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Today's Top News
Video Brings Accusations of War Crimes: Marines Urinating on Corpses
UPDATE: The BBC reports that they have been told by a Marine official the identities of two of the four soldiers in the video.
***
UPDATE: Reuters reports that a marine officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, has identified to them the unit behind the video: the 3rd Battallion, 2nd Marines, which is based out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
***
A video posted online Wednesday shows four U.S. Marines urinating on three corpses in Afghanistan.
In the video, the marines are laughing. One soldier says, "Have a great day, buddy," while another says, "Golden like a shower."
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby stated: "Regardless of the circumstances or who is in the video, this is... egregious, disgusting behavior, unacceptable for anyone in uniform." The NATO-led security force in Afghanistan stated: "This disrespectful act is inexplicable and not in keeping with the high moral standards we expect of coalition forces."
Al Jazeera reports on the Afghan President Karzai's reaction:
"The government of Afghanistan is deeply disturbed by a video that shows American soldiers desecrating dead bodies of three Afghans," said a statement from Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office on Thursday.
"This act by American soldiers is simply inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms.
"We expressly ask the US government to urgently investigate the video and apply the most severe punishment to anyone found guilty in this crime."
If verified, the marines could face war crimes charges. The Guardian reports:
Despoiling of the dead is illegal under the Geneva conventions as well as under US military law.
Russia Today reports:
While the exact identities of the victims are not known at this time, the three corpses are clad in civilian clothes, not military uniforms. One man, who seems to be the youngest of the pack, is donned in a blood-soaked shirt. The group is laid out in clear terrain sheltered by bushes an adjacent to a wheelbarrow, which could mean that the men were ambushed while participating in civilian activity.
Video of the incident is below. Warning: graphic content.
Comments
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128 Comments so far
Show AllActually, the military has dehumanized the 'enemy' to the extent that people who were once decent human beings think that pissing on corpses is acceptable. How do you think they get soldiers at roadblocks conditioned to fire into vehicles with children in them? The other isn't human, they're different. The same rules don't apply to them.
Yes, you're correct -- but there is another part of the equation.
Many sickening aspects of the oxymoron called "Western Civilization," are quite purposefully and meticulously fashioned to DEHUMANIZE the troops and USAians themselves.
This make them more pliably manipulated and feeds the meme of being rapacious consumptive pawns, to better hide and normalize amoral and immoral behaviors like torture of innocents and war crimes against the peace of innocent countries.
One cannot "dehumanized the 'enemy'," w/o doing similarly to ourselves.
Is anyone really wondering why there are such extremities of PTSD, violence, and suicide -- for so many of our returning vets ?
With their dead eyes, is it not clear that they loose a piece of their souls after killing others, and that THAT is a tremendously heaven burden for anyone (other than a psychopath) to carry ?
Your comment "people who were once decent human beings think that pissing on corpses is acceptable," is perhaps evidence of how you think that they might be thinking. I suspect that both they retain more of their humanity (than most think), and that the camaraderie betwixt fellow grunts protecting each others' backs, had more to do with their pissing on the dead, than any possible concept they have of what is "acceptable."
Military training is not well known for instilling a passion for higher cognitive functioning (or reflection about motives), as their reacting immediately to perceived threats (or orders) with various forms of conditioned violence, is visceral and designed to be automatic.
Protecting and caring for their buddy's health and safety, is one part of military 'training' that has positive impact (connecting to others), while it also often leads to mob condoned excessive violence -- like this article describes.
The military system conditions their soldier killers as sharp deadly tools, HOWEVER, that only temporarily overrides and suppresses their humanity and natural morality. And of course those tools would be way TOO DEADLY (to empire), if they got so sharp and brightly edged, that they started thinking for themselves.
Now that would surely not be an acceptable behavior …
All this anger about the urination is misplaced. What we need is lots more anger about the original killing of those victims and thousands more like them. I don't give a damn about the urination. What I really despise is the killing and destruction. Plleeease! Let's concentrate on what is really important.
Jim shea
Jim Shea, your right on the mark. "Lets concentrate on what is really important." The caption on this video should be 'Piss on this, I quit!' I watched the moral of fellow Marines go through the floor, after Jane Fonda's photo op supporting the North Vietnamese Forces was published for all to see.
This is video has real potential to be another "Jane Fonda" moment for the Marine Corp and America in general. The real obscene part of this video is the dead Peasants in the foreground.
As disgusting as this is, it pales in comparison to predatory drone bombing of innocent children. The real war criminals are the leaders of both parties and the war contractors who have person-hood and need to be sent to the Hague for trial.
Right on! Our media and our government have been telling us for years that Muslims are terrorists with no rights to a country or humanity. This sort of thing is to be expected. It is the war-mongers in Congress and the White House who should be on trial for war crimes.
Get ready for Iran.
By now the Taliban have downloaded the video so they can teach their troops how to treat Yankee prisoners and dead.
I'm not going to watch the video. I decided after watching the video of Kaddafi's arrest and summary execution: Enough. Enough of filling my head with nightmarish images from a world gone mad.
Why is it that anyone is surprised by this kind of behavior, which occurs in all our wars? Aren't these "our brave men and women in uniform" who our presidents are always praising?
Does anyone really believe "our heroes" who are "Defending Our Freedom" do not engage in this sort of activity (and worse) quite often, or that this is not part of the routine inhumanity of war?
Why is it that we permit our presidents to routinely piss on the Geneva Conventions and there is not widespread outrage in the mass media? Isn't it a double standard to expect the grunts to have a higher moral standard than the war criminals who send them to kill brown people for Empire?
This whole issue is so nuts I don't know where to begin. We have so little regard for life that we murder Afghans, murdered Iraqis and are fixin' to murder Iranians. We execute U.S. citizens willy nilly and allow the murderer to run for President of our country. The U.S. is truly a funny farm.
All I can say is that it looks like those filthy marines didn't wash their hands when they finished urinating. Let's mail them some handy wipes in a care package. Our value system makes me so sick my head is going to explode.
What these men did is reprehensible. And, they should be reprimanded and punished for urinating on the corpses - according to the military/international regulations. Though, I doubt that will happen.
Let's focus on the real crimes and the real criminals. These men would not be in this place killing in our name if it were not for a thoroughly corrupted government which has sent them to do the bidding of the corpora-fascists and banksters. Money uber alles.
Please!
It's OK to shoot them for sport, drop cluster bombs, or napam Vietnamese by the 100s of thousands; but don't piss on them.
PS I understand that US soldiers sent trophy Japanese body parts back home during WWII. (but maybe not germans?!)
George E
99% of the human race are ignorant irrational savages, starting with the 1%
life sucks and then . . . . . .
someone once said marines aren't the sharpest tools in the shed
but they are tools.
The Few, The Proud, The Urinators.
New motto for the Marine corps.
I am guessing they didn't understand the part of basic that teaches the difference between their "gun" and their "weapon". Or perhaps they did.
Actually, genicon, the traditional motto "Semper Fidelis" and the marketing slogan, "A Few Good Men" have been superseded by a classic aphorism: "It's Better To Be Pissed Off Than Pissed On."
That said, I agree with the general consensus that, as abhorrent as this post-mortem abuse is, moral outrage at this conduct rather than the wanton homicide and mayhem that is SOP for the imperialist Amerikan military is absurdly misplaced and disproportionate.
In sterile analysis of body counts, of course there should be more outrage over the killing rather than the urinating. But humans are emotional creatures with this thing found only in humans (except, possibly, my cats) - dignity. So, I fully understand the outrage over this act, and I hope it inspires every capable Afghani to join a militia and drive the invaders out once and for all.
Post-mortem abuse? Quite the euphemism. We have men that killed other men, urinating on their bodies on camera and celebrating the fact and then posting it on the internet. These men took part in wanton homicide and mayhem, and that wasn't enough for them. We're supposed to ignore that?
"That said, I agree with the general consensus that, as abhorrent as this post-mortem abuse is, moral outrage at this conduct rather than the wanton homicide and mayhem that is SOP for the imperialist Amerikan military is absurdly misplaced and disproportionate."
_________________
So true, O.S.
Last evening, one of San Diego's abysmal local TV stations used this video as a "teaser" prior to its early evening "news". Since unflattering depictions of US military personnel (The Troops!) are taboo, I immediately sensed that "damage control" was about to go full tilt in effort to present the unseemly incident as some sort of aberration (A Few Bad Apples!) instead of US global barbarism and mayhem as usual, which never raises a discerning eyebrow.
I detest local "news", so I didn't tune in to watch the feigned indignation of the "news" readers. I imagine some military functionary was probably dispatched to assure local viewers that this incident does not reflect the "core values" of the military or of the United States of America.
Arthur Silber wrote an exceptional essay today on this subject titled The Varieties of Pissing, which I highly recommend reading in its entirety. Here's an excerpt:
[...] As the condensed factual recitation above demonstrates, the United States Government recognizes no difference between the lives of Americans and the lives of anyone else anywhere on Earth: all human beings anywhere are to be brutalized, terrorized and murdered as the United States Government chooses.
The repeated actions of the U.S. Government over more than a hundred years -- and its actions today -- place this fact beyond all question. This is the horror that greets you upon waking in the morning; the screams of the victims are the lullaby to which you fall asleep. The horror is the air you breathe. It is the cultural atmosphere that surrounds you. It is the knock on the door.
"In the parlance of the day, or what would be that parlance if we spoke more plainly, we can say with accuracy and precision:
"The ruling class of the United States pisses on the entire world, just as it pisses on every human being who is not favored by privilege and power.
"This is the ultimate foundation of our lives today. This is the truth that will almost never be spoken. [...]
"One final point must be mentioned. I said that what actually concerns most of the "outraged" commentators is that this incident has become known, not that it happened. What I meant, of course, is that it has become known to the American public. It is not possible that an incident of this kind is unusual or perpetrated only by "a few bad apples." As was true of the horrific abuses at Abu Ghraib, it must be the case that incidents like this occur with considerable frequency. You cannot be part of a vast, worldwide killing operation -- you cannot travel across the globe and murder (or be prepared to murder) innocent human beings who otherwise could not possibly threaten you -- and remain a "nice," "decent" human being. I repeat: it is not possible. Since horrors like this must occur with hideous regularity, it must also be the case that the people who live in the countries victimized by the U.S. know of them. The horrors of Abu Ghraib were not news to Iraqis. Incidents like the one to which we Americans devote so much time today cannot be news to the people of Afghanistan.
"But Americans live in the cocoon of the myths that are reinforced every day by almost every voice in the media, and by the majority of "ordinary" Americans themselves. Videos like the current one threaten those myths, and they throw into question our cherished belief that we are "good" and uniquely so. Pissing on dead bodies is not an image that can be reconciled with our desperate self-flattery, with our unquestioned and unquestionable belief that we are inherently superior to all other peoples and entitled to our way in everything, in all corners of the world. So it must be explained, and minimized, and excused. When it is condemned, it is condemned as an outlier, an extraordinary event that is "not consistent with our core values."
"We will not acknowledge or come to terms with the fact that the U.S. Government has declared war on the world -- what else can it mean that the U.S. has ongoing operations in 120 countries? -- and that the ruling class maintains it has the "right" to murder any human being it chooses. So I state again:
"The rulers of the United States piss on you, and on every other human being on Earth not favored by privilege and power."
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2012/01/varieties-of-pissing.html
America's Best. And we were told that gays were the biggest threat to the military. Wrong - it's sheer stupidity!
It's good to know that the vast defense budget provides our proud fightin' boys with such sophisticated . . . equipment. The only thingies that work properly!
How about pinning each of the GOP candidates to the ground, holding their mouths open and . . . you get the picture.
Having watched the video several times now, the dead person at the bottom left has a full beard and clearly is an adult. The other two bodies lie face down and to me look distinctly smaller in stature than the bearded man. His sons? I would like to know. Everyone can decry this act, but the dead have the right to have their name spoken aloud to honor them against their desecrators. Let us have their names so we can call out for justice in their names. Too long have we dehumanized the dead.
Don't forget that these soldiers or their like brethren will one day become your neighbors, will work alongside your children, will work as cops and as prosecutors, and will do many more bad things. Read "Lethal Warriors" by David Philipps, a tale of soldiers returning to Colorado Springs to continue their wars against their families and innocent civilians. http://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Warriors-When-Band-Brothers/dp/0230104401
"Don't forget that these soldiers or their like brethren will one day become your neighbors, will work alongside your children, will work as cops and as prosecutors"
That's the truly scary issue.
"The NATO-led security force in Afghanistan stated: "This disrespectful act is inexplicable and not in keeping with the high moral standards we expect of coalition forces.""
Those high moral standards should not be expected they should be demanded. And anything less should not be tolerated. If Americans can not uphold those standards then they should be disallowed from participation.
So, by all means, help re-elect Obama so we can keep the urinators on station and insert them into other nations. No, No, No, we cannot ever even entertain the idea of supporting let alone electing someone like Ron Paul who would at least corral all the urinators and return them to the US Metropole. Repeat this mantra: Dems good; Reps bad. Dems good; Reps bad.
No argument both parties are equally responsible. Each of us as part of this society is ultimately responsible for allowing it to happen. The 01% may have the money to rig the elections on a certain level, but in the end we each cast a vote or choose not to. We've really chosen to ride the Wall St. wave and ignore the cost to our own lives. In the end accounting had we not chosen to vote like we have, things might have been different. But the majority chose to vote for their pocket books. How's that worked out for most of us?
It's not the wealthy elite's kids pissing on bodies to feel their manhoods made whole. They don't go to war. They enter the family business. Their manhoods are ever only impacted if they're faced with an estate tax.
Just goes to show how duped those marines are otherwise they would be pissing on the people in government and the military and the corporations and especially w and his dick for getting the u.s. illegally into a war and invasion of a sovereign nation. Besmirches the idea of what a real and thorough investigation into the attack on 9/11/01 would reveal. But cartoon saturdays and year round spectator sports never has done much to brighten the duped kids in this country.
Excellent analysis of the circumstances that lead today's youth on the path of "warrior" as a career choice and the parents that support them in such a choice.
Allegedly? What else could it have been that these "brave young warriors" were doing? And from the video it would appear they knew they were being filmed, And from the film it would appear the cameraman was also a participant. Who posted this video?
I have been in the Marine Corps in combat. Pissing on dead bodies is tame. I was surprised they were dead bodies.
Hopefully you don't live in my community, go to any of the churches, temples, or synagogs there or date any of my grand neices and nephews. If you were a member of that corps and stood idly by while such behavior took place you are as guilty of the acts as those that committed them.
We brainwash our troops so they will kill on command, and we get upset for something like this?
So it should be condoned? Killing isn't enough gratification? Juvenile acts like this should be ignored?
War is waged by the 1% and fought by mercenary morons from the 99%.
But what is missing from this article is that the entire corporate imperial invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is a war crime, not just specific events like this.
Very true but you never fall into the trap of condoning this sort of behavior by anyone, That's how the financial world gained it's "leverage". Little indescretions were considered minor time after time, until they were considered routine and "business as usual". Today a company can't be considered profitable without resorting to the same means. Is that what we want of our kids? I want better.
I don't understand why the surprise. From what I see, I'm afraid those marines are the true face of the USA. The demonization of all things Muslims did not begin in 2001, but 20 years earlier on the cable networks. This is the consequence of an entire brainwashed generation.
In this context the CD readers are are the sane 1%
The few, the proud, the marines.. This incident kind of gives that a new meaning doesn’t it.
Well I have got to guess that this type of thing is probaly common place. But someone here got the camera out and took picture. I bet that he is not real popular right now.
Lots of denial and some voters' remorse here in the comments. Every one who voted dem/repub for any member of Congress is responsible. It is the congress that finances war. If we do not accept responsibility for our share in this, how can we hold the disgusting troops responsible for their actions? Anyone who ever says the Pledge, or salutes the flag, or cheers during the 4th of July parade enables this sick degenerate behavior.
Pissing on dead Afghans--A war crime! It's outrageous! Horrible! Disgusting!
Blowing up little children and butchering women and old men--collateral damage. Media silent.
I'm with a bunch of Kiwi airmen at the moment, and when this item appeared on the news, they all "turned away" and started a conversation among themselves. I got the sense that they were embarassed by this display by their "allies".
What is truely worrisome is that this behavior is applauded by a great many anti-Muslim, pro-war civilians and troops. These folk are scratching their heads wondering about the commotion, and are complaining about media bias that berates such behavior.
I am not talking about a small minority here, but a large swathe of the US population. To them, this act is "normal", expected and cheerworthy.
Sick, yes.
Where are the "enemy" weapons? The upturned wheelbarrow suggests that the dead may be construction workers.
like others, i want to focus on the deeper problem. but that in itself is a problem. in the face of the unspeakable, all of us - even the most empathetic - feel the need to "return to normal life," whatever that is. the idea of sustaining a focus on outrageous actions and/or mental/emotional failings is paradoxically considered "inhuman," because of the conventional wisdom that it is always healthier to "move on." to forgive, to forget, to "put into context."
try out this exercise - concentrate on some appallingly amoral act for a day. maybe for even just half a day in the company of peers, family, friends. notice their reactions. then notice mental activity in the form of the need to escape.
it is not enough to work for our own brand of "regime change" here is the good old u.s.a. we need to constantly redefine what it means to be human, to have the courage to stick with fully human responses to the unacceptable.
Yes, you've nailed the underlying issue, saying :
"we need to constantly redefine what it means to be human, to have the courage to stick with fully human responses to the unacceptable."
The ultimate problem, is that I and collectively "we," cannot get there ("fully human") from where I and collectively "we," currently are.
We must increasingly become something unprecedented, following the courses of those many spiritual leaders who've shown us in their lives (and too often deaths), what the grace of pure love and truth bring us towards.
Our experiences being within families -- when they're great -- are as close as most of us get to this unconditionality of love, and so growing the humankindness family, is our life-line to survival.
No _ r e v o l u t i o n _ (or set of them) is large enough to shake the roots of all institutions, that we laboriously build and re-build, as if our very perception of survival required such. In fact, our long term sustainable survival requires out-of-the-box thinking, far beyond where we're as yet comfortable, or have much current experience with.
Ego's fear is our real enemy (that concept of itself, as separateness incarnate = selfishness), HOWEVER, we can chose anew to increasingly identify with something underneath and ineffably beyond that.
Growing into our conscious awareness of what that _ I S _ (to be "fully human") -- is love -- and that is the antidote (all of everything being interdependent and enfolding each and everything else = selflessness).
_ E v o l u t i o n _ is far more effective agent for change, as our inner mechanistic view of reality is why we keep building materially (physically), instead of opening up to the paradigm shift of reverently living within our deeply interconnected spiritually and oneness.
See John Trudell - "Poetry, Politics and Perspective - Detroit 2010," at http://bit.ly/wvKkMo
Individually, and then collectively -- we must evolve BEYOND what currently is the systematic hollowing out and dehumanization -- of who we really are.
Stop being consumptive vassals of rapaciousness itself, and learn to compassionately connect, empathize, and ultimately love and revere life and each other -- A L L.
"it is not enough to work for our own brand of "regime change" here is the good old u.s.a. we need to constantly redefine what it means to be human, to have the courage to stick with fully human responses to the unacceptable."
Beautiful choice of words.
The trickle down hegemony of global rapacious usurpation, unsurprisingly reaches a new low.
The troops unknowingly truly express what corporatist conditioning really means to all of the USA's folks, about their own lives and honor, as if an open latrine of heinous warmongering abandonment of everything of value.
But then, it's really the USAian folks that are getting the worse of it morally and figuratively -- being hollowed out and increasingly penniless -- to be left holding the bag and the bill, when global elites move onto the next bunch of suckers …
The people global empire attacks, clearly know what they're fighting for (their lives) -- but do we know what we're fighting for ?
'Profit at any cost,' means to corporatist EMPIRE thinking that nothing but money has any value -- not life, not honor -- not even having a future for our children.
Is this what you want ?
Collectively we've no reason to blame the troops for this, until we first struggle with the facts of how poorly we've dealt with our unresolved inner demons.
Morality starts within each of us, as it's entirely antithetical within all capitalistic board rooms. Only we the people can chose better, initially individually then linking increasingly as OCCUPY EVERYTHING grows inevitably, how ever it evolves.
POGO knew this long ago -- as he met the enemy and found that it is us, but we've also simultaneously found our savior -- as that it is us too.
Isn't it time we stopped pissing on our morals, and became the brilliant promise of becoming and truly manifesting the responsible and connected forces of transformation, that we all contain within ourselves ?
Isn't time to put away childish ways, and act responsibly ?
The real enemy is not those superficially disrespecting life, immediately after killing so many -- it is the habituated and narrowed thinking those at home who are unable to creatively wonder why such is being done in their names, and for what ends …
Luckily many are increasingly awakening to the situation, and surely they know deep within, that the troops ( Iranians, or immigrant minorities, … ) didn't create this mess. How could they ?
Until we realize who put each brick into the walls that surround our hollowed out amoral prisons -- we will attempt to keep relentlessly building more -- and never recall where we put the key.
Remember Ray Bradbury's ‘‘There Will Come Soft Rains’’ ?
Read the entire story here: http://bit.ly/dmn0vT
and/or look into it's inner meanings on pages 10-12 of http://bit.ly/zmSpv2
Isn't it about time we learn
to stop raining on our
own parade ?
"POGO knew this long ago -- as he met the enemy and found that it is us, but we've also simultaneously found our savior -- as that it is us too."
The savior in us is only found in the small number of atheists; religionist freakazoids prefer their savior in the form of an imaginary friend, and this is how they wash their hands of immorality. These fruitcases have been hiding behind "god's will" for millenia.
"Isn't it about time we learn to stop raining on our own parade ?"
Do you mean pi$$ing on our parade?
We can disagree as to who has found and lives within -- a "savior in us" -- but I sense that both you and I are moving in the right direction.
There is room for everyone's point of view, but that certainly doesn't make everyone prescient about how we'll inevitably come together (including me).
That institutionalized religions are a huge part of the problem (of "freakazoid" irresponsibility and muddled thinking) is clear -- but why people continually make them throughout all cultures -- is less so obvious.
That people are drawn to wonder about what is, and seek understanding of the ineffable web of existence (as yet) too dimly sensed, in no manner mandates a crazy authoritarian grey-beard (" imaginary friend") running things behind the scenes, nor the absence of our provable interconnectiveness.
"Spooky action at a distance" bothered Einstein to no end, and demonstrable quantum entanglement exposes -- that what we ONCE supposed was some localized/material systemic fabric of space/time -- is in fact a warp-on-weave of immaterial and non-localized "threads" of synchronistic interdependency (all connected underneath it all).
That we're so slow to discover this scientifically, in no manner belies the truth of so many sages who've discovered this wisdom repeatedly.
As to your final question, I started with "trickling down," had "pi$$ing" going on throughout the middle, and ended with soft rains and nearly always spoiled parades flooding and drowning our chances to survive.
I also said explicitly "Isn't it time we stopped pissing on our morals" ?
Do you know what a rhetorical question is ?
men in war always do depraved things, in all wars, to enemies, bystanders, armed, unarned and anybody else nearby. War is organized depravity. The Rules of engagement give the high command a convenient position behind which to hide when the foot soldiers are "caught" pissing on bodies or cutting off ears for trophies. No doubt, there are some people in govt and the military who at least see the moral and political value of rules of engagement; that's how chemical weapons were banned and somehow, amazingly, chemical weapons were not used in WWII or Korea on the battlefield or against civilian neighborhoods. Their sincerity, however, did not prevent the Nazis from using gas in industrial death camps.
For most of the history of war, the winning side would send squads out into the battlefield to stab the wounded after the battle. Is this murder, mutilation or mercy-killing? Whatever it was, it was depraved and de-humanizing and an utterly predictable and expected part of war.
Gross and disturbing as this is, the flatulent, utterly dishonest "umbrage" of the generals and civilian war officials ("defense" has nothing to do with it), is far more disturbing and makes us, Americans, look far more callous and inhuman, than a stupid, juvenile pissing incident.
They say the US Marine Corp builds character ..... and this is the kind of characters it builds.
The few. The proud. The brave. The Marines. Well PISS ON THE FUCKING MARINES.
Disgusting. Just the tip of the iceberg. Too bad climate change won't melt these "icebergs."