Thursday, January 12, 2012

 

Urinating on the Dead

Here is the story which has even normally pro-Marine Hugh Hewitt saying this sort of behavior is ripe for punishment.

Are you freakin' kidding me?

Can we get any more wimpy as a nation? This story is on the extreme side of nothing in a nothing-burger faux outrage.

UPDATE: Diomedes thinks they Marine (snipers, it turns out) should be punished. Each should have to do ten push-ups as penance.

UPDATE 2: Here is a good piece on the subject in the New York Post. Money quote:

Still, as wartime atrocities go, this is pretty mild stuff. My Lai, for sure, it ain’t.

And, again, the Taliban sure ain’t — excuse the metaphor — choirboys.

Maybe somebody should ask Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl about it.

Oh, wait: The Islamists beheaded him — on videotape.

Perspective, folks. Perspective.

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Comments:
America's Downfall, Chapter 12: They Stopped Allowing its Quasi-Imperialist Military Troops to Desecrate Corpses.

Written by Mark Steyn XII, Emperor God of Libertopia, AD 2512
 
Who you calling Quasi Imperialists? Were the troops on D-Day quasi-Imperialist? Were the liberators of Bergen-Belsen or Dauchau? Good snark but you slipped up and ruined your whole effect, and, in your own way, proved my point about the wimpifying of the nation.

My punishment would be to say, don't do that in front of a camera again.
 
Heh, Quasi Imperialist. Where do you get this stuff you crazy kook? *Ignores the hundreds of military bases scattered around the world, often in countries whose sovereign governments have explicitly stated they don't want them there anymore.*
 
Who is this Andrew person, Roger, who dislikes what you write but returns again and again to read it?

But, on topic: Bing West has a great post on NRO. The comments also are excellent.

http://tinyurl.com/86yrkjj
 
My son. I'll read West with interest. I liked his book about Faluja quite a bit.

Andrew, for examples, we took Cuba from Spain, and now we have a base there. We conquered 2/3 of Nazi Germany, now we have bases there. We must be pretty inept imperialists. What does it mater that we have a military base in a country? It's so far from imperialism that your use of the word is off putting. When the Philippines asked us to vacate our base there, we did. That must mean we're anti-imperialists.
 
Oh gosh. Son? I blush at my foot in mouth comment. Sorry.

Unfortunately for all y'all, I'm stepping up onto my soapbox now:

It is the U.S. Navy (with a bit of assistance from other countries) that keeps the sea lanes open so that trade and commerce can flourish and raise the quality of life for populations around the world.

Ask South Korea if they'd like the U.S. military to leave it to oppose all by itself the insanity of NoKo's threats of war.

Ask Japan if it would like the U.S. to leave it defenseless against China (Read The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang to understand some history of the Japanese v. Chinese.)

Europe (x-France) has socially and economically feasted domestically from the presence of U.S. military since WWII -- it contributes a huge amount to Europe's economy as well as protecting Europe from the predations of the USSR. Ask Germany if it REALLY wants Obama to withdraw troops.

Ask Berliners if they don't still remember and appreciate the Berlin airlift that saved a city from disaster (read The Candy Bombers by ?? for the history of the airlift.) Did East Germany opt to stay in the Russian ambit when it had a choice? No, it looked West to rejoin its more economically successful and militarily defensible other half.

You want to know what the world would be like without the global protection of the U.S. military? Read Bloodlands, by Tim Snyder, about the deliberate murder by starvation of millions of Ukrainians during the Stalin years.

Every country/territory where the U.S. has had a military presence has thereby enjoyed the opportunity to improve the condition of its inhabitants. That includes the Philippines and the islands of the South Pacific, Puerto Rico, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, ... everywhere. And, when asked to leave, we have done so. Nowhere have we imposed our continued presence once asked to leave. That is the antithesis of imperialist behavior.

You think that this brief period of relative peace can't disappear in a heartbeat? You think it's sci-fi or fantasy fiction to think that regression to tyrannical rule is possible? The current preeminence of individual liberty in the Western world is the anomaly, a brief respite in the history of human societies. The history of the "civilized" world is actually a history of tyranny. Sort of the ultimate irony.
 
Whatever. The point is that desecration of corpses is against US military law as well as the Geneva Convention. Remember the rule of the law? And how it applies to everyone? Isn't that one of the things we're trying to impress on the people in that area?

Perhaps it's been blown out of proportion, but the people who did it should be punished according to military law. That's how a functioning democratic republic works.
 
They will be punished but in a way commensurate with the 'crime.' See Lt. Col. West's recommendation at the NRO. Solid.
 
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