Marines urinating identified, could be charged today, Friday 13th (video)
Here in San Francisco, the top news is still on the Marines who urinated on the corpses of dead Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan.
"Their action was dreadful, but I can also understand they were under a lot of stress," says San Francisco resident, Donal Witham.
According to CBS News, the soldiers, who carried out the act against the dead Taliban fighters, have now been identified and they could all be charged as early as today, Friday, 13th January, 2012.
In a previous statement Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta called the video "deplorable." (See the original article here: Marines urinating on Taliban soldiers will be investigated (video))
The Marines themselves are asking how those in the video (and the person who filmed it) thought they could get away with it.
The Marines that can be seen in the video are part of a 1,000-man battalion who recently finished a tour of duty in Afghanistan and went back to Camp LeJeune in North Carolina.
They then showed the video to others as a kind of "war trophy," says CBS.
Now, officials are asking who else saw the video?
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said everyone involved could be part of a war crime.
"Anyone, anyone found to have participated or know about it, having engaged in such conduct, must be held fully accountable," Clinton said on Thursday.
Questions are being brought up about the discipline in the unit since photos taken last summer show a Marine sniper without his body armor or uniform.
The Marines in the urination video, according to CBS News, are part of a sniper team. One Marine in the video can be seen to have a sniper rifle.
Although there are only around 30 out of 1,000 men in the battalion, the actions of this small group have given a negative image of the whole unit, which fought bravely last summer in the Helmand province and which tragically lost seven of its soldiers in action.
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See these previous articles about this topic:
Marines urinating on Taliban condemned: Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta (video)
SF learns: Marines urinating on Taliban corpses will be investigated (video)
See video on the left-hand side.
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