American Solders Actions Cause Outrage in Afghanistan

Taliban: Peace talks not harmed by urinating-Marines video I was surprised to see this video on MSN.com. The video shows American soldiers urinating on corpses dead Taliban fighters. Of course everyone in the so-called civilized Western world is outraged that their soldiers have indulged in such demeaning actions. Afghanistan authorities are also angry, they have called for action from the US and asked for the concerned soldiers to be punished after investigation into the incident.

This video comes at a bad time when US is preparing to negotiate with its protege - The Taliban. I call the Taliban as US Protege because it was the brainchild of American congressman Charlie Wilson who funnelled billions of dollars in the late 1970s and 1980s to arm Taliban fighters (then called Mujahideen) so they could defeat Soviet Union. Now the Taliban has come back to bite the hand that fed it - the US.

It is true that anyone would be outraged to see someone urinating on dead people, even if they were bad people. I definitely believe that they have a right to be angry and the guilty people must be punished. But let us take a step back and examine what the Taliban were doing with their prisoners. It is well known they used extreme methods of torture such as gouging out eyes, cutting off ears, nose and decapitating them etc. Bloody methods of torture and now this incident has them up in arms and has made them very angry. What about the families of those whose bodies that were returned by them without ears, nose, eyes, etc? Did they apologize or were they even mentioned in the media?

If America were to apologize for the actions of its soldiers in front of Tailban leaders, it seems like the world's superpowers are kneeling in front of a rowdy, rogue entity whose sole aim is to kill everyone who doesn't agree and follow its ideology. This video which I hope is the plant of a mischief monger and not true comes at a bad time in the world history. This might just be the fulcrum needed to pivot Taliban back to power in Afghanistan and then all the war effort of the past decade will be in the naught.

Only time can tell what will happen.... I hope whatever happens leads to a more peaceful and verdant world.