I don’t really understand the impulse so many people have to defend our Marines for urinating on dead bodies. But I also don’t really share the common outrage about desecration of dead bodies. In my book, riddling a live human being with bullets is more profane than urinating on a lifeless body. It’s obviously an ugly thing to disrespect the dead, but it just seems to me like a weird fetish to obsess about how a corpse is treated when you didn’t give a crap about the living, breathing person.
It’s a horrible idea for our troops to desecrate corpses, and a horrible idea to videotape it. But we ought to do whatever we can to get to a situation where our troops are not creating any corpses. I don’t believe we need to be making corpses in Afghanistan. I think we need to leave.
We can protect our country against terrorism without occupying Afghanistan. Pissing on corpses isn’t making us safer. Creating corpses isn’t making us safer.
Sometimes the most obvious-in-retrospect observations are the most wise. That was one of them. A tip in the jar.
It’s obviously an ugly thing to disrespect the dead, but it just seems to me like a weird fetish to obsess about how a corpse is treated when you didn’t give a crap about the living, breathing person.
I suggest you read the guys from IAVA, and also Richard Allen Smith.
I don’t want to repeat the all-too-familiar-in-America trope about caring more about “our” soldiers than the usually nameless, faceless people whose lives they too often destroy (literally or figuratively).
However, there’s also a place in this story to note that the dehumanization you need to go through in order to get to a point where you’re pissing on the corpse of somebody you never knew is a psychological wound that may well last a lifetime. The VA is overwhelmed with cases of returning soldiers dealing with PTSD and/or various forms of mental illness, and those are just the most extreme cases. We really are creating an entire class of invisibly wounded people in our culture, and few people seem willing to acknowledge it.
Yet another reason to end our pointless, expensive, and morally crippling Afghanistan operation.
I agree with you completely, and I, for one, recognize and acknowledge it. However, I am far, far more concerned about the millions of human beings who, without any choice at all, are permanently psychologically and physically scarred as a result of the actions of these U.S. troops. I care far, far more about the millions of Iraqi, Afghan, and other children who had no choice, and who will never lead normal lives due to psychological scars directly attributable to the actions of these U.S. troops.
The thing is, these guys really do have a choice at every step along the way whether to become involved in the process of war, invasion, and occupation, and they have access to information that should give them pause. Therefore they bear some responsibility for what happens to them as a result of their own decisions. I’m sorry they have to deal with PTSD, and I’m sorry they bear potentially permanent psychological wounds, and I agree that the United States government has a responsibility to give them the best care available. But who gives a damn about, let alone will care for their Iraqi and Afghan victims, who were not given any options at all?
What if they held a war and no one showed up?
Let’s not forget the children yet to be born in Iraq and elsewhere, for generations to come, who are born with birth defects due to toxins from high explosives and depleted uranium. What was that report, something like 14.7% birth defect rate in Fallujah now? I don’t know how any of us sleep at night, but somehow I manage to do it.
Yes, of course!
I do not understand why soldiers on the battle field have cameras. The ability to self document stupid crap of war makes no sense.
Are you seriously kidding us? Is this really your biggest concern about this kind of incident?
If you don’t adhere to an absolutist pacifist philosophy, then you have a responsibility to think about how the military and the people in it are supposed to behave.
If you do…well, it makes an awful lot of complicated questions so very simple.
You get more boring and irrelevant with every word you put on these pages.
You throw little tantrums whenever you read something that isn’t exactly what you think, and you’ve yet to express an original thought.
Beautifully said, BooMan. I have been thinking exactly that, but I have not said it as well as you did, nor likely could I.
This article from the Guardian takes a similar position, but I still think you’ve said it better.
Another think that is difficult to understand is why everyone is shocked – SHOCKED! at this revelation, as if this were the first such incident ever reported – or the worst. It is neither. We’ve heard numerous reports for over a decade of this kind of behavior, and far worse on the part of the “brave troops” who are “defending our freedoms” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
What’s so special about this incident, and why are the Marines suddenly going crazy trying to figure out how and why this happened – as if it were a unique instance? Oh – yeah. It’s impossible to pretend it didn’t happen, or they don’t know about it, so they have to devote tons of resources figuring out “what went wrong” because what they really care about is the bad press.
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NOT … war atrocities are of all eras throughout history of human ‘civilization.’ It’s not on this video I’m worried about but the suffering of all civilians under theocratic and authoritarian rule.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Who’s acting shocked?
Names? Quotes? Links?
You seem to think that your observation that troops act badly in every war is some sort of novel, outsider-ish insight, but it’s pretty much been the central talking point of every commenter I’ve seen on TV.
Who’s acting shocked? It’s a big story in the news, isn’t it? How did that happen?
Traffic jams are a big story in the news, but they’re hardly surprising. Hell, Brady beating the Broncos was a big story, but nobody was shocked.
This is a big story because of the effect of the media and cultural fallout on the war effort, and the peace negotiations, in Afghanistan. It’s getting coverage because it is important, or at least potentially so, in its effects.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I think it gets people worked up because it’s you showing your absolute psychological power over someone else. I think it’d be similar if after they killed a bunch of people from a particular country, and then held up a flag from that country and pissed on it or burned it.
I also think people get more worked up because there’s absolutely no reason for them to be doing it, and it reflects what’s really horrid about what war is — a psychologically destructive activity for the living who witness and participate, and the piles of bodies for those who weren’t so lucky.
And then you have the symbolism of it.
Yeah, Seabe, I get why it gets people worked up. What I don’t get is why people seem to have forgotten that their precious troops have indulged in lots of this type of behavior, and much worse, in Iraq, and Afghanistan, not to mention Viet Nam, and most likely Korea, etc. This is not the first time they have seen or heard of this genre of behavior, and yet they are talking every bit as if this incident is something new to their eyes.
Of course I DO understand why the military in general and the Marine Corps in particular are acting so shocked and stunned – it’s called damage control. The Marine Corps really is pretending that their oh, so high-minded boys have never behaved this way before, and they MUST investigate how there could have been such a serious breakdown in training on the part of these four or five individuals. And they seem to be fooling a lot of people with this little game.
There’s a larger point in your post that I’d like to address from my experience in the US military. Americans do tend to think the best of people who have served in the military and forget or are unaware that the military is a microcosm of American society.
Now I personally resent this as its a blind worship of the military that’s just as objectionable as people who denigrate the military or people who have served without just cause. Their expectations are just as unrealistic.
The reality is that the hundreds of thousands of soldiers have served in Iraq/AF. There will be a percentage of those who will deviate from training and expected norms. We see this in cases like Abu Ghraib, premedidated killings, and the current scandal.
Some of this behavior is encouraged from leadership and some of it is bad behavior that some soldiers just expect to get away with.
Of course it’s damage control. And no, they’re not surprised that it happened.
Thank you for your comment, Ishmael, and your points are well taken.
I agree that the military is a microcosm of the population, although I think that is less precisely so with the all-volunteer military than it was when military service was compulsary. I suspect it has gradually become even less precisely so in the last dozen years or so during which the U.S. government has involved itself in multiple “wars” of choice and other, smaller uses of military violence, making military service less attractive in general to those who have other options.
I can’t cite any specific studies, though I am certain such studies exist, but I believe that today’s military population has a lower common demoninator than when military service was compulsary, and that particularly in the last 10-12 years it has attracted a larger percentage of people with very limited options, narrower world views, and/or motivations connected to things like extreme nationalistic views, and/or a desire for revenge (not aware of any studies regarding this last, so this is an “educated guess” on my part). If this is so, then that increases the probability of the types of incidents we are talking about here taking place.
My inclination is toward a more negative than positive view of the military in general. That’s based largely on the fact that, as one general (sorry, can’t think of which one now) put it, the purpose of the military is to kill people and destroy things. I am extremely opposed to killing and destruction or any other sort of violence except for defense, and then only when it is absolutely the only option, which it rarely is. Clearly the United States has not used its military’s deadly and destructive power for defense in many decades, but rather uses military violence to assert dominance.
Keeping the above in mind, I also find that the kinds of behavior we see in that video, as well as all the thousands of other incidents of that nature that have taken place, are actually a natural outcome of military training, and not contrary to it. Much of military training is designed to overcome conscripts’ natural inhibitions against killing other human beings, and makes heavy use of dehumanization of the “other” to accomplish that. As BooMan says so eloquently, once you have sufficiently dehumanized someone enough for it to be OK to riddle him or her with bullets, then celebrate your “kill”, it is hardly a big step to pee on him, otherwise desecrate his body, or take some body part or other item as a “trophy”.
I’m the son of a Marine (he’s been out for over a decade, but he served in Desert Storm and was frequently on-board Marine One with Bush I and Clinton); his father was a Marine in Vietnam. My entire family worships the military. I hate the military to the point where I want just what Japan has. So I see more deifying for this institution even more than your average military person — Marines are definitely more worshiping than other branches. I also happen to go to their events with the people who were in his Squadron, or involved in the Marines. Only my father’s boss and one of his friends are what I’d call “good people” who would call this shit out the second they saw it. The rest of them? They’re all misogynistic jarheads who would jump at the chance to desecrate some sand nigger corpses.
I think aside from my extreme dislike of nationalism and patriotism, what made me hate the military this much was interacting with his ex-Marine friends.
We share the same dislike of nationalism and “patriotism”. I don’t have the same strong, visceral dislike of the military that you do, but I would find it easier to tolerate if the U.S. reserved its use of military violence to true defense. Of course, that would put the military pretty much out of a job, wouldn’t it? đŸ˜‰
It wasn’t always this way. I must say that our foreign occupations combined with The Elite demanding that the little people suffer while they continue playing with their “toys” definitely helped in my radicalization. That, plus what I like to call my “Feminist Awakening” when I turned 19.
And it’s not just the US military that I hold in contempt. It’s every single one of them and all of them. There’s no need for it. Dismantle it. Establish a defense force a la Japan, give the UN funding proportional to your GDP if you need a “World Police Force”; although it’s unlikely I’d accept the latter as possible, probable, or preferable with the way the world is currently set up, and how the UN makes its decisions.
Speaking of being out of a job, I currently am without a job being right out of college with no real work experience, but my career prospects would probably dim considerably if the military went away; there isn’t much room for rocket scientists in a world without it.
On the nationalism and patriotism kick, nothing annoys my liberal/leftist friends than my hatred of those annoyingly burdensome traits. Nationality is nothing but a gd burden. However, where I do hold to a higher standard is American-style nationalism and patriotism. It’s always been the worst to me. The most in your face bunch of fatuous bullshit…especially since I live near Quantico.
I nearly got kicked out of my house on July 4th over an argument about it.
Just one thing I noticed about your post and all the comments on it which also condemned our continued involvement in Afghanistan. I didn’t see one reference to the man with the power to get us out.
Well, I don’t want to break the string, so I won’t name him either.
We are getting out of Afghanistan (just as, in 2010, we were getting out of Iraq, despite all of the people who insisted that we were not). It’s just a matter of the schedule. Like Iraq, we’re pulling out gradually instead of quickly in the hope of leaving behind a situation that won’t be a complete catastrophe.
Have you looked at Iraq lately? From the NYT:
What leads you to believe Afghanistan will profit from more time where Iraq has not?
Were you looking at it in 2006 or 2007?
That’s a nice single story you have there, but it really doesn’t compare to what a Shiite-Sunni civil war looks or the collapse of the Iraqi state would look like.
What leads you to believe Afghanistan will profit from more time where Iraq has not?
Your premise is based on lousy information.
Do you watch the news at all? That’s just an example from YESTERDAY.
You can keep acting shocked all you want, but it isn’t an argument.
I’ll say it again, in case you’d like another attempt: were you paying attention in 2006 and 2007?
The fact that a country experiences terrorist attacks doesn’t demonstrate that its government is collapsing, or that it is going through a civil war.
There were perhaps 200,000 people in Iraq killed in the civil war/ethnic cleansing/war-of-all-against-all. Citing a terrorist attack and saying “Meh, same-same” demonstrates a profound callousness.
That said, I have less confidence it will work in Afghanistan than in Iraq, simply because of the difference between the two countries. Iraq has always (except when a foreign power had been screwing things up) been a strong, centralized state that effectively controls its territory. In Afghanistan, the collapse of the government, civil war, and widespread violence are much more prevalent.
We are out of Iraq because the Iraqis negotiated a deal with a weakened George W. Bush during and election year in which John McCain really did not want to talk about war. That getting foreign troops out of a country is what stabilizes it is a insight that the US military and policy makers don’t easily grasp because of the hubris that “we are the good guys.”
We are taking longer in Afghanistan because the government there has not asked us to leave by a date certain yet and negotiated a status of forces agreement that gets us completely out. But Karzai is rapidly coming to that position and the Obama administration is trying to get ahead of the curve with confidence-building measures (prisoner releases) in order to smooth negotiations with the Taliban.
And the growing political crisis in Pakistan might hasten our withdrawal as a large portion of the supplies for the war in Afghanistan pass through Pakistan.
Wars end when a political agreement is reached to end them, regardless of the situation on the ground. To “profit from more time” means to strengthen one’s hand in those negotiations. The power that the US has to cut a deal in Afghanistan is rapidly dwindling. We will be out of there sooner instead of later in spite of a Congress that is using the issue as a challenge to President Obama’s national security chops.
You’re blaming Congress for our continued presence in Afghanistan?
Do we have a Commander-in-Chief?
Actually, Obama announced a schedule for getting out of Afghanistan more than two years ago.
That getting foreign troops out of a country is what stabilizes it is a insight that the US military and policy makers don’t easily grasp because of the hubris that “we are the good guys.”
Not just having them out; getting them out. The situation in Iraq began stabilizing when we announced our intention to leave, and began taking visible steps towards that end (getting them out of the cities, moving more and more out of the country). It gives the people most likely to cut a deal more confidence, and it undercuts the position of those who say that only violence can get the foreign troops out.
This particular President seems to have figured that out, as he is attempting to copy it in Afghanistan, having announced a withdrawal, and then actually beginning it, as an aid to the negotiations.
To “profit from more time” means to strengthen one’s hand in those negotiations. The power that the US has to cut a deal in Afghanistan is rapidly dwindling.
True – however, from 2009 through 2011, the military situation in Afghanistan has become much less favorable to the Taliban. They are able to operate in fewer places, and they’ve taken enormous damage during that time. There really was a military crisis there in 2009, which has been stabilized.
That’s not to say, however, that the withdrawal needn’t continue apace. The escalation that began in 2009, and which is now drawing down, was basically covering fire for a withdrawal, on a larger scale.
I think it has to do with the symbolic sort of thumb-in-the-eye quality that gets people going. I think it’s distasteful to urinate on people, living or dead, but it’s nowhere near as outrageous as killing people should be in a civilized world.
It’s similar to the outrage at flushing Korans down toilets, flag burning, etc. What’s the big deal? You could take a thousand US Constitutions or Declarations of Independence or whatever you can find that I admire and desecrate them any way you want to, and I wouldn’t get twisted about it. But some people take this sort of acts of provocation as a signal to just suspend all civility and go berzerk.
Also like flipping people off in traffic. Short story, don’t do it. It neither picks one’s pocket nor breaks one’s back, but good lord, there are people out there that will follow you to your house and strangle you for it.
In other words, it’s totally gratuitous.
And in military terms, it is dishonorable behavior and casts dishonor on the entire military.
Your point is well taken. Truth be told, the US military has never had a practice of honoring enemy dead. Read about the Indian Wars. Think about where all those Nazi souvenirs that the World War II troops brought home.
And even domestic politics has outweighed the honoring of the dead. This was the startling realization I had in 1963 when the principal of my high school (the same one Jim DeMint went to ten years later btw) announced the death of President Kennedy — and throughout the school you could hear cheers.
Any military training is inherent dehumanizing; killing is not a routine matter for human beings despite all the genetic determinist bullshit. But once dehumanized a clear chain of command is required to direct the forces of inhumanity to their proper targets and otherwise restrain them. What we have here is a failure of command, just as we have had elsewhere. Or worse, a positive command as was the case in the accounts of the environment in which the events of the Collateral Murder video occurred.
What this is is not hi-jinks of the dehumanized but a deliberate assault on the local culture–or a ham-handed attempt to use a superficial understanding of the local culture to delegitimize “the enemy”. Whether spontaneous or ordered, that is what seems to be going on in this incident.
And the fact that it raises questions about the chain of command is why the person who leaked the tape will likely get court martialed and the soldiers who did this will receive a reprimand at best.
“Desecrate” presumes a notion of some “sacred” that can be removed through certain actions. What is blatantly clear about current American culture is that it has lost the notion of “sacred” altogether, despite all the claptrap about putting religion and values back in American life through government action. Likely as not, the folks who did this grew up in or still participate in churches that want to restore religion in America. God and country, and all that.
Great comment, as usual.
Any military training is inherent dehumanizing; killing is not a routine matter for human beings despite all the genetic determinist bullshit. But once dehumanized a clear chain of command is required to direct the forces of inhumanity to their proper targets and otherwise restrain them. What we have here is a failure of command, just as we have had elsewhere. Or worse, a positive command as was the case in the accounts of the environment in which the events of the Collateral Murder video occurred.
Note that this was a sniper team – two snipers and two…uh…sniper’s helpers, sent out into the bush on their own for days or weeks on end. No officers in sight, living in the wild.
Even more reason to ask what the verbal rules of engagement were. And whether there were body count quotas.
I dont know what these guys’ idea of being a marine is, but obviously chivalry forms no part of it.
Yeah, well, where’s the chivalry in pointing a weapon at someone and blowing away their lives? Once you’ve done that, there’s nothing less chivalrous you can do to them – at least that’s my view.