Here is Lieutenant Colonel West’s response on the Marines’ video, the one where Marines are shown urinating on dead Taliban corpses.
“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 personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally 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.”
I am in full agreement with Rep. Allen West. His response is spot-on!
I think the Marines should have poured bacon grease on the Taliban.
That’s pretty much the way a logical person would see it. But the anti-American way the current powers that be have it set up, isn’t taking it nearly so pragmatically. These are the Enemy for God’s sake! Not little old ladies or children – the Marines are soldiers called to do a dirty job nobody else wants… Yes war is hell and again, every other country fights and kills and it’s fine, but the US is held to this impossible doublt standard by our own media who doesn’t even make a stab at keeping government halfway honest.
The Taliban planted the IED my son (a 19-year old Marine) stepped on and lost both legs to. Show me the corpses of any of these evil terrorists and I’ll be delighted to piss on them myself. – Mother of a Marine
I am so sorry to hear that, L. Simone. Thank your son for his sacrifice and service to protect America. God Bless you and your son.
Is he kidding? The people who perpetrated the other atrocities don’t represent us. I don’t have the same obligation to outrage as when our own people do it.
He’s talking about our media and elsewhere. If you are unable to see the hypocrisy I feel sorry for you, ruidh.
Plus, the outrage is totally out of proportion to the misconduct.
I am sick to death listening to pasty-faced, doughy, pseudo-intellectual muppets sitting in a soft chair in a warm office, eating a hot meal with their family around them; pass judgement on men and women who sleep on cold ground, eating lousy food out of a mylar bag, with death hovering over their head on a daily basis while separated from their families. These were Taliban….they use rape and beheading. They commit mass murder and hide behind women and children when real warriors come looking for them. They do not wear a uniform and do not engage in conventional warfare, and have therefore put themselves outside the civilized rules of engagement.
To our Marines in the hot spots overseas I can only offer this quote from years ago by an English officer to his men……….
“Forget civilized society boys…here’s a chance to raise merry hell.”
Make these Taliban/AlQaeda clowns rue the day they ever screwed with us. Destroy them in such a horrifying manner as to make their comrades flee to their homes in terror never to be seen or heard from again.
God Bless the United States Marine Corps.
Thank God that we still have some straight thinking people like Rep. West in Congress.
Amen Rep West. I will vote for you! I am so sick of all this crap crying over ther terrorists. What you suggest these marines should suffer is more than enough! I am sick and tired of our self righteous media and left wingers.. If i could give them a one way ticket to these terrorist controlled countries and understand it is a one way ticket, they may sing a different song! I am the proud mother of a soldeir, who served 4 deployments to Iraq!
Are there any readers here who are Catholic AND who respect what the Church teaches about human dignity, or is this just one more example of ideology trumping the religion which should inform one’s outlook? Does anyone here actually think that urinating on a corpse is a validation of dignity?
I get that there are other issues (proportion, media representation…), but I get the feeling from these responses that one issue that isn’t really an issue is that soldiers were urinating on corpses. Tell me I’m wrong.
I agree that human beings are entitled to human dignity. I also think that different people can expect (or have a right to) different levels of human dignity – criminals of different degrees – rapist versus a person who has committed theft, a terrorist (someone who has knowledge of a future attack and can confirm that intel) or someone who we are fighting in military action, and a person who commits no crime are entitled to different levels of human dignity. While I do think that urinating on a dead corpse is wrong I don’t see it as a huge deal either. The Marines should be punished according to the rules they broke not according to public outrage.
Thank you Rep. Allen West, for having the courage and guts, to tell it like it is. Our soldiers are laying their asses on the line for us, and personally, I think whoever took that photo and made it public, should be PISSED ON…..