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Marines Urinating on Dead Guys?

Bill Thompson said:
Shooting them to death: OK.
Urinating on them after the are no longer alive: Horrible.

How does that make sense?
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Because while the International community over the last few centuries has come to the depressing but realistic conclusion that there is sometimes no way out of conflict, it has admirably created rules of war that make it slightly less barbaric.

If you want to live at the level of cultures like the one the Taliban want, I can see that you have no problem with the video. If you want to hold yourself on a higher plane than them, you can join the civilised world.
 
Stay Classy Free Republic

Bill Thompson said:
Anyway, when I heard this I did not feel anger. I felt envy. I would love to urinate on some dead taliban or al qaeda. Clearly you would not. I would like to understand why that is.
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Are there no recruiting offices near your location? If there are, what have you been doing the last 10 years?

Jekyll's Guest said:
John Rhys-Davis has a beard. The Taliban have beards. I think I see the connection with Shogun.

Didn't Richard Chamberlain have a beard in it too?

The comparison is growing on me.
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Could you leave Richard Chamberlain's sex life out of this.
 
Bill Thompson said:
Why should they get the book thrown at them?
Are you saying you would NOT urinate on dead Talaban?
What am I missing here?
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Respect, I guess.

maybe it is bad because they are wasting their urine? Is that the problem? THe urine is too good for the dead taliban? And we are, in fact, blessing the dead taliban with the holy marine urine and this is the problem you are having?
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You don't really need to be contrary all the time, you know ?

Dead bodies of people out to kill your wife's husband, your kid's father, and your parent's son. It is a human reaction. You cannot comdem people for being human.
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Oh, yes you can. We do it all the time.
 
Bill - like you I have no respect for a dead body, as far as I am considered it's just pretty much inert material waiting to be recycled. However I know many folk do attach value to a dead body so to ignore that fact is irrational, especially when there is no cost to applying such respect and indeed respecting the body will actually have positive benefits for you.
 
Bill Thompson said:
We will see. I just think that if the fact that we have been shooting at the taliban does not embolden the enemy, then this event won't.
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It's funny you say that, after saying that even the Taliban understand that this is war. At the very least, in war your enemy is expected to kill your guys. Desecrate their bodies, however, not so much.
 
Darat said:
Bill - like you I have no respect for a dead body, as far as I am considered it's just pretty much inert material waiting to be recycled. However I know many folk do attach value to a dead body so to ignore that fact is irrational, especially when there is no cost to applying such respect and indeed respecting the body will actually have positive benefits for you.
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My position against what these marines did is due to 1) what does it say about them ? 2) how will this affect US relations ?
 
Belz... said:
My position against what these marines did is due to 1) what does it say about them ? 2) how will this affect US relations ?
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There's a post by Tragicmonkey that I bookmarked some years ago that I think touches on this, it was in a thread about American soldiers using torture:

TragicMonkey said:
The act of torture damages the torturer as well as the torturee. You can't encourage people to act like beasts, then be surprised when they do--in other settings. The loyal terrorist-fighting soldier who's torturing Iraqis on Wednesday will be slicing up girlfriends next year.

Heck, we consider abuse of animals to be indicative of a psychopathic nature that may well lead to serial killing. Some kid chops the ears off a rabbit and it's time for shrinks, or twenty years later it's a special on Court TV. What the hell is going to result from people letting their Hostel fantasies run rampant, then expecting them to come home and switch it off? Ordinary warfare ****s people's heads up enough, do we really want to branch out into sadism?
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Personally I always considered rules of warfare to be an oxymoron but I don't see anything in this thats surprising. I've never been in the position of having to kill others or risk being killed but I've seen plenty of testimonials from numerous engagements to know people do some pretty weird things under that kind of stress from collecting gold teeth or heads as trophies in WW2 to eating bodies so whilst I'd make it plain to our troops this is not acceptable I wouldn't punish them I think that is purely political rather than from any ethical or moral consideration. Filming it was certainly stupid.
 
Jekyll's Guest said:
They were going to let the dead family thing slide, but then the urinating! That's just going too far.
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You know, that's often the case if someone goes on a rampage...

The little, tiny, innocent, almost irrelevant, inconspicuous straw that nonetheless broke the camels back, as people use to say in English.

And as if you would say "so what?" if there would be a video of Afghans joking and pissing on your countries dead soldiers. Would you? :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
Bill Thompson said:
Dead bodies of people out to kill your wife's husband, your kid's father, and your parent's son. It is a human reaction. You cannot comdem people for being human.
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No, it is a sub-human reaction. Surely, one of the things that makes humans "superior" to other primates is the ability to control our actions and reactions.

I sincerely hope that the perpetrators of this despicable act are punished, then kicked out of the military.
 
Bill Thompson said:
Assuming they really did it and not just pretending?
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Not assuming at all. Pretending to have urinated on dead people would also be condemned by professional servicemembers. These servicemembers were aware that what they were doing is prohibited by law and by custom of the service. So - no need to assume anything, as it does not make a huge difference whether they actually urinated or not. That will be an agravating factor, but will not impact guilt.

Have you been in the military?
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Yes. I mentioned it because you argued that not having military experience makes a person unqualified to opine on this issue. As that is your opinion, then the quantity and quality of the service should also be important - and I have more of both than you.

Why is it a better analaogy? Blackthorn was alive. Do you know the difference? Does it matter to you?
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Blackthorn was also a person, and the earthquake was not. Do you know the difference? Does it matter to you?

Peeing on a hole in the ground was symbolic of Blackthorn and Toronaga's contempt for the hole that had almost swallowed them. When Blackthorn was urinated on, it was an attempt to humiliate and humble him. Did you read the book? It sure doesn't seem like it.

Do you know that earthquakes are not alive?
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Do you not understand that an earthquake can feel nither disrespect nor shame, and that earthquakes have no living kinsmen to exact revenge, and that no community is going to demand retribution? Really, you had a much better situation to use in your failed analogy, and you blew it.
 
Darat said:
There's a post by Tragicmonkey that I bookmarked some years ago that I think touches on this, it was in a thread about American soldiers using torture:
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Tragicmonkey's post is spot on - nice one for finding that.
 
CNN reports they were snipers. I guess you can't top being a pissing coward sniper.
 
there are so many reasons why this is a horrible thing (the cultural stance of respect towards human remains being one of the largest), but what stands out for me is this:

One of the oft-given reasons for the continued presence of troops in Afghanistan is nation building, and winning over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people so that when the US and UK and others leave Afghanistan we leave a country that might be a little more friendly to us and a little less likely to be a breeding ground for terrorists.

When something like this happens, it sends a simple message: The united states has so little respect for you that they will piss on your corpse.

Doesn't matter at all if we meant to send that message, certainly doesn't matter if that message is tue. What matters is that the people we are trying to win over now have one more reason to dislike us, and the groups trying to recruit insurgents and terrorists now have one more recruiting tool.

Quite apart from being a horrible and disrespectful thing to do, this was strategically dumb as a post.
 
AsleepAtTheKeyboard said:
Does Afghanistan have a media network such that this video will be known to all the "locals?"
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99% of them would never hear about it, except now Karzai is fanning the flames.

I'm sure by the time the story gets to remote villages US soldiers were rounding up women and children and urinating and defecating on them.
 
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