War Crimes

You know, I've seen a lot of shit. I've seen what combat does to a human body in all it's forms. I've inflicted horrible pain and death on others in the course of completing my missions. If I had to kill somebody, that was that. Strictly business*, no animosity toward the person who would most surely kill me if given the chance. I had a job to do. But never, never have I thought about desecrating a corpse. Some of the Rethugs, the Great Compassionate Conservatives, believe it's no big deal to play with some guy's brains after half his head is blown off.

Chris Hedges, in a widely read article in The Nation, describes a photo showing a U.S. soldier "reaching in to scoop out some of [an Iraqi's] brain, looking at the camera and ... smiling."

Aside from it being sick, though war is a sick thing in itself, it is a war crime. But the wingnuts have a different view:

** Technically, as a reader notes below, abusing a corpse in military as well as civilian life is a crime. In this case, I’d apply the legal principle of who cares?

Who cares? I care. I care that the U.S. military has people who are that fucked up. I care that these fucked up people are put in a combat situation, a place they should never be. But I guess when you can't find enough warm bodies, this is what you get.

We all have our internal monsters. It always surprised me how brutal I could be when the situation warranted. When people who are unstable to begin with are put in a combat situation, over and over, we will have crimes like this committed on a regular basis.

Seeing a human body blown apart by the violence of combat should revolt people, not give them the idea to play with what's left. It shows you the conservative mindset in its true colors. It shows that unless you are white and Christian, your life means nothing to them. I wonder what they'd say if pics surfaced of Iraqis doing the same to the body of an American soldier?

*Not to say this is a healthy outlook and my mind has made me pay for it over the years.

Great thanks to Atrios for the link.

Update:

Digby looks at this too:

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And, by the way, who are we at war with again? Iraq? The country these right wingers insisted that we "liberate?" Are these soldiers only scooping out the brains of foreign terrorists? Or are they insurgent brains? Suni? Shia? Innocent bystanders? It's so hard to tell which brains are suitable for scooping over there. (Or, maybe these keyboard commandos think we should just scoop 'em all and let God sort it out.)

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