American soldiers shown urinating on dead Afghans.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:

Footage showing American soldiers urinating on dead Afghan bodies has sparked outrage across the world - with Afghanistan's leaders labelling it as a 'recruitment tool for the Taliban'. 

The 'disgusting' and 'highly reprehensible' 40-second clip shows four men in combat gear standing over the three corpses with their genitals exposed as they relieve themselves. 

The men can be heard joking 'Have a great day, buddy', 'Golden like a shower' and 'Yeahhhh!' as they groan with relief whilst urinating. 

It has sparked anger from Afghans, with top negotiator from President Hamid Karzai's High Peace Council Arsala Rahmani, saying it will have a 'very, very bad impact on peace efforts'. 

He added: 'Looking at such action, the Taliban can easily recruit young people and tell them that their country has been attacked by Christians and Jews and they must defend it.' 

The Marine spokesman claims that the video has not yet been "verified as authentic" but you can watch it here and judge for yourselves. Let me first warn you that it is quite unsettling.

This is, of course, the LAST thing the US military needs at this time. As it will indeed make it much harder to convince the Afghanistan people that the soldiers are there to protect them, and to move forward in efforts to end the war.

No matter how the US spins this, the video clearly depicts Americans urinating on Afghans, or to the Islamic mind, Christians pissing on Muslims.

And we have to realize that if this one incident was caught on film that there are undoubtedly dozens of other episodes of similar behaviors that are happening which are not. Which tends to suggest that incidents like Abu Ghraib, the 2007 shooting of Iraqi civilians from a helicopter, and Jeremy Morlock and his "kill team," may in fact be far more widespread within the US military than we have wanted to believe.

But really, how could we expect any different?

These young men are trained to see the individual they are aiming their weapons at not as human beings, but simply as the "enemy." They dehumanize them by calling them "camel-jockeys," "ragheads," "Haji," "sand niggers," or any other epithet which makes blowing the top of their skulls off more palatable.

Essentially it is no different than what was done in other wars.  Krauts, Japs, Charlie, have all been used to differentiate the enemy from the REAL human beings fighting them, right?  And it is that very method of ritually stripping away what makes them like those who are killing them, which allows for these kinds of atrocities.

How effective would a soldier be if he allowed himself to think of the person he was shooting at as somebody's father? Or uncle? Or son?

And once you kill this inhuman monster how do you feel about them then?  I think the soldiers in the video linked above have answered that question very clearly.

I am painfully aware that President Obama cannot end this war in Afghanistan before this next election, though the realization for why that is the case leaves a disgusting taste in my mouth.

But when this election is over I think it is time for the anti-war effort to go into overdrive.

There never WAS a reason for American troops to kill the people living in Afghanistan, or Iraq for that matter, and it is way past time for that killing to stop. WAY past time Mr. President, way past time.