I’m Having A Hard Time Being Outraged Over Marines Peeing On Dead Taliban
There’s a military scandal brewing in Afghanistan:
Some Marines seem to have pissed on the cadavers of some Taliban in Afghanistan. We don’t know when or exactly where. It may well have taken place some time ago; a military friend suggests that at least two of the alleged miscreants are no longer in the Corps, and a spokesman at Camp Lejeune said that some of the four have left the battalion in which they served — last year — in Afghanistan. But no matter. Our leaders are in a panic. Hillary and Panetta are horrified, and their public comments verge on hysteria (Panetta called the behavior “utterly deplorable” and Hillary expressed “total dismay”). Afghan President Karzai, a noted humanitarian, declared it “inhumane.” Our full military investigative apparatus, last seen prosecuting Marines subsequently found innocent, is in full activity, and no doubt heads, if not other parts of the anatomy, will be figuratively sliced off.
I’m having a hard time being outraged about this.
I don’t condone what the Marines did. It’s against the rules, and they had to know that recording the stunt and posting it online was only going to cause trouble. Or, at least, they should have known. Shame on them. They should be punished. And their commander deserves a review too, for good measure.
But the political leadership’s hysterical reaction isn’t doing anyone any good. The Taliban are, unequivocally, the enemy. Not only are they monsters, condoning the abuse of women and children among other crimes against humanity, but they gave aid and comfort to Osama bin Laden.
So a couple of our troops pissed on some of their corpses. Big deal. And General Patton took a piss in the Rhine on his way to Berlin.
It’s a war, not some gentleman’s dispute. That doesn’t mean our troops should act like barbarians, but let’s have the response be in proportion to the crime.




