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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 AllAnyone expecting anything different?
Western troops have been pissing on the Geneva Convention for years.
You beat me to it.
George W. Bush specifically declared that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Taliban or al-Qaeda. And of course, the Taliban or al-Qaeda is anyone who opposes the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. Therefore, the Geneva Conventions do not apply in Afghanistan (or anywhere else).
This is what happens to teen-aged males when the military applies the psychological mauling that is their "training". The teen aged male can be molded. The military would take 13 year olds if they could.
If the mothers of the US refused to send their children off to boot camp this constant warring might stop.
Agree -- No one should think of these four men as anything unusual.
This is the training, this is the psychological damage being done to them
by the training.
And, obviously, the training includes no mention of the Geneva Convention.
Is the training of our police any different these days as they are steadily more
and more miltiarized -- despite restrictions on use of military against citizens?
Our "public servants" have been turned into GESTAPO.
As Sy Hersh made clear, this is the most brutal and cruel military we've ever
raised.
Exactly. Teenage males and even some who have ventured past their teenage years have only one focus, which is clearly demonstrated by those participating in the act and whoever filmed it. If the purpose for filming it was to celebrate the act.
Your comments show ignorance about America in every sense of the word. American mothers have no control over whether their sons join the military. Young men and women can not enter the armed forces until they are 18 years old. They sign themselves up and do not need their parents permission. Ours is a voluntary military service. Our armed forces train EVERY new enlistee about the Geneva convention, honesty, respect, and the preservation of every human beings right to live free of tyrany and poverty. They are only in "boot camp" for aproximately two to six months. Don't blame the military for what our current society of anything goes and every man, woman, and child for themselves has created. You need to consider the number of armed forces that our country provides to countless countries around the world and compare that number to the actions of five disrespectful young idiots. Just as your government can not be held acountable for your individual upbringing, neither can America be held responsible for the obvious lack of proper parenting these young people obviously had.
Perhaps America can't be held responsible for a lack of parenting for these specific young people, but it should be held responsible for taking them to a foreign land, putting a gun in their hands and telling them 'You see those people over there? They're the enemy.'.
You say "armed forces that our country provides to countless countries around the world", I say "occupation".
Potaeto, potahto, I guess.
american legion mom sez: " Our armed forces train EVERY new enlistee about the Geneva convention, honesty, respect, and the preservation of every human beings right to live free of tyrany and poverty."
Well, that and that the enemy are evil Muslims who think that killing Americans will get them sixty virgins in their Christ-less heaven.
American Legion Mom, your comments show ignorance about America in every sense of the word.
In comments that almost seemed from some sort of dark comedy, Clinton and Panetta found the fact that the soldiers peed on the dead bodies utterly deplorable, but they seemed to have no problem with the fact that those soldiers had actually killed those men in the first case.
Also the lack of guns on the dead men, and the wheel barrel in the scene makes me wonder if these guys weren't farmers or laborers and not Taliban, but judging by how our military has been acting, I guess it really doesn't matter to them much.
Wait, I'm confused. Are these guys heroes whose service we should honor and be grateful for, or are they victims, just doing what's necessary to provide for their families? It's unclear from this picture....
Heroes? Sure, heroic thugs who graduated in the bottom 1% of their high school class. The only reason clowns like marines work for the military is that they were too stupid to get hired by Blackwater/XE/Monsanto.
The Academi expects their hirees to already have demonstrated the sort of expertise these marines are demonstrating. And actually if we all knew the truth they may have taken some of their most dehumanizing training from Academi consultants. I am sure all three are currently on track for promising ex-military "careers" with the Academi.
http://hamptonroads.com/2011/12/first-blackwater-then-xe-now-company-academi
Come on, guys! These brave souls are our "best and brightest" defending our "Freedom" from these hateful non-christian colored people(who just happen to live around natural resources)! Don't you see? Those cadavers hated those Mureenz for their "Freedom". Why not subject them to a sexual fetish? See what happens when you repeal "DADT"? I blame the Liberals who sent them there in the first place!(?) Remember, "Better dead than Red"! Or, brown, black, yellow, olive or anything that's not white!
How LOW can this country sink?
re-electing george wanker bush a second time????
John Kirby is outraged by this because NATO forces normally kill 3rd world peasants while applying a "high moral standard." But to take a piss on them afterward is unforgivable.
I hate the US military and the soldiers in the military who are too cowardly or too stupid to refuse to kill for rich people. The Afghan government should should be allowed to punish these marines as they deem appropriate.
i was going to say something like that too..............the crime starts with the killing of these people in the first place.!!!!
The crime may start there, but very apparently it doesn't end there. Killing innocent people isn't enough for some. I have a problem with our abhorrence to beheading but none with acts like this and other inhumane acts we allow ourselves to parttake in the name of our laws and society like capital punishment. None of it is condonable by thinking humans.
Yes ~coco~ ,,, and it actually began when we invaded Afghanastan in the first place.
Our illegal wars will come back to haunt all Amreicans... What goes around someday comes around.... This is a lot worse than most may realize in my opinion... It's very, very bad.... In (some) ways, it is worse than the Lt. Calley massacure in Vietnam.
I do not see our miltiary living this down, as (perhaps) it is a display or our entire society now,,, and many in other countries may feel it is so... It's very bad... I'm ashamed.. I would be ashamed to travel to a foreign country now... How will others look upon our embassy personnel in foreign countries? __ Oh well, I'll shut up. I'm sorry coco.... sad too... This is not America anymore.
hey k.p. ive sent you message over on the ``doomsday clock`` thread.................
Thank you, Swza. The absurdity of an invading and occupying imperial army having a "high moral standard" is too rich. Our presidents routinely piss on the Geneva Conventions but there isn't a peep of protest in the lamestream media about it.
They hate us for our freedom to pis* on them. As if waterboarding isn't disgusting enough. How many terrorists will these war criminals create?
Although it may have been a waste of money in many ways, and maybe have been pointless in some other ways the US landing a man on the moon, was one of the last big things that the country did that actually made me proud to be an American.
I wonder if that will be looked back as the high point of the American civilization. Landing a person on the moon, the middle class overall doing very well, pushing forward in the area of civil rights, Johnson's "Great Society".
Yes, I know the Vietnam war was in full swing during that time, so things were by no means ideal, but as a country we seemed to be heading overall in a positive direction. Now compare the 1960s to how we started the 21st century. What great achievements can we point to? Bank Bailouts, troops pissing on the dead, two failed wars of choice, rolling back human rights as fast as congress can pass the laws, doing away with Habeas Corpus, the President proudly overseeing the murdering unarmed people, including Americans without a trial. The only major "achievement" that we as a nation can point to is Obama-care, which was more a health care system bailout, than a safety net for the average American. Compare that national direction, to the one of the 1960s.
Oh and may I add, not only can we no longer put a man on the moon, but we can no longer even put one into low Earth orbit. For that we have to hitch a ride on one of our former cold war rival's space craft.
Needless to say, sadly I am no longer proud to call my self and American
I have never understood how anyone could be "proud" of an accident of birth. It's hardly a personal achievement, is it.
Chris Rock has a bit about that - about people being proud of "coming out of a ----- in Detroit." Pretty funny stuff, it's on YouTube.
The ghettos of America were on fire in the late '60s because of inequality and poverty and heroin had engulfed the black community. There was nothing positive for the invisible poor of the US at this time (except the Black Panther Party). In addition, I have serious doubts Apollo 11 ever made it to the moon.
Soldiers shouldn't be pissing on the ground in Afghanistan. They shouldn't be there. I don't understand why people would be more concerned about a soldier urinating on dead men than who made the dead men dead, and for what reason. They kill civilians all the time over there and they call it collateral damaged. Often it is outright murder, and it is never investigated. Bradley Manning brought one such incident of military murder to public attention, and he may be spending the rest his life in prison for doing so. The US has become one of the worlds worst terrorist states.
John, your comment said it all!
Judging from the picture, it appears that marines like carrying around big rifles because they were born with Derringers.
THAT gave me my first big laugh of the day. Thanks!
(And the original, single-shot Deringers at that.)
"Et .22 Brutus" ?
For what it is worth….anyone in their right mind would not be doing this.
I feel it is a tactic to keep the hostilities going, and to maintain the “industrial military complex” and the mercenaries, and to pay for them with our tax dollars.
All the while creating more U.S. enemies, disenfranchising the rest of the 99% by separating them from their hard earned monies and rerouting those monies/taxes into the pockets of a bunch of greedy psychopaths.
After reading Rober Koehler's piece on cynicism and war (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/12), I have to give what you wrote some real thought. Even if the incident was just a stupid act by young soldiers (and I agree that it stretches credulity), the fact that it has gained so much media traction and fueled at every opportunity is reason enough to believe that it's just another way for the military-industrial-political-media complex to keep itself going.
The "greedy psychopaths" are amoral and we should keep this in mind at all times. They will create or use incidents to keep their power, no matter what.
if the deceased were uniformed, and of sufficient rank (no pun intended), and one were a decent singer, one might sing as one urinates...
When You Piss Upon A Star...
if the harmonies were well done, this could be very moving...
voice over:
"You've just wrongly murdered your handler's justified enemy
And signed his fresh, young corpse with your macho victory pee!
What are you going to do now?"
soldier: I'm going to Disneyland!
and when they get to Disneyland?
they get an honored place in the daily Parade...
really...
Taliban? How do you know? Are you going to take the word of the murderers who killed these people?
I stand corrected. When I reviewed the video, I noticed the wheelbarrow they were pushing. A classic Taliban trick. No doubt they were planning another notorious Taliban wheelbarrow attack.
BTW, the corpse in the middle appears to have his hands tied behind his back. Marines ... the proud ... the few.
That's OK, the truth will come out in their court martial. heeheehahaheehee ... just kidding. You know nothing will happen.
How could they piss on dead people unless they are brainwashed to hate and dehumanize the designated enemy? How else could they function as the oligarchy's hitmen?
Hopefully, they'll keep the videos so they can show their children what Daddy did during the war.
Undoubtedly this story will do nothing from deterring our fearless leader from continuing to declare how brave our troops are overseas and how they are keeping us safe from those evil terrorists.
One must always keep in mind what Barack Obama told CNN correspondent Candy Crowley during the 2008 presidential campaign and that is that the United States should never have to apologize for the numerous atrocities that it has committed over the years to the many people that it has bombed and slaughtered.
Our proud military in the performance of the highest duty!
Yes. this is horrific but does everyone here know about what the troops call "pink mist" ?
For years I have been warning parents about how the military can change the nice kid next door into a killer in a matter of weeks. Once the tabu against killing is eliminated from the human conscience, this is what we get.
The Tillman family knows firsthand what "pink mist" is.
So what, there were a couple of bad apples in Iraq, so now there are a few bad ones in Afghanistan!
I am sure they will all find Jesus, when they're back in the States.
We're still Number One, and that's what counts.
As American as apple pie
That would depend on what you are counting, and who's doing the accounting.
I wonder if we will be seeing this on the 6:00 news.
I have great empathy for all involved. The Marines are a product of their environment. Those who sent them over there should be held responsible. Those who for years have deified guns should be held responsible. Those who have promoted American Exceptionalism should be held responsible. Should a young American who volunteered to defend and kill for his country be held solely responsible for any act in the theater of war? Key word being solely. Should not the civilian body count in Iraq and Afghanistan warrant more indignation? What about war crimes tribunals for those who gave the orders to kill civilians?
Young men answering the call of duty pay a price. They are not the same people when they return. That's where my empathy comes in. Last week the body of an Iraq war veteran who, "...was suicidal and possibly suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after deploying to Iraq in 2007-2008", was found on Mt. Rainier. Just another young man who went over there and came back messed up. The veteran was 24 years young, divorced with a son and under a restraining order. He shot several people at a party in Tacoma then fled for the hills where he shot and killed a 34 year old park ranger who was married with two daughters.
What a story of loss. The veteran's son will never know his dad. The ranger's two daughters will grow up without their mom. The real cost of the wars will be paid for years to come and in more than dollars. These senseless wars dehumanize our young people. These senseless wars dehumanize us all. How many care about the civilian body count in Fallujah? Were not cluster and phosphorus bombs made to be used? Our society has become cold like steel. We cannot feel the loss of families in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is a little urine anyway? They were already dead. Were they ever really people, in an American sense?
Yes they were people even in warped American sensibilities. The soldiers that did the urinating are another matter entirely. I don't accept the excuse that war made them that way. They weren't I am sure taught that in basic or boot camp, and they weren't following any orders when they did it. They were acting individually and guided by their own free will and personal upbringing.