Marines probe video depicting urination on corpses

ROBERT BURNS

AP National Secu­rity Writer

WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps said Wednes­day it is inves­ti­gat­ing a video depict­ing what appears to be four Marines uri­nat­ing on the corpses of Tal­iban fighters.

In a state­ment, the Marine Corps said it has not ver­i­fied the ori­gin or authen­tic­ity of the YouTube video. But it also said the actions por­trayed are not con­sis­tent with Marine values.

If ver­i­fied the video could cre­ate a strong back­lash in the Mus­lim world and beyond for the dis­re­spect­ful actions it portrays.

A defense offi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymity in order to dis­cuss a sen­si­tive aspect of the mat­ter, said the case will be referred to the Naval Crim­i­nal Inves­tiga­tive Ser­vice, the Navy’s world­wide law enforce­ment organization.

The Coun­cil on Islamic-American Rela­tions, a promi­nent Mus­lim civil rights and advo­cacy group based in Wash­ing­ton, quickly con­demned the video.

“We con­demn this appar­ent des­e­cra­tion of the dead as a vio­la­tion of our nation’s mil­i­tary reg­u­la­tions and of inter­na­tional laws of war pro­hibit­ing such dis­gust­ing and immoral actions,” the group wrote in a let­ter faxed to Defense Sec­re­tary Leon Panetta.

“If ver­i­fied as authen­tic, the video shows behav­ior that is totally unbe­com­ing of Amer­i­can mil­i­tary per­son­nel and that could ulti­mately endan­ger other sol­diers and civil­ians,” the let­ter said.

Marine Corps head­quar­ters at the Pen­ta­gon said, “The actions por­trayed are not con­sis­tent with our core val­ues and are not indica­tive of the char­ac­ter of the Marines in our Corps. This mat­ter will be fully investigated.”

A Marine Corps spokesman, Lt. Col. Stew­art Upton, added, “Alle­ga­tions of Marines not doing the right thing in regard to dead Tal­iban insur­gents are very seri­ous and, if proven, rep­re­sent a fail­ure to adhere to the high stan­dards expected of Amer­i­can mil­i­tary personnel.”

A Pen­ta­gon spokesman, Navy Capt. John Kirby, said the video is deeply troubling.

“Who­ever it is, and what­ever the cir­cum­stances — which we know is under inves­ti­ga­tion — it is egre­gious behav­ior,” Kirby said.

It is unclear who shot the video and who posted it online.

Posted by AP News on Jan 11 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.