There has been a huge outcrying over the video of Marines urinating on dead Taliban bodies, and Oliver North weighs in on the issue.
Missing the Mark — Again
Our so-called mainstream media have launched a new anti-military feeding frenzy. The furor is over a crude 39-second video showing four Marines apparently urinating on the bodies of three dead Taliban combatants. In hysteric rhetoric akin to “news reports” on the 2004 Abu Ghraib photos, hordes of print and broadcast “correspondents” rushed to describe the viral video, which surfaced Jan. 11, as evidence of an “atrocity” and “desecration” that reflects the “depravity” of our military in general and the U.S. Marines in particular. As usual, the effort to denigrate our armed forces means that the potentates of the press ignored far more important stories.
On Wednesday, before Marine Corps or U.S. officials in Afghanistan could even verify the origin or authenticity of the video, it was up on more than a dozen websites and produced an instant firestorm. Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos described what appears on the video as “not consistent with our Corps values” and ordered an immediate investigation of “every aspect of the filmed event to determine the facts.” He pledged, “Once the investigation and preliminary inquiry are complete and the facts have been determined, then the Marine Corps will take the appropriate next steps.”
That’s what should happen. But that wasn’t enough for the masters of the media. Within hours of the video’s appearing on the Internet, “reporters” launched a global race to interview any and all who were willing to express righteous outrage over “the actions of our servicemen” and thereby disparage the reputations of the millions of soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines who have served honorably and courageously in more than a decade of war.