Marines burning insugents

[Daniel]

Yeah, that's why they have leaders to keep an eye on lower enlisted. Of course, in that environment you had very extreme circumstances. I'm sure most 18-20 year olds are too immature to be in a combat zone without supervision, but that's why there are NCOs.

As for the disrespect of corpses and posing with body parts, I think that is a part of war in those extreme circumstances. I mean, it's hard for me to put it in context by simply typing of the Internet. Obviously, if you walked into a Joe's barracks room and he's playing with a human head he is obviously a psychopath. But when you have an 18 year old who has been killing people for days and has seen many brethren in his company killed and severely wounded things get a little blurry. In that environment it's hard for young people to value the life or body of the enemy when he's in constant contact.

I recall a mission where two of my Iraqi counterparts were killed. When we finally got to the last bad guy and killed him, after exchanging fire and getting frags thrown at us, the Iraqis took out their anger on his body. I didn't feel the emotions they were having but I can empathize. Combat is very intense and we expect a lot out of our guys to act appropriately in all situations, but sometimes they don't. When they don't I think we need to consider the totality of the circumstances before passing judgement.

 

The last mission that was conducted by a company in my BN ended up getting a SSG shot through the throat. He was breaching the door and a hadj on the other side fired through it. The SSG lived but will have a hole in his throat that he has to hold to speak for the rest of his life. When they got the guy who shot him he was drug outside and had a barrel* (autocorrect?)  placed to his eye and shot according to RUMINT. Truth or not, I dont know.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Daniel

[bersaguy]

Well folks, this has been a very interesting debate and discussion for sure. I was glad to see so many express their opinions on this as it is a very important topic that needs discussions. I think I made most of my point in my first post but after reading some of the posts here I feel I will add a few things to my original thoughts. I watched a program on the Military Channel last evening titled "Chaos in the sky" and it was about the terrorists and when hi jacking of  commercial aircraft's began. It seems like it was actually back in late 70's when some Arab nationals took over 3 airliner's full of people at one time still on the ground and after getting all of their grievances explained to the press about issues going on it their country they released all the hostages from the planes and they remained on the planes and blew all 3 of them up destroying the aircraft's and themselves. As more and more terrorists hijackings began to transpire they began taking control of them in the air and making their demands to be flown to neutral countries to express their complaints. That escalated and then they began hijacking planes and blowing them up with all aboard or killing a selected group of people that were from countries they were against and releasing the rest. Then it slowed down to a new approach of just blowing up planes that were coming to America but they would not be on the plane. They would accept responsibility for it as some radical Muslim group. They did it by putting a bomb in a bag in the cargo area with a timing device and they would board the plane and get off at the first stop and the plane would blow up over the ocean an hour later with them not on it. I'm sure we all have read or heard about all of those. That went on for years and as security got tighter and any Muslim person leaving their country that purchased a one way ticket was watched closely and if they exited the plane on the first stop the entire plane was emptied and that persons baggage was removed from the plane along with everyone else's and would be checked for bombs. Soon they figured out that that idea had been figured out so they began going to one airline and checking their bag and the going to another airline to buy a ticket to the same country the bag was going to. Again that worked a few times. When it got to hard to just blow up airplanes things kind of stopped about 3 or 4 years and then came the ultimate use of commercial airplanes which was 9/11/2001 and we all remember that day. I learned a lot I didn't know by watching that program last night. I learned that they had scrambled Air Force jets from two different bases to go up and pursue the aircraft in question but had orders in the beginning to not fire on the aircraft and wait on further orders. Finally after the plane struck the Pentagon new orders were issued to fire on any aircraft presumed hijacked. They were ordered to kill people in the air to protect people on the ground. Of course they never needed to because the only plane still flying was United Flight 93 which crashed in the field. A couple very important things were learned that day. Once the transponders were turned off the planes could not be tracked so air traffic controllers could not direct the Fighter jets to the planes. That will not happen again. The only way to turn off the transponders now is destroy the aircraft because there is no way on the plane in which to turn it off. It turns off only after the aircraft landed and is at the gate and the entire plane is shut off. By doing that aircraft don't need to be scrambled to shoot a plane. They can get a missile lock on the transponder signal and fire a missile and down it. Now with that said. I go back and think about the original post title and I think about it again. I am still not against what the Soldiers did but filming it was uncalled for in so many ways. Also, as far as burning the bodies. Our enemies have done their fair share of that and not just in the war torn countries. How many people were burned ALIVE in the Twin Towers and Pentagon? I'm sorry for my feelings in some ways but not for the burning of the dead bodies. I am sorry that were are involved in such an ugly situation that has cost our great nation so many brave men and women in a war that should have ended swiftly with the technology we have at our disposal and won't use. Instead the blood of our fighting men and women is used. The radical Muslims of all the Jihad countries picked this fight and I cannot feel any pity for them. I just say we need to use the technology we have and bring our troops home....................jmho 

[Volphin]

Good post Bersaguy.  However, what many people do not know is that the two F-16s sent to intercept 93 Heavy were unarmed.  They were directed to bring it down.  The pilots agreed that one would ram the cockpit and one would ram the tail.  Thank goodness it went down before that became necessary.  

 

As a result, policies were changed to keep fully armed response aircraft fueled and ready at key bases.  

 

Which leads me to wonder, who thought unarmed planes were a good idea anyway?  Geeez!

[bersaguy]

Good post Bersaguy.  However, what many people do not know is that the two F-16s sent to intercept 93 Heavy were unarmed.  They were directed to bring it down.  The pilots agreed that one would ram the cockpit and one would ram the tail.  Thank goodness it went down before that became necessary.  

 

As a result, policies were changed to keep fully armed response aircraft fueled and ready at key bases.  

 

Which leads me to wonder, who thought unarmed planes were a good idea anyway?  Geeez!

I believe if I did some research or someone else did they would probably find it was a Bill Clinton idea since it was him that signed the orders that our military could not carry their side arms while on base in country. That is why the shooting at Fort Hood went on as long as it did and cost so many lives. I thank GOD he didn't disarm the MP's on the base also.  Yea I knew the F-16's were not armed that went up first but the second ones that were sent up 14 minutes later were armed coming from Langley to protect the White House. You can bet had those pilots encountered a target they would have made the ultimate sacrifice if necessary and flew the planes into the airliner. Hopefully with a plan to eject just prior to impact but then our pilots are very dedicated to our great country for sure. In the program last night they did say that the planes that were sent in first were unarmed because they were getting ready for a non hot ammo training exercise just before they got the call..

[TMF]

It was not directed at you in particular. It was directed at anyone who says this is ok, but would be, or have been pissed at similar situations in Iraq, Somalia, etc.
As far as the overpowering smell theory, I kind of doubt that simply cleaning up a smell is worthy of pictures. How about not leaving bodies to rot in an area where you live? I'm not saying it's not possible, because I'm sure it is; I just don't buy it. Regardless, we would never accept the same excuse if the same happened to one of our fallen, of that I am sure.
The point is, we as Americans like to tout how we never colonize a defeated enemy's country. We are taught in basic training that we are the ones who don't do the unthinkable things that are done to our servicemen. So when I see people taking joy in seeing this kind of thing done to the enemy, no matter how despicable that enemy might be, I have to cry foul. We ARE better than that, period.

We are, which is why our military prosecutes cases like this while the enemy does not. They, in fact, encourage this sort of thing at every level.

I don't think you fully appreciate the situation they were in during the retake of Fallujah. Taking a dump was a movement to contact exercise. Enemy was everywhere and they were active. I can't remember the body count, but I do know it was in the thousands. It isn't as easy as just picking somewhere else to strongpoint or moving dozens of bodies to a different building. If higher says to occupy a series of structures which are riddled with rotting corpses I'm not going to expose my guys to any increased risk moving those bodies offsite. I'm gonna just tell them to pile them up and torch them. I'm just trying to point out that, based on the circumstances, the probability of their intent being innocent is higher than the probability of them just wanting to burn Hadj.

And yeah, we sure do get mad when we see enemy dragging around bodies of our fallen brothers. It is infuriating. From their perspective I suspect it is equally infuriating to see a Marine posing with the charred head of their fallen. But, if we sit back and look at it objectively we could argue that the circumstances on both sides are so emotionally charged that acting in such a manner, while wrong, is understandable. At any rate, our military does a good job of preventing stuff like this and prosecuting it when it happens. I'd say that alone makes us the good guys. If the enemy showed such honor I would probably care more about this.

[scoutfsu]

I'm going to give this one a big fat "meh."