pissing on the dead

Much has been made of the incident where a group of Marines apparently pissed on the dead bodies of some Taliban fighters. There is much to criticize in the actions of these Marines but for the most part, Western journalists and armchair moralists and bloggers like myself are not qualified to make criticisms.

No matter how rational you try to be, you are speaking from a position of someone who just went to Starbucks for a coffee and sat down at a computer in a peaceful warm office where no one was shooting at you. The opinions of such outsiders just don't matter that much. We might take the opinion of military officials a bit more seriously but they too are mostly paid stooges once they reach a certain level of power. They simply can't say what they really think.

Some people have made the usual complaints that such actions have tainted the view of Americans in the Islamic world and that this action puts Americans in more danger.

There is no way to heighten risks for American soldiers. Those risks are already heightened. The Muslim "warriors" already desecrate American bodies. They already hate Americans with their very being. Pissing on dead Taliban soldiers does not make any difference except in the realm of easily manipulated public opinion in the coalition countries. The outrage is taking place amongst people who already hate America.

That doesn't mean the action of the Marines wasn't wrong. It was and most Marines and others would know better. But it is important to realize that most people have no frame of reference for what those soldiers are going through and that the people who are screaming about it in public have nothing important to say and nothing really to add. They're just the voices of the perpetually outraged shrieking out their same sad, boring tune with the usual depressing regularity.

ARTICLE

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a former Army lieutenant colonel, sends THE WEEKLY STANDARD an email commenting on the Marines' video, and has given us permission to publish it.

"I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu . Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

"All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq ?

"The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their per son nel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each per son ally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

"As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell."