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Saturday, January 14, 2012

What We Aren't Talking About When We Talk About Our Soldiers Desecrating the Bodies of the Dead

While I obviously agree with those who point out that American soldiers desecrating corpses in Afghanistan isn't making Americans any safer or more free, indeed quite the contrary, still it seems to me all the while we are arguing about this we are neglecting the no less obvious prior point that soldiers making corpses in Afghanistan in the first place isn't making Americans any safer or more free either, if it ever did. We shouldn't be occupying Afghanistan and we shouldn't be killing its people year after year to no purpose -- that we shouldn't also desecrate the bodies of those we kill in this endless bloody idiocy, while patent to anybody who isn't utterly dead to decency or sense, is surely a supplementary consideration?

3 comments:

erickingsley said...

You aren't the only one thinking along these lines: http://gawker.com/5875468/piss-on-war

Dale Carrico said...

Well, there ya go. Right on with their right on.

jollyspaniard said...

I'm always a bit dubious of these kinds of controversies. For one things like this happen on a daily basis during wartime so it always seems strange to me when (and how) one of these incidents becomes a story. It seems to me to be just another way of changing the subject. You can see evidence of it in the comments section of the gawker article. People for the war ignore the article and imply the author is unecessarily squeamish about urinating on dead bodies. To even engage in something so trivial is to accept the premise that the war is just in the first place. And it's largely supporters of the war that love talking about these kinds of non stories.

I did a quick scan through Hot Air's front page. I didn't read any of the articles but scanned the comments totals. First thing they love talking about is the urination story, second place is football and a distant third is the GOP primary.