Video Showing U.S. Marines Urinating On Corpses Stirs Condemnation All Over the World

Video Showing U.S. Marines Urinating On Corpses

Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Thursday said that the video presenting four American Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban was “completely inhumane.” Pentagon announced that their commanders have identified the unit the soldiers belong to, and that the unit is in the United States. The Taliban announced that the video is not going to impact on the peace talks. The people all over the world react in anger as the video gets shared on the internet.

The video, which has already provoked a very firm reaction of condemnation all over the world, and led some to call the soldiers involved in it “recruitment tools of the Taliban,” came to media’s attention as the world celebrates ten years since Guantanamo Bay facility was established.

People have protested all over the world against the fact that this facility is still functional, and holds almost 200 people who have not been charged with anything yet. Gitmo and other detention facilities, such as Abu Ghraib, are constant reminders of the abuses committed in the name of fighting terror.

The case that turned into a scandal once the video was released has been referred to Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and an investigation is under way to determine whether the video is authentic, and where it came from. In a statement released on Thursday, the NATO-led coalition said that the disrespectful gesture is inexplicable and “not in keeping with the high moral standards of the coalition” fighting in Afghanistan.

The International Security Assistance Force said that four individuals, which are no longer serving in Afghanistan, appear to perpetrate this action. The ISAF did not say who the personnel was and why they thought they had left Afghanistan.

The Afghan president demanded that the four soldiers be punished for their crime, while the defense minister of Afghanistan deemed it as “shocking.” Last campaign’s President hopeful John McCain, who is a Marine veteran, said that the video “makes him so sad,” and addressed the Marine Corps, which he called one of the strongest institution in the United States once, and said that its image has been discredited by a group of undisciplined individuals.

The criminal investigation of the Pentagon aims also at establishing whether the four Marines have broken the laws of war which state that the photographing of bodies and detainees is prohibited.

In the video four soldiers in combat gear stand in semi-circle over three bodies. It is not clear whether those bodies were of Taliban insurgents or of Afghan civilians. Video’s title says they were Taliban, but it is not clear who named the video.

The Council of Islamic-American Relations condemned in a letter to Leon Panetta, the US defense minister, what they called a desecration of the bodies of the dead, and the violation of the military regulations and of the international laws.

The scandal comes as the political wing of the Taliban announced that they wanted to resume talks in order to end the war in Afghanistan, while maintaining that the military wing of the organization would continue its fight.

In an emailed statement, the Taliban said that this was a good moment for the factions fighting in Afghanistan to end the conflict, but also highlighted the roadblocks on the way to peace.

One of the demands made by the Taliban was the removal of the regime led by Hamid Karzai, which is considered by them an illegitimate “stooge” of the West. The Taliban announced that their goal was to establish an Islamic government in Afghanistan in accordance with the will of the people and made it clear that this was not an end to the jihad in Afghanistan.

Rumor has it that the United States and the Taliban are close to coming to engage in peace talks. Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that a special envoy will travel to Afghanistan. The envoy had been initiating contacts between the United States and the Taliban over the last year.

However, US intelligence estimates that the Taliban have not renounced their goals of imposing a harsh Islamic regime in Afghanistan once they came to power.