Panetta: Apparent Marine desecration of Taliban corpses is ‘utterly deplorable’

Washington Post ^ | 1/12/12 | Craig Whitlock

[fortheDeclaration]

First, all those things you cited were crimes against LIVING individuals, not dead ones.

I don't see anywhere it mentions being 'buried with dignity'

During WW2, they were bulldozing bodies into graves.

Second, no one is justifying the actions, but rather are putting them in their proper context.

[GAB-1955]

It did in the training material I used to read when I was in the Army.

The only reason you bury in mass graves is for expediency. If you can, you bury dead with their own markers, even enemy dead. This is not a World War Two situation. We are killing retail, not wholesale.

The problem with these Marines is that they put the thing on video. They are going to be punished. How severely is a matter to the Marine Corps.

[trisham]

"War is hell"

~ William Tecumseh Sherman (February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891)

[fortheDeclaration]

The fact is what you posted to us didn't say anything about the dead.

As for burying the dead, we made sure our dead received a decent burial, we didn't bury them with bulldozers.

Yes, that was a mistake on their part, not a crime.

[Flycatcher]

Thanks, Trisham. That needed to be said.

Seems that some (even on this thread) forget that fact.

[trisham]

Thank you, Flycatcher.

[GAB-1955]

Actually, on Iwo Jima, there were mass burials in the haste following the Japanese counterattacks. They were re-interred later, but so also are the Japanese casualties found on the island.

[fortheDeclaration]

Yes, in that particular battle that occured, but in most battles it didn’t.