Video of marines urinating on Afghans « represents Americans today »
« The Marines I have met across the world have the healthiest bodies, the lowest minds, the highest morals, and the lowest manners of any animal group I have ever seen. given to see. « Taken over by the Christian Science Monitor the day after the broadcast of a video showing soldiers urinating on the corpses of Afghans, the formula of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt retains all its sharpness.
Engaged in difficult negotiations with Kabul, American officials did not wait for the images to be authenticated to condemn the behavior of the military. « The Obama administration is struggling to maintain the support of Afghan President Hamid Karzai while cautiously trying to open talks with the Taliban. « , explains the New York Times. In such a context, the scandal which begins to spread threatens to« doubly weaken the American position ».
But the political impact of images is all the stronger as their symbolic significance is heavy. Humiliating and obscene, the film « reopens old wounds of US military mistreatment of civilians and captured ‘enemy combatants' », note it Christian Science Monitor. Like the photographs taken in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, it revives the memory of the many scandals that have marked the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002.
« I LOVE THESE MARINES »
Indignant by the concert of condemnations which followed the dissemination of the images, the American blogger Pamela Geller is one of the few to display on her website her support for the incriminated soldiers. « Would we have reacted if marines had urinated on Nazi soldiers who died during World War II? », wonders the columnist, famous for taking positions hostile to Muslims. « I love these marines. May be [que leur attitude témoigne] of an unfaithful interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body before burial« , she ventures to advance.
Intentionally provocative, the remark outraged former veteran Jon Soltz. On the Huffington Post, this former Iraq war veteran denounces images that « undermine all that [lui] and those who served with [lui ont] try to do ». « Comments like [celui de Pamela Geller] don’t just go against what our army stands fore, he believes, they put our troops on the ground a little more in danger. It just goes to show that some on the right don’t understand our mission in Afghanistan. «
But as Steve Clemons notes in The Atlantic, the controversial blogger’s reaction echoed many enthusiastic comments posted at the bottom of the videos showing the scene on YouTube. « Many would have liked to be part of the group [de marines], observes the columnist. Many soldiers come from places in the United States where this type of behavior is the norm. Whether we admit it or not, what these soldiers did « represents » us today. «
