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If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.
William Tecumseh Sherman |
Dear Secretary Panetta, Clinton, and General Dempsey, please take a deep breath and put the actions of the Marines found urinating on the Taliban and the Soldiers with pictures of dead terrorists into perspective. When we send young men to war one of the undeniable facts is that we dehumanize the enemy. That's just what happens in combat. This has been going on as long as warfare itself.
One needs to look no further than one of the classic
memoirs of World War II “With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa”. In this book, the author, E. B. Sledge, comments about this dehumanization of the enemy, asking himself after observing some Marines “field strip” a couple Japanese bodies, “Would the war dehumanize me so that I, too, would field strip enemy dead with such nonchalance? The time soon came when it didn't bother me a bit." We train Marines and Soldiers to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy! We want them and train them to kill with ruthless efficiency.
Gen. George Patton, one of the 20th century's greatest field commanders once said, "War is cruel, ruthless and brutal and it takes a cruel, ruthless and brutal man to fight it." It's obvious that these young men had been in combat for quite some time. They engaged in an action with the enemy that could result in one of two outcomes: either Marines die or the enemy dies. The Marines made the enemy pay for their huge mistake of thinking that they can go ‘mano a mano’ with Marines on the battlefield. The Marines, after scoring this victory, were doing their version of spiking the ball in the end zone.
Was this poor judgment? Very likely it was.
Did this require the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the Marine Corps to demand full-scale investigations involving three-star generals and criminal investigative agents?
Nope. This is a job for the company First Sergeant. The First Sergeant would have had this figured out in about 15 min. It would have been the end of story and further discussion.
Let's now talk about a real war crime and criminal- PFC Bradley Manning! The crime he committed is a Capital Offense and punishable by death according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
Was there any outrage from the Secretary of Defense on that one?
Not that I remember.
How about the Secretary of State? Was there any outrage from her on that one too?
Nope, as a matter of fact, the State Department spokesman accused the Department of Defense of "torturing" the traitor, Manning!
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Oh) is calling the brig at the Marine Base in Quantico “Abu Gharib”! To top it off he has been nominated for a NOBEL Peace Prize.
We might as well have nominated Khadafy for helping bring peace to Libya by getting himself killed, that’s how ludicrous all of this really is.
I know there will be those that say the Geneva Convention says that this is unacceptable. It is a law of war violation, etc. In my opinion, we should only honor the rules of the Geneva Convention when we are actually at war with countries that are also signatories to the Geneva Convention. It's ridiculous to fight a war with one hand tied behind your back. It's tantamount to having two teams play a football game; where one team has to stay inbounds, play by all the rules, and the other team could run out of bounds, facemask, and hold, interfere with the receiver, and violate any and all rules of the game.
Who do you think is going to win that one?!
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