Pentagon deplores video of marines abusing corpses

Pentagon leaders scrambled Thurs to contain harm from an Web video that purports to exhibit four U. Utes. marines urinating upon Taliban corpses, an act that could appear to violate worldwide laws of warfare and additional strains U. Utes. -Afghan relations.
Defence Secretary Leon Panetta known as Afghan President Hamid Karzai to provide assurances of a complete investigation, and the best marine general promised an interior probe in addition to a criminal one. Investigators moved quickly to recognize and interview a minimum of two of the actual four marines. These were members of the battalion that fought against for seven months inside a former Taliban strongholds within southern Afghanistan.
Their own unit, the third Battalion, 2nd Marine corps, returned from Helmand land to its house base at Camping Lejeune, N. D., last September. Sea officials said the battalion officer verified to investigators upon Thursday, based on his study of the video, the four males depicted urinating have been members of the actual battalion. Two have since managed to move on to other models.
As the video spread over the Internet in posts and re-postings, Ough. S. officials became a member of with Afghans within calling it surprising, deplorable, inhumane along with a breach of army standards of carry out. It shows males in marine fight gear standing inside a semicircle urinating about the bodies of 3 men in regular Afghan clothing, 1 whose chest had been covered in bloodstream.
It is not certain if the dead were Taliban fighters, civilians or another person.
The incident will probably damage ties additional with Karzai's federal government and complicate negotiations on the strategic partnership arrangement designed to govern the existence of U. Utes. troops and advisors in Afghanistan following most international fight troops withdraw through the end of 2014.
Panetta stated the incident might endanger U. Utes. -Afghan-Taliban peace speaks. "The danger is that this sort of video can be misused in lots of ways to undermine what we want to do in Afghanistan and also the possibility of getting back together, " Panetta stated at Fort Happiness, Texas. He said it is necessary for the Usa to move rapidly to "send a definite signal to the planet that the Ough. S. will not tolerate this sort of behaviour and that isn't what the Ough. S. is about. ".