Whiz kids of a dying empire

This video is disgusting and Not Safe for Work. The video is, however,
instructive of what a decade of war does to a military and a country.

Some people whistle past graveyards. Not us.

No, Americans send their Marines to Afghanistan to piss on the graveyard of a terminally ill empire -- ours. Americans send their military to Afghanistan to fight in a war long past its expiration date for an empire approaching its.

Our dying empire sends its youth to fight an endless war against barbarians, all in the name of protecting the homeland, preserving our freedom and fostering democracy. Supposedly. At least that's the official story put out there by Washington and swallowed whole by the media and the public.

At some point, though, you realize something. You realize we have become that from which we must be saved -- barbarians. Barbarians who revel in killing. Barbarians who no longer can restrain the beast within.

Barbarians who piss on the dead.

WE TURN ON the television or log in to YouTube to see our young Marines -- our sons -- pissing not on the enemy -- not ultimately -- but instead on what separates us from the animals. We watch in decadent comfort as American Hessians piss on the humanity of Taliban fighters in a land known as the "graveyard of empires."

We shake our heads (or maybe not) as our sons piss on human dignity . . . and on respect for the dead . . . and on the "civilization" we say we fight to uphold. We gawk as our children -- clad in camouflage and carrying sniper rifles -- piss on their dead targets and on our own awaiting grave.

Once you have handed the moral high ground to the "barbarians" against whom you struggle, you have nothing more for which to fight. You have met the enemy . . . in the mirror.

THE BBC REPORTS on what our barbarians have done to Afghanistan's in a war exposed as having no particular point anymore:

Afghanistan's Taliban has condemned a video that appears to show US Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters.

A spokesman told the BBC: "It is not a human action, it's a wild action that is too shameful for us to talk about."

But Reuters quoted a Taliban spokesman as saying the video would not derail attempts at peace talks to end the war.

The US military is investigating the authenticity of the video and the Marine Corps said the actions were not consistent with its core values.

The footage shows four men in military fatigues appearing to urinate on three apparently lifeless men. They have brown skin, bare feet and are dressed in loose-fitting outfits. One appears to be covered in blood.

A man's voice is heard saying: "Have a great day, buddy."

The origin of the video is not known, nor is it clear who posted it online.

The men in military fatigues seem to be aware they are being filmed.

(snip)

Already, the video has stirred up anger in Afghanistan about the foreign military presence.

"The US soldiers who urinated on dead bodies of Muslims have committed a crime," Feda Mohammad told Reuters in Kabul.

"Since they've committed such a crime, we don't want them on our soil anymore."

Afghan Member of Parliament Fawzia Kofi said ordinary Afghans, no matter how they felt about the Taliban, would be upset by the video.

"It's a matter of a human being, respect to a human being," she told the BBC.

"I believe that the brutal acts that the Taliban did here during their government and even now is condemned by Afghans. So is watching a brutal act by international forces. We condemn that as well," she added.