U.S. Marines Urinate On Dead Taliban Bodies (Video)

[Spark]

[Spark]

By MARTHA RADDATZ (@martharaddatz) and LUIS MARTINEZ (@LMartinezABC)
Jan. 13, 2012
All four Marines shown in a video allegedly urinating on the corpses of suspected Taliban fighters have been identified and could face criminal charges as early as today, a U.S. defense official told ABC News.

Two of the Marines have been interviewed by military officials involved in a criminal investigation into the video, which surfaced online Wednesday, the official said. At less than a minute long, the video appears to show four men in uniform looking around before urinating on three dead bodies. At least one of the men chuckles as they do so.

"Have a great day, buddy," one of the men is heard saying, apparently to a dead body.

READ: US Marines Allegedly Urinate on Taliban Corpses

If authentic, the video portrays potential violations of both the first Geneva Convention, which calls for the dead to be "honorably interred" and says that "graves are respected," as well as the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice for allegedly bringing "discredit upon the armed forces."

Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale University, said the Marines will most likely be charged under an interpretation of the Uniform Code for Military Justice and any prison sentences would depend on instructions a military judge will give a jury of military officers who then determine the sentence.

On one of the first websites to feature the video, the member who posted it identified the Marines as belonging to the 3/2 Marine battalion out of Camp Lejeune, an assertion later confirmed by the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC). The battalion served in the northern Helmand Province in Afghanistan last summer. The USMC declined to identify the individual Marines in the video.

After its anonymous release, the video was roundly condemned by top American and foreign officials.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta called it "deplorable" and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she felt "total dismay" after hearing the story.

"It is absolutely inconsistent with American values, with the standards of behavior that we expect from our military personnel and the vast, vast military personnel, particularly our Marines, hold themselves to," she said Thursday.

[jcindaville]

Our former president Bill Clinton shoved a cigar in the twat of some intern and shot his load on her face and were gonna put these guys in prison for pissing on some dead terrorist????

Really?

No wonder we are no longer a super power

[weazel079]

Bullshit. We don't know what these troops have been through mentally or the friends they may have lost. Bottom line is war is brutal and sick. It's easy to sit at a desk and point out wrong. Troops shouldn't be accountable for the sames rules and expectations we have here in the states. A video like this should never be released the public.

[kbsooner21]

Total fucking bullshit if these guys face any disciplinary actions at all. Those motherfuckers killed 3k + of our innocent people.

Only person that should face discipline is the person that released this video. He/She needs to be beheaded ASAP.

[Spark]

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a former Army lieutenant colonel, sends THE WEEKLY STANDARD an email commenting on the Marines' video, and has given us permission to publish it.
allenwest

“I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

“All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

“The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

“As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”

[Spark]

Alex Lemons, a former Marine sergeant who deployed to Iraq three times -- including once as scout sniper -- reflects on the video of four Marines urinating on the corpses of three dead Taliban in Afghanistan:

This is all very painful to me on so many different levels. Back in 2004 one of my fellow snipers shot someone in a mosque in Fallujah. You will probably remember it getting on TV. It was very confusing. I have tried stopping things like this before or I've been a coward and let them happen. (See a graphic on storming Fallujah.)

In my eyes, there are several discomforting or significant things about this event:

-- If you aren't surprised and disgusted by this as a combatant, veteran or as a civilian whose country has been at war for a decade, then maybe you need to take a look in the mirror. Have you become this callous? (See pictures of the U.S. Marines' offensive in Afghanistan.)

-- I'd like to know how many tours those grunts have been on. Do we know what condition they are in mentally? Are any on medications?

-- This happened a lot in Fallujah II 2004 and I have a couple explanations. There were a lot of kids who imitated things they saw or read in Vietnam War films or literature. You always look back on the last war to explain your own.

Sometimes, Marines needed to take pictures and laugh about the death swirling around them because if they took it seriously and grieved then they would not be able to function and continue the fight.

Sometimes, Marines were simply brutal and took trophy photos or pissed or defecated on bodies because it actually felt good after you had been fighting someone for a hour or a day.

Maybe it was also the kind of fighting, insurgency, that produced experiences like this. You fight ghosts (IEDs, booby traps, snipers, potshots, loudspeaker recordings) and when you finally get one enemy grunt who isn't even in a uniform you choose to take out all the frustrations of fighting an invisible enemy on a lifeless but symbolic corpse. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley.)

-- Events like this have the power of a stone thrown into a calm lake. The circumstances and people that created the rippling effects are irrelevant. We don't know who the dead men are, if they had weapons or if they were simply pushing that wheelbarrow around. It's too late to ask those questions outside of a tribunal.

Anyone looking at the United States presence is going to hold this up as a symbol for all our actions past, present and future. That might sound like too high of a standard to measure ourselves against, but purportedly this is the principle we stand for and fight on.

-- War is not a moral agent. "War is hell, shit happens and trophies get taken," is a copout from an irresponsible person. War doesn't make anyone do anything because it is not a living thing.

People make war and they make choices in war. Most of these choices are made along the lines of rules of engagement, other war conventions, and training.

The Marine Corps doesn't teach anyone to do this.

Choices were made and they were not good ones. This is what maintains our moral high ground. It doesn't matter if the Taliban cut heads off and videotape them. (See pictures of the battle against the Taliban.)

The whole point, as I was told since 2001, was not to become like them, or to be comparable to them.

[Spark]

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Caution, do not watch the video if you are squeamish about viewing graphic images.

FOR THE BLEEDING HEARTS OUT THERE WHO ARE SCREAMING ABOUT SOME USA SOLDIERS PISSING ON A COUPLE DEAD TALIBAN, TELL THEM TO WATCH THIS.



FileSwap.com : Iraq.wmv download free

[Big Country 5]

I wish I could piss on em!

[Spark]

So, this kind of crap is sold in the Middle East and I'm supposed to be concerned about where our Marines take a piss? Not happening...

[buddyluv1968]

Honestly I'm at a lost for words on this one. War is hell and we should not be there due to the fact that they do not like us and there is nothing we can do to change that. But to piss on a dead person and be stupid enough to tape it... The soldiers deserve whatever punishment that is given to them just by being stupid... That's foul and sub human. We are better than that!!!!! Now on burning the Koran bullshit, we should not apoligize and we need to say if the book is so holy why are they writing in it....

[bryce]

All is fair in love and War... This is war not fiddlesticks or croquet... Fk them (taliban)as they would fk us in a heart beat. God bless our troops. We can only imagine what they have seen and been through.

Never forget 911 never let your guard down. They started this mess so they get everything they deserve.