The Guardian, Chris McGreal in Washington, Thursday 12 January 2012
This video
allegedly shows US troops urinating on bodies of
aliban fighters. Warning:
graphic content
US forces
in Afghanistan are facing fresh accusations of war crimes after film emerged
which appears to show American marines urinating on dead bodies and laughing.
The US military command in Kabul, which was severely embarrassed last year by
revelations that Americans soldiers were running a "kill squad"
murdering Afghan civilians, said it would investigate the undated video, and
that if it proved to be authentic, desecration of corpses would be regarded as
a serious crime. Despoiling of the dead is illegal under the Geneva conventions
as well as under US military law.
In the
graphic short video, four soldiers in combat gear and carrying weapons are seen
acting in unison as they urinate on three bloodied corpses. One of the soldiers
sighs with relief, another says "yeah" and a third laughs. One
remarks: "Have a great day, buddy". Another says: "Golden, like
a shower".
A fifth
soldier films the incident.
The video
was posted anonymously on Wednesday along with a caption that said: "scout
sniper team 4 with 3rd battalion 2nd marines out of camp lejeune peeing on dead
talibans".
Military
officials confirmed that the soldiers appear to be carrying rifles of a kind
issued to sniper teams in Afghanistan.
A US
department of defence spokesman, Captain John Kirby, told CNN: "Regardless
of the circumstances or who is in the video, this is egregious, disgusting
behaviour. It's hideous. It turned my stomach."
The marine
corps said in a statement: "While we have not yet verified the origin or
authenticity of this video, the actions portrayed are not consistent with our
core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our
Corps. This matter will be fully investigated."
The promise
of an investigation is unlikely to quiet concern at yet another revelation of
abuses by American forces. Last year, 11 soldiers were convicted over the
murders of three Afghan civilians by a "kill squad" and the
subsequent cover up. It was revealed that some of them collected body parts,
including fingers and skull parts, as trophies, and posed for photographs over
the corpses of their victims.
The US
military has also yet to live down the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq, and the use of waterboarding and other torture of alleged terrorists
held at Guantánamo.
The US
marines corps is also under scrutiny after the trial began this week of one of
its soldiers, Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, charged with the deaths of 24
Iraqis during an attack in 2005.
Wuterich
was commanding a group of soldiers who burst into the victims' homes in Haditha
and shot women, children and men in their nightclothes. He is accused of
manslaughter. Seven other soldiers also charged were either acquitted or had
the case against them dropped.
A US
congressman compared the killings in Haditha to the infamous My Lai massacre in
Vietnam.
The Haditha
killings contributed to the Iraqi government's refusal to agree to immunity for
US troops after the formal withdrawal of American forces at the end of last
year.
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“ … There’s much violence and anger throughout the world; when we look at the Middle East, we can see that changes are coming there. The West has a lot of power over the Middle East, but that power will begin to dissolve. The Muslim people of this world will begin to have their own power, and their own prosperity, and they will begin to disconnect from the Western World. This disconnection doesn’t have to be violent as violence only happens when somebody hangs onto what doesn’t belong to them....
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