FOUR US marines filmed urinating on corpses in Afghanistan are likely to face a court martial after a commander said such actions were a ''grave breach'' of the laws of war.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has interviewed two of the soldiers in the video, which shows them laughing and making snide remarks as they urinate on the bloodied bodies of three Afghan men.
In an attempt to defuse a diplomatic storm, the commanders of US forces in Afghanistan ordered troops to treat the bodies of killed enemies and civilians with ''appropriate dignity and respect''.
Advertisement: Story continues below
The soldiers were members of a sniper unit that completed a six-month tour in September. The two other marines in the video are believed to have left the military. The nature of the charges are unclear, although desecrating bodies is a crime under US military law and the Geneva conventions.
The deputy commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General Curtis Scaparrotti, said in a message to troops that ''defiling, desecrating, mocking, photographing or filming for personal use insurgent dead constitutes a grave breach'' of laws governing armed conflict.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she believed the men may be guilty of a war crime.
Clay Shirky, who teaches social media at New York University, said that in a digital age when videos spread across the internet within hours, an incident that may have gone almost unnoticed in earlier wars can become an international flashpoint.
Source: http://www.smh.com.
.jpg)
.jpg)
0 comments:
Post a Comment