the same dirt as these people. Shot at and been shot at by some of the comrades in arms of the dead guys (that’s just for our little don’t judge cause you don’t know what they’ve been through ass clowns).
After wading past your distractions and deleting yor false statements (doing it for nothing?) and political commentary your argument is this:
“Four guys who are living in a hole in a shit hole of a country, getting shot at by these guys every day, they relieve their stress by relieving themselves on some dead bodies, Piss away, Leathernecks. You’ve earned it.”
Lets see how much that is worth. Reverse the positions of the participants, lets say it was some Taliban pissing on dead Marines who filmed it and it ended up on Youtube:
“Four guys who are living in a hole in a shit hole of a country, getting shot at by these guys every day, they relieve their stress by relieving themselves on some dead bodies, Piss away, Taliban. You’ve earned it.”
You sure that is your best argument for giving these guys a pass?
Your logic is flawless. But, yes. I think there is nothing wrong with pissing on the body of someone who tried to kill you, but you got the best of them. If I ever try and kill someone and they get the best of me, they have my permission to piss on my body too.