NYTs: Video Said to Show Marines Urinating on Taliban Corpses

[TimmySmith]

I don't think any of us, is as moral as we think we ought to be.

For example, I find myself wondering. I wonder how many ES posters have done something similar, under similar circumstances.

Count me in as somebody who has no clue how he would behave under such circumstances that consider murder a righteous act while peeing on the dead is abhorrent. Do people honestly expect normalcy?

[The 12th Commandment]

If the result was a crash and killing your passenger or something along those lines it hits a little closer IMO. There would be a big commensurate decrease in the number of people on the board (or any group of people) who have done that comparable thing. The set of circumstances and individual personalities that led to a wreck would be the perfect storm in that comparison. Obviously every drunk driving offense doesn't (thankfully, didn't) end in disaster and so don't leave a big scar on the person. Can the same be said for the way the marine would feel 30 years later if he didn't get caught?

That's a serious question, I don't mean to be disrespectful with it.

[twa]

I know people love to blame each other. Its the American way. What I'd love to read is what is being done to stop this from happening again. Is it the youth and immaturity of people? Is it the stresses they are under? What is the solution?

I would say the stress and the way are troops are dispersed there.

Many of them are operating under minimal supervision since we are trying to control large area with fewer troops...it is possible the influence of Afghans also factor in on combined patrols and embeds(despite some views,many of the Afghans fighting with us would do much worse than piss on the ones that have brought hell to their lives)

as to prevention....training,discipline are already controls in place that work fairly well

and a damn break for some of these boys is in order (I know one that has spent almost a 1/4 of his life there) ,share the load better or cut it down

add

The cycles of combat have been so long and so frequent that nearly 13,000 soldiers now have spent three to four cumulative years at war in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Army records. About 500 GIs have spent more than four years in combat, the Army says.

"Undoubtedly this is unprecedented," says Stephen Maxner, a military historian and director of the Vietnam Center and Archive in Lubbock, Texas.

He says small numbers of soldiers volunteered for multiple tours in Vietnam, but the vast majority served single, year-long deployments in that longest of American wars.

"My grandfather's generation is always called the 'greatest generation,' " says Army Capt. Jason Adler, 33, commander of Charlie Company, where Martin is one of his platoon leaders. "I disagree. It's these men here who go to war three or four times and continue to do what's asked of them, when others refuse."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-01-12-four-army-war-tours_N.htm

[visionary]

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak

AFP: Pentagon sources say two U.S. Marines have been charged for urinating on Taliban dead in video

2:24 PM

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/24/us-usa-afghanistan-video-idUSBRE88N0T120120924

Marines face criminal charges over Afghan urination video

Two Marines, both of them staff sergeants, are facing criminal charges over their roles in a video showing American troops urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, the Marine Corps said on Monday.

Staff Sergeants Joseph W. Chamblin and Edward W. Deptola, who were referred to trial by court martial, also face charges for failing to properly prevent or report misconduct of junior Marines, which included indiscriminate firing of weapons. (Reporting by Phil Stewart)