After 12 years of propaganda demonizing Muslims and “others” to con our citizens into supporting our military adventures, this would be a natural consequence. This example is only the latest in a long line of atrocities committed by our troops and condoned by both civilian and military leadership. Any punishment should include their commanders and the commanders’ commanders.

These Marines are for the most part “Rednecks” to begin with. The training from their NCO’s mostly enforces that mindset. And even if some lip service is given to proper conduct toward “Haji”, their word for ALL Muslims, its with a wink and a nod.
The most striking part of “Restrepo” for me was the FNG’s where jumped in, Gang style to the post.
Some Captain, or Major had to sanction that behavior.
Boys will be Boys…B/S on that!

Expect that any effort to court-martial these guys will be met by howls of outrage, by those who claim to support the troops, but specially from those in the Bush Admin who should have been tried for war crimes, but weren’t.

If yu don’t prosecute those at the top who set the tone and pattern, you can’t easily prosecute those at the bottom.

So there were four of them, but does that include the photogapher? Who put it online, and how long was it posted? When did it happen? How did it get into the media? How and when did the Pentagon find out, and how did they identify the perpetrators?

One can reasonably guess there are other similar sorts of instances which simply didn’t become public knowledge.

And now it’s more about damage control than anything else, no?

This revives old nightmares. Remember the necklaces of ears from VIetnam?

Yes, Scarecrow. The problem is that there is lack of will to prosecute anybody, particularly those at the top as we have seen over and over and over (see @ 5).

Best comment I’ve heard on this: If it’s OK to waterboard live people, why is it not OK to urinate on dead people.

These Marines are for the most part “Rednecks” to begin with.

That’s a stereotype and an unsupported assertion. I’m in no way defending the pissers but Marines aren’t the cookie cutter, one size fits all programmed killers that you imagine. Once more: The United States military very closely mirrors society at large, except much younger on average and perhaps a bit more poor and working class than society at large, (let’s face it, rich people don’t have to serve to get to college or support their families so they don’t). The TRAINING that’s done certainly leaves them a bit cavalier or even callous toward death but to announce that they are “for the most part rednecks” is unsupported and unsupportable.

That is cogent.

Also too, the Pissing Soldiers – like the Piss Christ – is a wonderful metaphor.

The sickening pearl-clutching, Murderous, Craven Hillary Clinton, Oilbomber, et al, have been pissing on Us for years.

Why is it ok for them to piss on our shoes and tell us it’s raining?

eCAHN,

I agree with you. When ‘waterboarding’ entered our lexicon and was trivialized–to the extent it became common usage and acceptable–I saw mass desensitization. A desecrated ‘dead body’ feels no pain; a live torture victim does. This false equivalence will sate the audience by punishing juvenile behavior while leaving psychopathic ‘experts’ untouched.

I still think that problem comes from putting soldiers in an unwinnable situation for years, with continued deployments, no sense of who the enemy is, defending a corrupt and weak central government, with no end in sight.

Sounds about right.

Hi Margaret,

You don’t deny that the stereotype is how they are relentlessly portrayed in the media, esp by the marines themselves.

This is the end result of Darth’s dictum that all govt TVs had to be tuned to Faux News at all times. These guys hear nothing but hate propaganda.
American Exceptionalism = Master Race 2.0

hack & otch,

I didn’t think of that myself. Saw it somewhere else & adopted it. I incorporates your thoughts, and also the issue of the 1%ers pissing on the 99ers.

It’s only wrong when you can scapegoat a few low level guys for the crimes of the 1%ers.

And we have history and tradition to glorify battles and war and killing and militarism as bravery, patriotism, manly…& on. where is the peace movement in this country? Why are we killers and gun-toters? Our culture glamorizes this stuff…then we are surprised when we end up with police brutality or soldiers who piss on other human beings….I would love to hear W et al make a sane or sensitive comment…how refreshing.

Oh really good. Captures this nicely.

You don’t deny that the stereotype is how they are relentlessly portrayed in the media, esp by the marines themselves.

Of course not, just pointing out that it doesn’t reflect the reality. I keep having Ron Paul trolls tell me what a “Progressive” he is but that doesn’t make that true either. Perhaps I should have been a bit more clear: When I was referring to Marines, I should have said rank and file ENLISTED Marines. The officer caste is different.

There is a large (99ers) peace movement in U.S. and everywhere. Remember the huge antiwar demonstrations before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The PTB worked relentlessly to marginalize it.

yup.

While my experience with violence was primarily in 2nd and 3rd grade – me and my younger brother getting chased home by packs of little vicious beasts cuz …we were the new kids!, and sundry … dumb … things in later grades –

I think it is VERY obvious that the military and the police are 2 different jobs.

I think the job of the military is to go fucking kill the enemy. Don’t want them bombing the shit outta of a village, killing 50 or 500, cuz the village is shielding 5 or 10 snipers … then do NOT send the military. Oh yeah, and when they catch the snipers who were trying to kill them, I don’t care if they put their sniper heads on fucking pikes. Military violence is about killing – they are NOT police.

At age 52 there are ALL kinds of things that happened years and decades ago that it takes me days to remember … and I could bet ALL the little bit of cash I have that I never supported any of the bullshit of Raygun-Cheney and the rest of their arm chair warrior war profiteer fascist scum toadies.

Want to STOP the idiotic deployment of the Military? Beam the live videos of what the military does into American homes. Oh yeah – we ALSO need a draft which NO little snot nosed prep boy/girl can get out of. When the kids of the war mongers are on those live video streams, putting heads on pikes, the Raygun-Cheney bullshit will end.

rmm.

Oh, I’ll pass Good Morning everyone and go straight to This is a disgusting metaphor, unfortunately. Unfortunately one that embodies a big, stinky can of worms.
This story strikes everyone on an emotional level, so…it’s going to draw alot of emotional responses.

Epsecially by the Marines themselves. There are also a lot of blacks in the military and they like Hip Hop and Cognac. There are Latinos too and they like Lowriders.

What difference does it make?

Those guys were more foolish to make a video of the event. They should have just cut off the fingers or ears for keepsakes like so many others have done. Were they really “Taliban Terrorists”? Fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them over here…Its all a pack of lies.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Now Hillary and Oilbomber have to feign outrage and disgust.

The outrage and disgust should be directed at them.

I don’t deny any of that but once again, I was merely stating that the stereotype isn’t supported by the reality.

Sorry to hear about Angela. My heart is with you this morning. :(

As disgusting as this was and they need to be punished. How is this a war crime and torture isn’t?

Yes, and we have to realize that just because something doesn’t make the 6 o’clock news, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Were you trying to make an actual comment or do you have digital turrets or something?

eCAHNomics January 14th, 2012 at 1:31 pm 7Best comment I’ve heard on this:

If it’s OK to waterboard live people, why is it not OK to urinate on dead people.

Yep. Punish the pissers but let’s “look forward and not back” when it comes to the people who authorized torture and rendition. Fuck that! If we’re going to let Bush, Cheney, Rummy, et al off the hook, then leave these guys alone.

Thank you…I have really appreciated the concern and care. She was a lovely cat. As you probably have heard….

I don’t think I was disagreeing with you…My concern is not with the stereotype…but with our culture that romanticizes violence…And I do think there is reality about the “portrayal” not necessarily the underlying facts…don’t know about all that. So seems like we agree. The book salon yesterday talked about the violence/brutality even in video games…Is all that really necessary?

you’re right, the sterotype doesn’t fit.

I’m not so sure that draft would solve the problems you raise anymore.

U.S. soldier training has changed since officers learned that only a small %age fired their guns at the enemy during WWII. Now the grunts are trained to “kill, kill, kill,” i.e. desenitized in every way from what they are doing.

I read in the last couple of days that they are even drugging soldiers with some powerful antidepressant so they won’t feel emotional connection with what they do, and presumably won’t get PTSD and commit suicide afterwards.

What could possibly go wrong with that.

I’m glad the reality doesn’t support that theory. I’ve said this before, and maybe I’ll say it again. Before I came to the Lake, I had a naive unsupported opinion about people who have elected to serve in the military. I just never knew anyone who did. Now that I’ve gotten to know some of you who have, I have a more educated opinion.
And, I’m glad to be more in the know and am proud of you.

I feel just awful about all that. I don’t know what I’ll do when inevitably Kuroneko gets old and/or sick and dies. How many pets have I had that passed away? A bunch of them and it seems to get harder every time. (((RevBev)))

There you go again..

Making the most salient points.

I’ll stipulate that it was incredibly poor judgment to piss on the corpses and I’ll further stipulate that it was the height of stupidity to make a video of it. I’m just stuck on the punishment aspect of it. I say let’s start with the people who sent them there to make corpses out of those people to begin with and work your way down to those least responsible for the incident: the pissers themselves. Too often the grunt is severely and mercilessly punished for stuff officers and above do routinely.

there are a LOT of problems with my proposal … not the least of which is that there is a certain % in ANY large group of humans who are blood thirsty cretins and who would LOVE watching the live body part banquet.

rmm

to steal a phrase from a group of infamous droolers – ditto.
;)
rmm

Blessings…I think Ive had 1 Yorkie (a joy) and 4 cats…3 quite recently. Don’t hold me to it, but I think this was my last ride…
The experts say that each loss re-awakens the old ones…Im not sure about that…But I woke up this morning thinking most of the people (Mother/sister) I want to talk to about Angela are also gone…Now that’s a first (Sorry this is probably not the topic.) Just hug that kid….

Just reading the word Draft gives me the heebie jeebies.
Several months ago, a Marine recruitment officer called the house looking for my youngest. They were contacting him because he’s a senior in high school and is on the honor roll. I told the young man, he sounded young, that it was So Nice of them to call, but that in fact my son is in a Special Education program and they probably wouldn’t want him. The officer was polite and thanked me and quickly got off the phone.
I felt a bit guilty, thinking I should have let my son handle the call himself, but not for long.

Yep. My dad and mom are long gone and the person who gave me Neko despises me now so when the time comes, it’s going to be a tough one. Very tough.

You’re on, of course….However, I do not see that the situation (the pass for the brass)is helped any by also letting the grunts off…Maybe that feels more just, I don’t know….It also gives a sharp contrast to the unfairness…A conundrum, I guess.

Yes, it does. Our family has always had roomfuls of dogs and cats. We even had a cockatiel – Peep – who passed a few years ago. Surprising how hurtful that was.

Good for you, and apparently there is alot of latitude for recruiting in the schools…Or, there was, not sure about now.

Sadly, I see our local and state law enforcement entering the realm of “unchallengable” (due to de-sensitization and “acceptability”). For those unfamiliar with the story, in Lee County Florida, a 63-year-old man, mentally depressed and chronically ill, was arrested, kept separated from his meds, restrained in ‘The Devil’s Chair’ and literally assaulted with pepper spray. Outcome: he died. Local and federal prosecutors are uninterested in investigating or charging any law enforcement personnel with criminal behavior. It seems to me failure to prosecute our protectors merely widens the breech between citizens and their protectors.

Surely this is another case of torture (how can ANYONE justify pepper-spraying a fully-restrained individual). I’ll bet his wife would have less problem with others pissing on her husband’s corpse that she does with the fact that, while alive, he was tortured and denied immediate medical treatment.

For myself I can state this: when I’m dead, feel free to piss on me, compost me or use me to fertilize your tomatoes. OTOH, I’d prefer not to suffer the pains of torture or be unable to receive needed medical care while I’m still drawing breath.

Yeah, I hate the lengths that the Jarheads go to in order to recruit children fresh out of school. Kudos to you.

Not really a conundrum for me. If you are going to punish them, then start with those most responsible or don’t punish them at all. Let’s take some recent examples of overzealous Nazi hunters arresting retired autoworkers who spent time as guards during WW II. In that case (most of) the authors of those abominable policies were killed or brought to justice decades ago so I have no problem with the little people being mopped up later. After all, everybody has a choice and they could have chosen to BE prisoners in those camps rather than guarding prisoners. So it’s pretty black and white to me: Either punish everybody responsible for the pissing incident or nobody.

This kid still has his ENDLESS THIS WAR poster on his bedroom door.

Rick Perry Defends Marines Who Urinated On Corpses

On HP

Not to argue…somehow it does not seem that black/white to me…these guys still did the pissing…Does it seem just? No & yes…..

I can’t look…Did he talk about nature’s call or the racist rock at his ranch?

So sorry for such a personal loss,

It’s never easy,
Life’s not the same without them.

Thank you…It’s really not…just in these days Ive had the oddest
sense of a “beginning”…Hard to describe. Thanks

It’s just the Boys will be Boys argument.
Not a bright defense, but you weren’t expection one, were you?
((Bev))

Woo Hoo for you, babe.

GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry is accusing the Obama administration of “over-the-top rhetoric” and “disdain for the military” in its condemnation of a video that purportedly shows Marines urinating on dead bodies in Afghanistan.

So saith Mr Perry.

Its a bit weird in this country that people are fully willing in the process of this countries move towards fascism and being a police state and yet sometimes things happen that briefly causes them to come out of that and feign outrage.

We shouldn’t be there in the first place ,war breeds these type of crimes.

We failed after the Vietnam lie to “hang um high” so to speak, the Nixons, Mc Namaras Kissinggers and that whole mind think group.

Actually im willign to bet obama chears this type of behavior in private. But its an election and its been such an awful administration that they have to pretend that they give a rats ass whereever then can to try to appeal to their still remaining supporters.

Well you know me. Usually I’m all about nuance but in this case, punish all or none. It’s moot though because as we all know, the grunts who did the pissing are going to be severely punished while the authors of this disaster go about their merry way, some even calling for more severe punishment for the pissers. Such is the society we live in. It’s even celebrated in popular media like the old television series M*A*S*H*, in which enlisted personnel were ALWAYS portrayed as stupid. Either stupid but able like Radar, stupid and incompetent like the never named cook, stupid and cowardly like Klinger or stupid and lazy like Zale, while the officers frequently did things like striking and threatening enlisted people, showing up for duty drunk or hungover, malingering in carrying out their duty, (in everything other than patient care), and breaking all the rules and getting away with it. It’s easy to see why people have the stereotypes they do.

These guys broke the law.

Geneva Convention I:
Art. 15. At all times, and particularly after an engagement, Parties to the conflict shall, without delay, take all possible measures to search for and collect the wounded and sick, to protect them against pillage and ill-treatment, to ensure their adequate care, and to search for the dead and prevent their being despoiled.

Sorry. People who violate the Geneva Conventions may be charged with war crimes.

I think this is a lose-lose for them. They have no moral leadership to condemn this sort of thing and yet, they cannot ignore it for any number of reasons. Maybe that’s why O is standing tall in the rear. Perry wants to call him out.

Sorry. People who violate the Geneva Conventions may be charged with war crimes.

I agree. What I am saying is to apply it consistently or not at all. What part of that concept is too difficult for you to grasp?

Perry & Moral compass is such an oxy MORON…..When his driver was stopped for speeding, Perry reportedly told the officers just “move on down the road.” wink-wink. Now that he is on the broader stage it is much easier to see his many shortcomings…..Calling Molly Ivins….

It’s not hard to grasp…it just makes no sense to me to say let the others off if you can’t get them all. A flash of accountability may wake up a few people or consciences….Who knows….No, it’s not fair.

Saying punish all or none is the way to make those at the top accountable, I’m pretty sure. That’s how I see it, anyway.

None of it. Did I say it was too difficult to grasp? About half of what you’re dragging in is jus ad bellum which is not the Geneva Conventions. They are strictly jus in bello, i.e. how the wars are fought, not the law of whether they are fought for the right reasons. And what David Dayen mocked, whether there is an issue of PTSD, is actually a very valid concern, and will be explored most likely by the military court.

All I’m saying is that what they did is a contravention of the law, and they can be charged with a war crime. It is a crime to violate the dead after a battle no matter what the circumstances under the laws of war. These soldiers knew that.

What Margaret is saying is very simple. She’s not “dragging in” anything. Why say that?
I’d rather not see a pissing contest here.
And, no, I’m not being funny.

;) I do not think it is a pissing contest, but 2 very different views…ie. Just b/c W seems to have gotten off with whatever crimes, does not lend legitimacy to what these guys did to the dead…imho.

Going after these callous, illegal acts could even provoke additional
accountability…Just different views. But letting these guys off b/c W got off seems to get us no where.

Did not realize there is so much energy in this discussion; we just see it
differently…

I didn’t think you were starting a contest.

My friend artist Anthony Freda in NY sends me his new pieces to use in my diaries. Either yesterday or the day before he sent this one; I couldn’t even want to follow the sickening story far enough to write it up. Too much outrage; we have to pick and choose. Anyway, I hope this link from my Posterous works. ‘Hearts and Minds’ about the event:

http://stargaze.posterous.com/hearts-and-minds-by-anthony-freda

The clear message from a mandatory Law of War class back in the ’80s, the less respect between enemies the greater the death rate. Germans respected the British, French, and Americans, but didn’t respect the Russians and visa versa. The death rate for the first group when captured was 10 percent. The death rate for the second group was 60 percent.

Pissing on the dead bodies of enemies has the potential to make situations worse, which is why these Marines will be court-martialed and most likely convicted.

Last night there was quite a nasty donnybrook here. Whew.

“Best comment I’ve heard on this: If it’s OK to waterboard live people, why is it not OK to urinate on dead people.”

Because killing and torturing is okey dokey smokey, but god forbid you should disrespect those you just killed or tortured.

I saw that. There’s no reason to go Personal. Or, whip it out in Latin. Ha.

I’m gonna go make some breakfast and come back for Caturday.

Yes, you don’t often get a two-threader.

You send thousands of young testosterone intoxicated young men to kill people after you’ve indoctrinated them to regard them as a dehumanized enemy and this is what happens. Inevitably. You don’t want stuff like this to happen; don’t invade other countries. Literally as simple as that. The only thing really remarkable about this incident was it being photographed. War is evil. Wars of choice and preemptive wars are only more so.

Stop being evil and sending invading troops into other countries and this doesn’t happen; keep doing that and it will. And the people who support and order those invasions are the guilty parties here. More so- far more- than the idiot kids that did that because for every incident like this that comes to light there will be probably hundreds more that can be covered up or are simply never recorded. Honorable war is a deceitful fairy tale.

You are indeed a very wise person.

We have several at FDL and I am pleased that they share their insight.

Thank you.

By way of a compliment, I read your comment and just glanced at the K in your handle(god I need bifocals) and thought you were Knut, another FDL wise man.

Secretary Clinton uses the words “war crime”. And the DoD has no real comment. Using diplomacy to mute the international impact.

If I were an investigator of this incident (which likely there will be none except folks in the chain of command), I would ask what the verbal rules of engagement were from the commanding officer of this sniper unit. We know from the testimony of a veteran who was in the unit that followed up after the incident in Collateral Murder that the verbal rules of engagement were to kill everyone.

And I would want to know how the unit referred to the enemy.

Militaries dehumanize people by training them to kill on command. And then they have elaborate rituals of command to maintain command and control over when and how the warriors kill. There was a failure of command in this incident that speaks to the culture of the military in this war. The question is how far up that failure of command occurred.

I would want also to know whether these units used methods intended to culturally delegitimize the Taliban, what those methods were, and what actual knowledge of the culture backed up the assumptions behind those methods. For the soldiers were not “desecrating”, they were attacking a cultural norm.

A reading of Bernard de Voto’s The Course of Empire, published in 1952, should quickly put to rest the notion that the US military does not do things like this. They have, almost from the beginning. And moreso during the colonial period.

Likely the soldiers will be reprimanded for the action and severely punished for sharing the video.

The result of expressing an intent to prosecute is already in. The Taliban have stated they will not break off the forays at negotiations in Dubai over the incident.

“I still think that problem comes from putting soldiers in an unwinnable situation for years, with continued deployments, ”

Ok i’ll play along.. but whats with all the hot dog videos being produced by american forces (govt and mercenary)?? i cant take anymore images of fat, bald, sunglasses wearing americans toops in a combat zone, in a camera phone video, leering and showing each other thier little peckers. Are these pudgy, morally – retarded, neuters what western civilization is calling “men” these days?

The Oligarchy pays the federal government to tax us to pay jar heads to piss on dead patriots in Afghanistan. The corpses and the pissers are part of the 99%.

Soldiers urinating on dead fighters = war crime.

Illegal and unprovoked wars of aggression committed by the high government officials who sent the soldiers there, along with systematic torture, kidnapping (extraordinary rendition), denial of habeus corpus, denial of the Geneva Conventions, indefinite imprisonment…..: Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

It’s a tribal ritual over defeated enemies. Aztecs ate their captives.

With the exception of Pfc Bradley Manning…

I don’t think the desecration is due to the stress of war, or PTSD, or even lack of coherent message. I think it is about spiritual death. I was just rereading some MLK Jr. last night and found this passage in his 1967 speech A time To Break Silence:

“This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

piss on war.

Yes, this is a war crimes. So to where the videos Manning released. Sucks when truth, obliterates “the bullshit” offered by the bullshitters?

America witnesses the ugly consequences of fucked up policies, and we call it national security when hiding such truths? What trash!

Everyone may be gone by now; wondering if anyone has an answer to a question I have, raised by my stupid governor Perry – he says admin “overreacting” that this was stupid (I think) but “not a crime.”

A couple people have referenced Geneva, so it’s a war crime, but I could swear I heard that it was also forbidden under the UCMJ. Does anyone know?

Mostly I just wanna know if Perry’s idiocy can be refuted by pointing to black-and-white law.
I don’t disagree at all that the planners and the officers who put the enlisted men in position to become so desensitized need to be punished as well.
I like Margaret’s analogy to “mopping up” the little guys from WWII because the big guys were tried at Nuremberg and elsewhere and punished.

Well I want to see these pissers punished. It’s obvious that that we won’t see the most culpable and powerful war criminals punished anytime in the near future, but I see absolutely no reason why that should be a deterrent to seeing ANYONE punished. I’ll take what I can get and I want these people punished.

They had a choice. They didn’t have to volunteer to go overseas and disgrace the country as a whole and myself as an American individual. Now I want some reparation. I can’t afford to move out of this fascist place and I’m sick of people constantly degrading it.