bad taste and not very decent at all and I don't condone it one bit. But what would cover this in the UCMJ? I hope they don't court marshall these men, but they ought to at least get a Captian's Mast for aggravated stupid.

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Biggest problem is that they have created a recruiting video for every terrorist organization on the face of the earth.

IMO the only crime they are guilty of was being stupid enough to record the event.

Couldn't say about the UCMJ bit, but have to agree that sort of thing will work out to be a terrible disservice to the good guys. We don't know the whole story behind that incident, I'm sure, but whatever it is, I wish what little we know hadn't made its way to the electronic media.

I know and agree wholeheartedly, but I really hope they don't crucify these Marines.

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Was it stupid? Yes. Even stupider to record it? Yes. Is it the stupidest thing a Marine has ever done? Not even close. Right now it isn't a court martial that's going to be their problem. It's the court of public opinion. The media will crucify these guys, and if they have to be "made an example of" don't think for a second they won't be thrown to the wolves so someone higher up the chain can be seen to be "doing something about it".

There's somethiing upside down in this story when it's worse to pee on'em than to kill'em.

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Bob in Indy

It they were going to do anything to the bodies they should have wrapped them in fresh pig skins.

Here we go again. IMHO only guilty of stupidity. All those who feign shock, disgust or revulsion are either naive or are playing the CYA game. Those involved, their immediate NCO and the jr.Officer responsible for them will pay the price to satisfy the hypocrites.

Those involved in prosecuting them are a disgrace to the uniform.

The proliferation of digital recording devices has hit the "Stupid" button in many peoples' psyches. If-empasis on "If"-this video is true and those responsible can be identified-they should be made an example of. Yes, this is a good recruiting tool for terrorists just as the Abu Ghraib scandal was for Al Qaeda-and MyLai was for VC.

How many times have we seen footage of dead, mutilated Americans being dragged through streets and fields like garbage?!!

I sure hope the guys that got Bin Laden did the same damn thing!!!!

I agree it was idiotic to RECORD what they did.

But I'm far more annoyed at how the mainstream press is handling this than anything else. The Taliban have used knives to SLOWLY cut the head off of dozens of people and posted those killings online.

Where was all the Worldwide outrage last time they hacked off a head and posted it online?

FN in MT

I disagree with the recruiting video idea. They already hate us simply for who we are and what we stand for.

This will simply make them a little more mad at us. That's all.

If you haven't been in combat, you have no business passing judgement on these men. War is hell. People react in different ways. Since we weren't there, we can only speculate.

Some good soldiers will have their careers ruined.

Real shame.

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I like to quote the line from the movie "The Lion in the Desert" about the Arab leader Omar Mukhtar fighting the Italians in Libya 1911-1931. When they capture some Italians one of the younger men says they should mistreat them but Omar Mukhtar forbids it and says they will be treated properly and returned unharmed. When the younger man says:
"But they do it to us!"
Omar Mukhtar says:
"They are not our teachers!"
Osama bin Laden's corpse was properly autopsied, the death certficate properly filled out, then the corpse was treated in the proper Muslim fashion and he received a correct Muslim funeral. In 1974 the Glomar Explorer raised part of the wreckage of the Soviet sub K-129. The remains of the crew were properly identified, their personal effects inventoried, their death certficates filled out. Then their caskets were covered with the Soviet Naval Ensign, their funeral service was conducted by a Russian Orthodox priest, later we gave the film to the Russians. That is the difference between them and us.

Ah, yes. Well folks, out there at the pointy end of the spear, boys will be boys. Those who haven't ived on that ragged edge will never undestand. I'm just glad they didn't have all those recordy devices out in the paddies in VietNam!!

I understand and agree. However, American miltary men/women have crossed the line MANY times never to be caught. The only difference here is the young men were stupid enough to get caught.

If I was there with them, and I was scared and mad at the same time while engaged in a firefight with these dead men, I may have pissed on them too!

Is it right? No. But sometimes these things happen in war. Atrocities like collateral damage happen.

And IMHO, you can't compare Osama and the guys in the sub with this situation. Osama didn't have a chance to fight back and the guys in the sub were long since dead. No heated battle. No adrenalin. No fear.

If only we could expect that equivocal reverence from our political opponents.

Fear the lock.

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Bob in Indy

I was watching the news and heard the comment that the rule they broke was taking pictures of enemy casualties. As others have commented the stupid thing they did was letting their video get outside of their control.Too bad some careers will be ruined.

One more point to make.

The "difference" between us and them is how we treat each other while we are ALIVE. Not when we're dead.

If someone tries to harm me or a family member, I'll do my best to put them down for good. And I could care less what happens to their body. They should have thought about the consequenses of their actions while they were still alive.

No disrespect meant. Just my opinion.

I for one want to thank each and every American soldier, including those four idiots, who has ever put his or her arse on the line so that my family and I could live free.

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In WW2 Life magazine ran an article showing the then fad of boiling Japanese severed heads down and mailing the skulls to your sweetheart back home. Other guys collected ears. My own grandfather had his bag of gold teeth. He lost it crossing a river, other guys had more bags. They'd keep their pliers handy for when they found dead Japanese.

Not sure when everyone became a bunch of babies about this sort of thing.

The Army recently sent a guy to prison for taking fingers and ears, but the taking of ears has continued in recent years as trophies in Afghanistan.

You have to smoke them like pig ears though, or they rot. These days some are kept in a "roll" hidden away, in years past guys could get away with wearing them.

I've just been reading Sebastian Junger's book, War, his account of a year spent as an embedded journalist with an Army Airborne unit in an outpost in Afghanistan's remote Korengal Valley, where the soldiers suffered constant outright attacks and harassing sniper and mortar fire, and duplicitous dealings with the locals whose lives they were at least trying to improve. The Taliban fighters are the real-life equivalent of Zombies, or Orcs, and while it may not be proper military decorum, I'm sympathetic to these Marines' expression of sentiment toward these murderous vermin.

It's not easy to generate any empathy for these fighters, whose motivation is to kill any infidels who don't subscribe to their peculiar religion, want to perpetuate feudal fiefdoms, subordinate women, deal dope, eliminate education, and so on and so forth. And, the expressions of outrage by Muslims at this ignominious treatment of their dead rings pretty hollow, coming from complainants who approve of public stoning to death of adulteresses, "honor killings", public hangings, beheading infidels (and distributing the video for public consumption) and gleefully desecrate enemy dead. Any claim to delicate sensibilities has long since been disproved by their own bad behavior.

Yuck.
Did the girls back home like this?

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In Viet Nam I saw much worse things happen to dead enemy soldiers. Back then the perpetrators didn’t memorialize it for the world to see. What happens in the war zone stays in the war zone.

To answer the question asked

The general article (Article 134) authorizes the prosecution of offenses not specifically detailed by any other article: all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces,

Summed up in two words....

CONDUCT UNBECOMING

What would Black Jack Pershing do?

I hope that they broadcast this on every Al Jazeera syndicated station that there is...

It's about time we taught the enemy what it means to be defeated.

The last time we beat the hell out of a bunch of Muslims we did so by dragging a bunch of their corpses through a trench filled with swine entrails.

We will never quell this insurgency by being nice to them. They will not respect us until they fear us.

But hey, that's just me....

The greatest oxymoron in the history of mankind, Civilized warfare..

Apparently they did, if I remember right Life showed a picture of the girl back home all happy to receive it and with a glowing smile as she opened the box. First person on the block to have one and all that I suppose.

There was a problem with trophy skulls showing up in dumpsters in later years when families would find them and not know what to do with them.

Japanese gold teeth/fillings were also sought after. Hence the pliers. The GI rumor (maybe it was true) was that Japanese soldiers would Put their money into having gold teeth as a status symbol or some such. Thus those with a tough stomach would have their pliers and check. Must have been at least some truth to it since some people did have whole bags full of teeth. It was also common to cut Japanese fingers off the hands of the dead to get rings. (Particularly on both Guadalcanal for Army units and during the brutal fighting to recapture the Phillipines...)

Military Illustrated - out of the UK - did a great article some time back, it was called "Hard Men of Ancient Rome". In the UK a Hard Man the same as a tough guy/bad ***. It mentioned a third century chronicle of a Syrian soldier (in the Roman legions) who darted forwards, slit an enemies throat and drank his blood. It apparently was good for morale since it got everyone cheering. The same article mentioned other Centurions who kept skulls, ears, human pelts, etc.

My wife chimes in her that her own grandfather, who served in Europe, used to harbor a hatred for Germans and talked about taking their ears. So much so that when she was very young, she thought that the Army must have paid people a bonus for ears... I think it was the CIA's Nung mercenaries during Vietnam who actually were paid a bonus for bringing in ears.

In the American Civil War, particularly in Missouri, guys wearing both blue and gray would also ride around with scalps proudly displayed on their saddles.

It's an old story - taking trophies and desecrating the enemy dead. It happens for various reasons - to spread fear into the enemy, to harden troops, and individually because some people are just what the Brits would call "Hard Men" and want to display their work. (The guy with the necklace of human ears, well you know he can handle himself when it comes to killing... Might be a good guy to have around, at least during the war...)

The most atrocities against the dead, and trophy taking, take place against hated foes, particularly those of a different race or religion. Not as many guys took German scalps/ears because Germans looked like them and there was not as much conditioned hatred. The Japanese were looked on at the time as subhuman and it was felt to be a victory over them to claim their skulls, desecrate the dead etc. At least in certain quarters. Sometimes it also simple gallows human - as famously shown in the scenes in Full Metal Jacket where the Marines pose Vietnamese dead with cigarettes etc and get their picture taken with them. (Stories of dead VC's skulls boiled, bleached and with Christmas lights - the old big bulb style - through the eye socket being kept by some Special Forces soldiers in Vietnam also turn up in memoirs.)

The Army Sgt who was convicted recently? He was the veteran in the platoon, the experienced old hand, and apparently the other soldiers looked up to him/feared him parly because of his human ear collection. Shrug.

Semper Fi, Hoorah
Dumb to let it get out of there hands but i will always be of the mind
that whatever these men want to do after a firefight is allright by me.
As far as giving our enemies more of a reason to hate us, so be it.
If anything we should use tactics that make the enemy fear us, and fear being killed/taken prisoner by us. This will put a damper in their recruitment process. I liked the idea of burying pig body parts where the Muslims wanted to build near the WTC . Then alert the media so it was common knowledge. Let them build in New Jersey somewhere.

I happened to catch an interview of his this eve. He made a good point to note that these young Marines were 8, 9, 10 years old when 9/11 occurred. It's been drilled into their heads all through their formative years that we (as a civilized country) dehumanize this enemy. They literally grew up hearing / watching terrorists on the daily news and around the dinner table.

Yes, dumb for them to get caught but i can think of far nastier things I encountered during my military tenure. I hope they get off with some sort of non-judicial punishment.

How long before we find out what those insurgents did to piss the Marine's off that much?

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Warren

Considering that the Secretary of State, and the President of Afghanistan, have expressed their thoughts on this, I think it's a pretty safe bet that these guys will indeed be crucified.

They drew breath

People who apply the standards of society to the conditions
of war never get it.

The hall monitors have no idea of the reality.

Still, very poor judgment to take a picture.

I will stop here.

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Oh, you mean like try to kill them?!?

bob

It's a good thing I'm not their CO. I would withold their liberty cards for a whole week!

the war was not going well, particularly in the South and the British forces were wining in part due to the especially brutal tactics of some of their field commanders like Banastre Tarleton and Patrick Ferguson.

Of concern to the British was the large numbers of folks who had crossed the Appalachian Mts. and settled on the edge of the frontier.

As he maneuvered up the eastern side of the mountain range Ferguson sent word to those settlements warning them to not intervene in British efforts. He said among other things that he would piss on them if they did.

On October 7, 1780 about 1000 of these hard headed frontiersmen handed the British one of their worst defeats at a place called King's Mountain. The battle left Ferguson dead and he was buried on the field of battle. Legend has it that the entire patriot force pissed on his grave as they left.

Many historians say the battle was the turning point in the American Revolution.

What better place to pee. They can kill kids and rape anything peel off your face, Guess we should ask how they want to be treated before we shoot them so no one gets mad???

Just some quick musings here if I could, please.

First, I've seen more than a few kids who'd totally show their behinds with just Mom around ("Now dear, stop throwing things. That's not how we behave.") then when Dad shows up, they'd tow the line because Dad was quicker to get out the belt, hit harder, and didn't care. Wanna show your behind? Go ahead. Don't act surprised when you get it back a little more ouchy than when initially displayed.

IMO what we have here is yet ANOTHER war that's being run by politicians. (Remember Viet Nam? What's the old saying about, "Those who fail to observe history are doomed to repeat it"?) The current majority opinion, along with like-minded high profile media sources, have nurtured a "They only need to be loved" mentality. Sounds kinda like Mom, doesn't it? As long as "Mom"'s in the room, it's only gonna get so heavy because they know "Mom"'s only going to let "Dad" go so far.

I see our military as "Dad".

What would happen if "Mom" went out of town for a while with "Dad" left in charge to keep things shipshape? Pretty soon, li'l Junior'd get so sick of his behind getting lit up with nothing he could do about it that he wouldn't think it worthwhile continue to show it. He knows that Dad thinks, "No problem. You know what's right and what's not. Do all you want but don't act like you didn't know there's a penalty."

When I think of Daniel Pearl and SO MANY other examples, I think to myself that that video was just "Dad" briefly showing himself.

Who cared more about what was being done to them, Daniel Pearl during his beheading or those Taliban fighters who, incidentally, by the time that video was shot were nothing more than inert bags of meat?
I think it'd be a good thing for the enemy to believe that "Dad" was in charge now and things were getting hotter than they were comfortable with.

I wish "Dad" would be allowed to put forth the message:
"War is hell. Either keep yourself out of it or receive an extremely warm welcome."

Just an opinion. I tried not to violate any Forum rules. If I was unsuccessful, I sincerely and wholeheartedly apologize.

I say give those Marines a simple chewing out then let it go.

As in --
*You idiots! Next time there better not be any cameras around!*

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you have to have been in combat to have good moral standing and know the difference between right and wrong? this is the kind of **** that XXXXXXXXX me off to no end. WE are supposed to be better than those we fight, isnt that what were always saying? dont get me wrong here i fully support our troops and those doing the best they can. these guys, not so much, combat or not, is no excuse. at the very least guys like this have no business in the military any more than a cop who would do the same type of stuff to a civilian.

This attitude on the Home Front is why the U.S. is still hopelessly mired in this **** hole.

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really? why cant we just go in kick their rears like we're supposed too and come home? why is it they have to be tortured, abused and debased? i dont see how allowing or accepting this type of behavior by our military would have any affect on winning or losing the war.

Interesting responses to this thread. Pictures have been taken of this kind of thing since camera hit the battlefield. All I will say on the subject is this: Examine in detail what kind of enemy we are dealing with...then deal with them accordingly...in my opinion, when our guys attack, like in the movie where the Hueys played "Ride of The Valkries(sic)", we should play "El Deguello" before. No mercy...no quarter.

Many will disagree with what I say here, but I have NO PROBLEM with what the Marines are accused of doing.

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The Last Standing Knight

Somehow, I think this thread will be closed soon, but I wanted to get my two cents. I personally don't have a problem with what these Marines did. I am not a veteran, but I respect our veterans greatly. War is a hellish thing, and hellish events occur during the course of it. The state controlled media is quick to show you the "atrocities" that our men do, but NOT so quick to display the atrocities against our soldiers by that same enemy. All IS fair in love and war, and I can't see where there is a crime here. If anything, at least those corpses got SOME kind of a bath, which is probably more than they had had when they were alive in quite some time.

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MARK

These people are dead and beyond caring.
Now, some pantywetting JAG, with his head stuck in a book and looking to make a reputation is another story.
fine em a weeks pay, take their camera's away and let em get on with business.
Blessings

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