A video surfaced on the Internet of four United States Marines urinating on the dead bodies of supposed Taliban members. These four Marines have since been identified, and this is definitely not something that they should be proud of. The military careers of the four men are most likely finished. (Anyone who wants to see the video can search on Youtube for it, but I’d rather not post it within this blog post).
There are so many news sources with different takes on this including Fox, CNN, Msnbc, etc.
The National Post reports:
“U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta telephoned Karzai to denounce the actions in the video as “deplorable” and to say it would be investigated immediately, the Pentagon said. General Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, said actions depicted in the video were illegal. “
ABC News reports:
“U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta called it “deplorable” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she felt “total dismay” after hearing the story.
“It is absolutely inconsistent with American values, with the standards of behavior that we expect from our military personnel and the vast, vast military personnel, particularly our Marines, hold themselves to,” she said Thursday. “
BBC News reports:
“In an address to military personnel at Fort Bliss, Texas, on Thursday, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said the video could even jeopardise the prospects for US-Afghan peace talks.
“The danger is that this kind of video can be misused in many ways to undermine what we are trying to do in Afghanistan and the possibility of reconciliation,” Mr Panetta said.”
There are many debates about how this is going to impact the relationship with Afghanistan. Some people and bloggers have even come out in supporting the men who decided to urinate on dead Taliban.
Because I’m Nikky Raney & you’re not.
Student, blogger & aspiring journalist as well as editor.
I have already been a paid journalist and I have a lot of experience.
Worked for political campaigns as well as at a television station.
I am currently attending New England School of Communications in Bangor, Maine.
I was Managing Editor and was one of the creators in 2006 of the largest student run newspaper in New England: The Tide, at Dover High School in Dover, New Hampshire.
I was born June 7, 1990 in the Philippines.
My personal site is The Future of Journalism – NikkyRaney.com
You can follow me on twitter – http://twitter.com/nikkyraney