It's awfully interesting what provokes people. News of the day is a video (now pulled from YouTube) filmed by a Marine of his buddy tossing a puppy off a cliff. Considering we have recently heard accusations of US Marines killing civilians in front of their children, raping little girls, even raping and murdering their pregnant comrades, this comes as no great shock to my system.
(Then again, teenagers do mean things to animals for fun in all sorts of contexts, and no branch of any military has a monopoly on rape, torture, murder or general meanness. So let's not lose our perspective.)
Here's what does surprise me: this story made headlines fast and stuck. Compare this to videos circulated on the Internet in 2004 of US Marines raping Iraqi women in detention. No huge media frenzy there. Hmm. As Webscout at the LA Times puts it:
"There's a debate to be had about where the death of a puppy lies along the spectrum of war horrors, and why a video like this can gain wide online attention when other outrageous footage -- say, involving the death of humans -- is only rarely circulated."Indeed.
Another surprise: the swift and categorical action taken by the Corps. In a statement released today, the Corps referred to the video as "shocking and deplorable," and launched an investigation.
All fine and well, but isn't this is the same institution that covered up the massacre of civilians at Haditha for months, and sat on the Abu Ghraib photographs for almost a year. (Excellent discussion of this history in a recent Frontline.)
So, what's up with the Marines? And what's up with popular sentiment? The same American public that is now deploring all soldiers as "puppy killers" hemmed and hawed when news of My Lai broke. I'm not defending the puppy-pitcher. I'd just like to see the same kind of black-listing when our soldiers commit actual war crimes.
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