Having just watched the YouTube video of four United States Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, the question becomes what does this have to say about the American people and who we are as a war-making nation?
The Marines were members of a scout sniper team, highly trained combat specialists within the Marine Corps reconnaissance units. Along with their expertise in combat, they also are schooled in the rules of war.
They know the Geneva Convention instructs combat soldiers they must "at all times, and particularly after an engagement...search for the dead and prevent their being despoiled." They must also "ensure that the dead are honorably interred, if possible, according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged, that their graves are respected, grouped if possible according to the nationality of the deceased, properly maintained and marked so that they may always be found."
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, one of the Republican candidates for President of the United States, in commenting about the incident, referred to the Marines as “kids,” saying to suggest they had committed a criminal act is “over the top.”
“Eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds make stupid mistakes,” Perry said. "What's really disturbing to me is just, kind of, the over-the-top-rhetoric from this administration and their disdain for the military."
Perry is not the only American who would excuse or justify the Marines' behavior blaming it on the nature of war.
National Public Radio’s show “Talk of the Nation” included many participants who voiced dismay over the behavior of the Marines, especially its negative affect on America’s desire to bring the Afghanistan War to a conclusion.
But numerous other callers chose to justify the Marine’s actions blaming it on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the very nature of war. One caller even suggested the desecration of fallen enemy soldiers goes back to the Trojan War when Greek war hero, Achilles, dragged the fallen Hector around the walls of Troy behind his chariot.
So, what does this incident have to say about the our society and who we are?
First, it's obvious that engaging in warfare is a dehumanizing experience. The decision to send men and women to war should take place only as the very last resort. War should never be a policy option, and our decision to engage in war preemptively makes us an aggressive nation. It should then come as no surprise our young men and women in the theater of war behave inappropriately aggressive.
Secondly, the men and women sent to war should never be sent with the attitude that war is an honorable activity. It may be a necessity given the life or death circumstances, but the activity of war is always the lesser of the evil options from which we must choose.
War is not an honorable enterprise, but all who participate in war must do so honorably if the war’s outcome is to be honorable. All combatants need to understand the burden they bear. All the citizens of the nation must also be fully aware of the burdens they force on the soldiers who fight in their name.
Unless all of us, citizens and soldiers alike, are fully cognizant of the moral responsibility we share together, we will ultimately find ourselves behaving immorally. The disconnection occurring in our country between the life of the military and the life of the civilian world lends itself to immoral behavior in war. Also, it would be less likely our nation would go to war if all of us fully realized that all of us are at war.
Finally, immoral and inhuman behavior cannot be excused without negating the moral standing of the whole society. When we excuse immoral behavior, all of us become immoral. What the few may do in our collective name expresses who we are. Dismissing the actions of those we send to do our fighting cannot dismiss our moral culpability.
The condition of America’s very soul is at stake in the way we choose to go to war and in the way we demand responsibility by those who are our designated warriors. If we are to be the nation our Declaration of Independence gave birth to, we must, with intention, take responsibility for our decisions and our actions.
