Yesterday, footage of U.S. Marines pissing on the bloodied dead bodies of people we're told were Taliban forces leaked onto the internet. Naturally, the blogsophere took this as an opportunity to display their divisiveness with the gun-humping, strict-father-model red staters sweeping their Bibles under the carpet and cheering on what the rest of the country can see is at least super disturbing.
The right can use this as an opportunity to let their jingoism fly and verbally attack anyone saying this is wrong as blaming America first or being Taliban sympathizers, but there's a serious fallacy being made there, perhaps even by some who agree that pissing on dead bodies is appalling.
It's not about respecting a dead body. A dead human body is about as valuable as a destroyed furniture. I don't entertain any illusions of the body needing respect just because it was a person. Nor am I too concerned with members of the Taliban. This isn't an issue of 'every person deserves respect,' if they were indeed Taliban, which hasn't been shown, than I think they do deserve disrespect. What I have a real problem with is: What are we doing to our men and women who join the military?
What kind of sick training do you have to endure to want to urinate on a blood stained corpse? It's gruesome. It's horrifying. Look, here's a metaphor, if my dog needs to be put down, I'm going to take him to the vet and have him humanely euthanized. I'm not going to take him to a vet who likes to stomp dogs to death. Even if I don't particularly love my dog, even if it did something horrible, like attack and kill someone, I don't want to bring it to the dog stomper. That's not who I am, I'm above that. Is there some difference in the Taliban? They're rapid dogs and they ought to be put down, for sure, but I don't really want to pay a bunch of guys who're going to piss on their dead bodies after they do it. That tells me that they delight in what they've done. I don't want my vet to enjoy killing animals, I want a vet who loves animals. In the same way, I don't want a military who loves killing people, I want a military who love people enough to want to protect them, even by killing others and putting their own lives at risk.
Peeing on dead bodies is like comic-book-villain, horror-movie-psycho-killer mentality. Is it any wonder more military veterans who served in Iraq are killing themselves than are dying in the war? We're turning these people into monsters. How does a man go home and hug his child with the image of a dead, bloodied face being pissed on and laughed at in his head?
What's been gained?
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