Could someone please explain to me that it is fine to kill a Taliban terrorist, in fact you will be praised for it, but you cannot pee on them. That is definitely a no, no. 
I’m sure the Taliban don’t see killing of their members to be “fine” either. But desecration of the dead is a big taboo in most societies, with the remains being seen as sacred objects. And particularly in hard-core Muslim ones, in which the US is trying to build hearts and minds. There may even be grudging respect for valor on the battlefield, and urinating on the vanquished is not a valorous act.
Killing enemy combatants can be a necessary means to an end in achieving wartime goals.
Peeing on them is just being a dick, and can actively work against the goals you’re trying to achieve (such as by alienating local populations or making your opponents hate you even more)
I think jjimm nailed it. An incredibly boorish thing to do, and beyond stupid to record the act.
Related - it’s OK to show bloody corpses, but not the marine’s genitalia. Really?
I’ll give you a rather more extreme example with which you may hopefully be able to draw an parallel: do you remember in 2004 when four Blackwater contractors were ambushed and killed in Fallujah? Pictures of their corpses being dragged around town behind cars, beaten, incinerated, and strung up were broadcast around the world. The international outrage, particularly in the US was palpable. It was horrific. But contractors were being killed all over Iraq at the time - what was it about this particular incident that made it so unpalatable (and created impetus the first Battle of Fallujah)? After all, they were already dead when it happened.
I think it’s shameful and does much harm in our efforts to not be hated around the world.
My eyes have been opened. We aren’t better than this.
Do you need to pee on them?
You don’t understand why desecrating the dead is a big no-no in our society? That’s pretty disturbing.
You kill them because you have to. Self-defence (even on a military scale) is not a big no-no in our society.
Same reason we can nuke people but not waterboard them. The former is necessary to fight a war. The latter is not.
Mangetout:
Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.
Maybe the Marines had already given their water to local orphans and the guy was on fire?
Since you’re taking the position that defiling a corpse is OK, I’m sure you had no problem with the bodies of U.S. Marines being dragged around Mogadishu some years ago, yes?
Or is this more of an us vs. them issue, and peeing is all right in this case because they’re classified as terrorists?
Actually, I’d like to point out that the Taliban is not a terrorist organization according to the US, UK, or Canada. Tehrik-i-Taliban is, but they’re not the same thing.
Too many people in the West assign their own outlooks on different cultures, and are surprised when people from those cultures don’t love them back.
Instead they look on the West as effete, hypocrites who are happy to use military force, but then act ashamed of their actions, and try to make them like them.
Not surprisingly, in spite of our physical power they look on us with contempt.
A bit like a man who’s attacked by a mugger, beats the crap out of him and then trys to rehabilitate him.
In many non Western cultures might is respected, victory is respected, and mercy is looked on as weakness.
If you’ve won then god is on your side because you’re right.
The sight of bodies being abused shocks US, but to people who torture and behead living people …not so much.
Watching television news doesn’t make you an expert.
Peeing on the bodies demonstrates that you have absolutely no regard for them or their culture. This is important because we are not just trying to defeat the Taliban on the battlefield, but also convince a significant part of Afghan society that the US military are there to help them build a better life free of Taliban tyranny. When a video is released of American military being so disrespectful, it undermines our ulitmate goal of winning “heart and minds.”
Do any of those cultures respect the time-honored warrior tradition of peeing on your enemy?
I wonder how many people were “shocked” versus how many times the media painted us a picture of a shocking story we should be shocked by.
Speaking of cultural bias, you seem to be of the opinion that our culture doesn’t abuse corpses, but there have been a few scandals now in which US troops have documented themselves abusing corpses. It would seem that it is a somewhat common practice (common enough that it is discussed on these boards ever few months when such an incident occurs). Is it possible that you are more aware of the actions of people who “torture and behead living people,” but tend to tune it out when done by people from your own culture?. Also, we’ve been using torture quite a lot in the last ten years.
No we haven’t. Waterboarding is not torture, it’s an interrogation enhancment technique. So there.
It is so interesting to listen to knuckleheads, especially when they inform me of “facts” like how everyone thought it was “okay” when an American is beheaded.
We all recall the outpouring of support for the murderers during all those beheadings, right? And how those who spoke out and said that beheading is a bad thing to do were shouted down by the pro-beheading majority? And how the leadership of the US government issued those statements like, “Hey, fellow Americans – don’t get all riled up about your countryman being beheaded. Ain’t no thang.”
I mean, I must have missed all of that, but surely it happened. Otherwise people wouldn’t keep saying that it is okay for the Taliban to behead people.