Piss On ‘Em

Ok, so this story seems to have been the big buzz on CNN for much of the day today, although I'm not exactly sure why. But since the topic centers on an incident in the conflict in Afghanistan, obviously I'm going to share an opinion on the matter as I often do.

Sometime in 2011, a Marine sniper unit deployed to Helmand province in Afghanistan encountered Taliban combatants, engaged them, and killed them. In a moment of celebration and very bad judgment, at least four Marines were captured on video urinating on the deceased Taliban corpses, and were heard making jokes while doing so.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/12/us/video-marines-urinating/index.html?hpt=hp_t3#

I will be the first to agree that what these Marines did was uncouth and unbecoming of a U.S. Marine. No doubt about it. But what I suggest to all the bleeding heart crybabies that find this single act so incredibly atrocious, and who will undoubtedly use it to belittle or denigrate everything about our efforts there, is to please put it in perspective for just a minute.

First of all, unless you’ve been there, with bullets whizzing past your head on a daily basis, and unless you’ve lost friends or squad members to IEDs or other horrific fates, you really have little room to judge what these Marines face daily and how it might affect their mindsets. They are put into the worst of hostile environments, on your behalf and mine, to face danger head-on and eliminate it wherever they can. They are many thousands of miles away from home, away from family and loved ones, away from the safety and security that we enjoy here in our backyards. They do their jobs willingly and of their own volition. There is no draft at present. These Marines signed up for this duty, and have offered to serve their country. Afghanistan is a horrific place by all accounts I’ve read, where every person our troops face could be a friend or foe – there’s no way of knowing who to trust. Everyone is a potential enemy. The Afghan family whose children smile and play with American forces on patrol one day may be reporting troop movements to their Taliban brothers half an hour later. In other words, there are no friendlies. Imagine trying to carry yourself humanely in a desolate place where every indigenous person must be respected as a friend (according to rules of engagement) but must regarded as an enemy (according to common sense). You think that’s simple? I sure don’t.

Second of all, everyone decrying this ugly act needs to step back and take a closer look at the Taliban and their typical modus operandi for a comparison and frame of reference on the matter. While a Taliban spokesman proceeded to text (yes, I said text) his horror and dismay at this incident, he conveniently omits the thousands of far more despicable atrocities that he and his own ilk commit every day, and that they’ve been committing for several decades now. You think the desecration of a few Taliban corpses is a travesty? If so, then you clearly have no frame of reference for the far lower level of baseness to which the Taliban will stoop without even giving it a second thought. Yes, the thoughtlessness of these American Marines has now added fuel to the Taliban propaganda machine. This is true. This is something we didn’t need at this time or at any other time. But having said that, it must be taken into consideration that the Taliban propaganda machine is always in full force at all times, whether they’ve got an incriminating video on Americans or not. They’ve hated us for decades because they’ve been brainwashed to do so, and will continue to hate us whether we’re treating their corpses with the utmost respect or whether we’re pissing on them. In the grand scheme of things, this singular incident has little bearing on the Taliban, their intentions, or even on the average Afghan citizen in general. The truly laughable part about the Taliban’s reaction to this incident (if you dare call it laughable) is that the text-message-sending spokesman called this incident “…barbaric. And no religion that follows a holy text would accept such conduct. This inhuman act reveals their real face to the world.” Really, is that so? And what “real face” does the Taliban reveal to the world? Is that the real face where you oppress and threaten everyone who doesn’t conform to your inhuman absolutism and backwards belief system? Is that the face where you’d nonchalantly harbor and support a terrorist organization that would ultimately kill nearly 3000 innocent people thousands of miles away who’ve never wronged you in the least little bit, and do so without batting an eyelash? Yeah, that pious conduct must apparently be typical in your holy Islamic text. And people wonder why I “unfairly” despise Islam so much.

Thirdly, the Marines responsible for this incident clearly made a mistake and will undoubtedly face disciplinary action once they’re all identified. This is inevitable. However, it troubles me to hear human rights groups clamoring that the Geneva Conventions have been violated by these Marines and that they should be charged with war crimes. Okay, admittedly, I’ve only browsed over some of the official doctrines established by the Geneva Conventions regarding treatment of the dead, so I can’t pretend to know all the rules (or subsequent penalties for violations thereof), but I certainly hope that if the disciplinary action against these Marines sadly escalates into charges of international war crimes, I’d better not hear that the punishment is so severe as to include the death penalty or life sentences. I would remind the reader that the Taliban is not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, and they’ve certainly demonstrated that fact many times over with their own brand of barbarism for the living and the dead. No matter how you choose to disparage these four Marines for relieving themselves upon the dead Taliban, had the tables been turned and the Marines ended up dead on the ground before a group of four Taliban fighters, it’s not a far stretch to imagine how horrifically those four Marines’ bodies would have been desecrated by the Taliban. I’d hesitate to go so far as to say that such desecration would be guaranteed, but I’m confident it would be far more likely than unlikely. This notion doesn’t justify, warrant, or excuse the actions of the Marines, but as war crimes go, this whole affair strikes me as far less important than what some people are making it seem. There are far more horrific things to fathom in wartime than this incident.

The key is to keep this matter in perspective, in light of the larger picture. The media seems to be in something of a frenzy over this video clip, and the more they play it up the more it pisses me off. Where are all the media clips depicting the atrocities committed by the Taliban? Why is the American media so quick to point out the occasional faults of a few American troops, but so hesitant to graphically point out the countless egregious murders committed by the Taliban? The senseless slaughter of innocents at the hands of the Taliban may get mentioned here or there, but there is never the kind of sensational frenzy seen as when four Marines exercised bad judgment for disrespecting a slain enemy that would have just as soon sawed the heads of their foes off with a dull rusty bayonet for the glory of Allah, and then played soccer with the severed heads. Yes, we’re supposed to be better than the enemy, so as not to become them. I get it. But proponents of that lofty statement illustrate a clear misunderstanding and disregard for just how horrible things can become on a wartime battlefield. Unless you’re there getting shot at, shut the fuck up and let the combatants do what they do. War will seldom be a refereed football game. When the smoke clears, it’s all about who’s alive and who isn’t. If the Taliban make up the bulk of the dead, then so be it. They chose their fate. If they had instead chosen a peaceful way of life to begin with, they’d have never been pissed on in death. From that perspective, I say piss on ‘em.