The U.S. Marine Corps is launching an investigation into a video that recently surfaced online showing what appears to be several Marines in uniform urinating on corpses.
War is a messy affair. I don't blame any of the soldiers for doing this, or more, to fallen bodies of enemy soldiers.
Taking a video of it? Stupid.
Posting said video online? Stupider.
All in all, this is or should be a non-story, but it won't be.
But I am left to wonder... Are we in western society the only ones who are bothered when informed of stuff like this? I think we are.
It says something about us, but I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
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It's a good thing. We do try to be better. We fail, because humans often fail. But in striving to be better we sometimes succeed.
Definitely a good thing.
If we're no better than the thugs of the world when tested, I have no idea what the fuck we're fighting for.
i'm thinking that is shows how sensitive we've become.
people think meat comes on foam trays.
we want to execute evil doers, yet cant excecute anyone because we dont want to discomfort them in the process.
its a war, support the troops and all that. do folks think that means dropping sleeping gas on the enemy, so as not to hurt them?
War is a bit of a conundrum, isn't it? It is clearly about killing the enemy. But not about disrespecting his humanity. It doesn't seem to make sense and yet it does. Killing is sometimes necessary (though awful.) Disrespect is gratuitous. It goes beyond achieving the objective and enters into hate for its own sake.
When did we stop being the good guys? God dammit, in WWII my Uncle John served with Patton's 3rd and my Uncle Vince was with the navy in the South China Sea standing up to kamikaze attacks. Bad things like this happened sometimes, and just like now the overwhelming majority of our service people wouldn't even believe any of our guys even mistreated prisoners - though it happened sometimes because we're human. But the overriding thing is that it was hard to believe any of our guys would mistreat people because our guys stood for decency and honor and their guys wanted to enslave as much of the world as they could. We were the good guys.
Now some misguided Marines make a stupid video in a video-viral world - bad enough - but you also have any slew of troglodyte assholes saying "so what"? "Ooh we're sooooo sensitive." As if being bothered by this is the same as sitting in a campsite eating grapes and cheese and singing kumbaya.
Fuck people who ask that and fuck them for saying that. The problem isn't the Marines who did something dumb and then compounded it by broadcasting it, the problem is with assholes who try to make a point about how it's not all that bad and "aw shit we can't do ANYthing any more without upsetting somebody's sensibilities." and "that's how war is and what the hell do you think happens, so what?"
Maybe we stopped being the good guys when morons right here stateside can't imagine how anybody could be bothered by this oh well ho hum "just happens" reality.
"This should be a non-story." Bullshit.
well, fuck me then.
and you tell me why should this be a national story as opposed to an issue for the marines to handle according to their own rules of discipline?
how can we send hundreds of thousands of rather young people to a strange land, arm them with weapons and attitudes, to partake in a very violent and dehumanizing undertaking...
and then be shocked to see video proof of four of them who dont rise to the higher standards we beleive we stand for?
the story, should there be one, isnt the four less perfect warriors with their puds hanging out.
I have a very good guest-post from a military perspective on this topic going up later today.
I still call bullshit. It's easy to talk about it being a non-issue when you can sit safely in sunny California without any skin in the game. My nephew Sean, 1st Marine Division 2nd Recon Battalion is in Helmand Province as we type this shit back and forth. I'm sure this just made his job a whole lot easier.
The point is that you don't see it as an issue. It should be a non-issue, you said.
My nephew's a rather idealistic young man. He happens to think America stands for something. We're not the bad guys, he feels. We're not the ones that do shit like this - THEY are. The bad guys. The guys who don't give a shit how many innocent people they kill to make a splash or what they make their enemies look like. He was just telling me the one big thing over there is that you don't know who the "friendlies" are, and Taliban is a bunch of crazy fucks who will now try to do in kind and the spiral continues. Boy we really made a point here, didn't we? And you're enabling the stupid fucks who sit around going "What? I don't see a problem."
I can't see how a person says they're a Christian and not see the issue. How can you be an American and not see an issue? It boggles my mind, but it isn't even in your universe. Then all of a sudden it's "how can we send all these young people" and blah blah blah. What the hell does that have to do with anything?
Of course our guys do bad things too. Always have. Everybody has. War is war and humans are flawed. But did you ever try and convince any WW2 vets about it and they can't believe their guys ever did anything bad to the enemy. They won't hear it because - in their version of America - we're the good guys. Yeah they're in denial but the point is there used to be standards we believed in. Now it's okay, perhaps according to you and maybe even your macho chickenhawk pals, and anything goes. Fuck them if they can't take a joke.
No. We stand for something. Or used to. My nephew is in Afghanistan right now, however, defending your right to be a total brain dump. Go ahead. You're covered.
this total brain dump you're arguing with has a little brother who spent 2 tours in Iraq and 2 in afghanistan. in afghanistan his deployments were for a year each, and he may be on his way again.
but no, my skin is not personally in the game, either.
i still see nothing wrong with the military handling this in-house and the media backing off.
we dont need their names splashed across the newsprint, with a reputation that will haunt them the rest of their lives because they were behaving less disciplined in a combat situation.
we'll have to disagree.
to me Whatever. It's an issue because we're better than this. If you can't see that then I don't know what the hell to think.
you could always insult me again.
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