The four United States Marines seen on a YouTube video relieving themselves on the corpses of three alleged Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, which raised a fire storm of condemnation after it appeared and went viral on Wednesday, January 11, 2012, are likely to face disciplinary actions, including general courts-martial, according to reports published on Thursday, January 12, 2012 by The Daily Telegraph, The Washington Post, BBC News, New York Daily News, KGTV News10 San Diego, and multiple other global media sources.
Desecration of the body of a combatant is prohibited by the laws of war and international treaties.
Officials in the United States and Afghanistan immediately issued statements condemning the actions shown on the video, as seen in the attached slide show and video clip.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was outraged, saying, "I find the behaviour depicted in it utterly deplorable. This conduct is entirely inappropriate for members of the United States military and does not reflect the standards or values our armed forces are sworn to uphold. Those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was also placed on the defensive, commenting that "This act by American soldiers is simply inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms. We expressly ask the US government to urgently investigate the video and apply the most severe punishment to anyone found guilty in this crime."
International comments cited the video as a Taliban recruitment tool that would undermine U.S. involvement in the 10-year long War in Afghanistan, and lead to retaliation.
Ahmed Quraishi, President of the lobbying group Pak Nationalists Forum also thinks the accident will endanger lives of US soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
Some military commanders were more moderate in their comments.
Brigadier General Michael I. Neil, a partner in the San Diego based law firm of Neil, Dymott, Frank, McFall & Trexler, who served as commanding general of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton during the Persian Gulf War, believes that the men shown in the video should be disciplined but not face a general court martial.
General Neil called the actions "unacceptable", but thought that the Marine Corps should "clean up this miss" without escalating it to trials similar to those conducted after the Abu Ghraib Iraq prisoner abuse photographs surfaced in 2004.
In the Iraqi situation, between May 2004 and March 2006, eleven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service.
Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner, and his former fiancée, Specialist Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison, respectively, in trials ending on January 14, 2005 and September 26, 2005.
Other military experts actually came to the defense of the four marines, citing the often ignored truth that soldiers are under great stress and often "scared to death" during combat, using the term "fog of war" from the Vietnam War to describe chaos and confusion during battle.
The release of the Marine urination video comes shortly after the start of a court-martial, delayed 6 years, for Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich at Camp Pendleton for his alleged participation in the November 19, 2005 Haditha killings in Iraq, where he and fellow Marines were accused of having killed 24 civilians after a Marine had died in an insurgent attack.
The intentional killing of noncombatants is prohibited by modern laws of war derived from the UN Charter, the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions, and constitutes a war crime.
Charges against 8 of the Marines who were ordered by an Article 32 hearing to stand trial for those killings were eventually dropped, in exchange for their testimony against Sergeant Wuterich. His court martial, currently taking place at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County is expected to continue for the next several months.
The Los Angeles Times announced that Lieutenant General Thomas Waldhauser of Camp Pendleton has been chosen to head up the investigation into the controversial video that showed Marines urinating on Taliban corpses.
The Marines appearing in that video are from the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The identities of two of the four soldiers are already known, but their names have not yet been released.
This latest incident in the Afghan War comes at a time of increased tensions between the U.S. and its military ally Pakistan, who many believe are supporting the Taliban insurgents who take refuge in Pakistan, across a very porous border with Afghanistan.
Added to this already volatile situation is increased violence in Iraq, which some pundits say are being driven by Shia fundamentalists and their supporters in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Geopolitical tensions are also rising in Iran over threats of increased sanctions by the international community, and threats by the Iranians to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 14 tankers carrying 15.5 million barrels of crude oil pass daily.
Iran is also allegedly involved in a nuclear enrichment program that could be capable of being used to manufacture military grade weapons of mass destruction.
All these factors are serving as political fodder for the 2012 U.S. Presidential election.
Like a stone thrown into a pond, the ever widening ripples from the Marine Corps urination video may have untold consequences.
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