Two Marines in urination video interviewed
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 6:53 AM EST, Fri January 13, 2012
Washington (CNN) -- Military officials have interviewed two of four Marines in a video which shows them urinating on dead bodies sprawled out on the ground, a Marine Corps official told CNN Friday.
The Marines were not detained after the interview, the official said.
The names are not being made public, said the official, who did not want to be identified because the investigation is ongoing.
The identities were determined as officials in the United States and Afghanistan expressed shock and outrage regarding the video, which was posted Wednesday on a number of websites.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos said in a statement the behavior is "wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct and warrior ethos that we have demonstrated throughout our history."
Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, deputy commander of ISAF, called the actions on the video "disgusting."
"It is difficult to say what long-term impacts this might have, and I would hesitate to get into speculation, but obviously any sort of footage, any sort of activity of this kind that is grossly against all the moral values that the coalition forces are standing for are very much working against our cause and against everything that we are standing for and that we are here for," said Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a NATO ISAF spokesman.
The official added that the desecration of a body by U.S. troops could be considered a potential war crime.
President Barack Obama knows about the video, said White House spokesman Jay Carney, who said he didn't know if Obama had viewed it. "What it apparently depicts is deplorable, reprehensible and unacceptable," Carney said, adding the president agrees with Panetta's statement.
"The government of Afghanistan is deeply disturbed by a video that shows American soldiers desecrating dead bodies of three Afghans," according to a statement released by the presidential palace on behalf of Karzai.
"This act by American soldiers is simply inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms."
A Taliban spokesman called the video "barbaric."
And no religion that follows a holy text would accept such conduct. This inhuman act reveals their real face to the world," Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said via text message Thursday.
Ok so for all you critics of the act of killing but ok with the desecration of the body, WAR has rules. WE are supposed to be more honorable then THEM. That's the whole point of us invading.
I know what's happening in Afghanistan doesn't actually qualify as "war" under our constitution and the geneva conventions, regardless we are supposed to be better then them.
We have revealed ourselves over and over again to be no better than them. Which will hurt troop moral, support at home, recruiting, and our perceived power on a world stage.
What these Marines did definitly caused troops to lose respect back home and around the world, just like the so called "baby killers" in Vietnam put a dent in the "hero" status of American troops in that "war".
Fri Jan 13, 2012 8:10 am 
