» posted on Sunday, January 15th, 2012 at 9:25 pm by Andy D
War is All Hell
The U.S. Marine Corps is launching an internal investigation into the culture of the Corps in response to a video that purportedly shows troops urinating on the corpses of suspected Taliban fighters, a Marine official told ABC News today.
The probe will attempt to answer the question “What happened in the Marine Corps that this happened?” according to the official.
There has been a lot of criticism of the 4 U.S. Marine’s accused of urinating on Taliban corpses. I would like to spend a little time trying to put this into perspective. I don’t condone this behavior, but I don’t necessarily condemn it either. This is a war, and this happened on the battlefield. Theoretically, these Marines killed these same fighters. I think that may have bothered the Taliban fighters more.
Let’s also remember that while these Marines are being condemned, I don’t remember any condemnation coming from Afghanistan or the Taliban when Al-Quedea members beheaded Daniel Pearl on video, then released the video for everyone in the world to see. The Wikipedia entry describing the video of Pearl’s death says that at the end:
A few more images are shown near the image of Pearl’s head. The last 90 seconds of the video show the list of demands scrolling, superimposed on an image of Pearl’s severed head being held by the hair.
Which of these behaviors sounds more barbaric to you?
During World War II, Marines fighting the Japanese often took golden teeth as souvenirs. Some Marines took Japanese skulls. They would boil the flesh off, then mail the skull home to family and loved ones. There is an image online from Life Magazine that shows a lady looking at a skull her boyfriend sent her from overseas. This practice was so common that it was discussed in magazines and newspapers during the time. President Roosevelt is reported to have had a Japanese skull on the White House desk that was presented to him by a soldier.
We can always look for more ways to make war humane. At the end of the day, War is all Hell. These Marines may have crossed a line we don’t like, but both former Marines, and the enemy these kids are fighting have done much, much worse.
Gerrit said:
Jan 16, 12 at 4:55 amI think neither of the described acts can be considered acceptable or civilised. But as you say: war is not a pretty thing. Which should maybe make people, and especially, politicians in charge, realise that we should avoid new wars at all costs. The victims in the end are not the people in charge of a country, but innocent citizens (both army staff and civilians). Every war costs lives, and those lives are of innocent citizens like you and me. Hence the diplomatical approach should ALWAYS be prefered rather than military intervention. Obviously it is normal that a country uses whatever forces it has to protect itself when being attacked, but in the first place the world should learn (and then I am talking about every single country and regime on this planet) that an attack should not happen in the first place. I think it’s quite sad the world sees so many conflicts this day, we don’t learn from the mistakes in history and new conflicts keep on occuring. Why can’t people just accept their diversity and get along, using diplomatic and negotiation as approach whenever there is an issue occuring? In the end there are regimes with whom negotiating is difficult, but it is still better than starting a war. A war will always cause victims, innocent people who never asked for military interference. It is easy for a head of government (regardless what nation) to send troops and attack, safely protected in his residency or well-guarded work place. Meanwhile it’s innocent people losing their lives. That should never be the way to approach a conflict.
pack04 said:
Jan 21, 12 at 12:25 amI think it is rather shallow of you to think that all heads of government send troops to attack with ease.
About this story I would say this is not ideal behavior for American soldiers. However, do we know the whole story of what lead to this event or do we just get this distasteful part of the story?