I don’t enjoy following the douche-baggery we call our political system as it tends to upset me. And generally there’s no reason for me to comment on anything our government tools say or do, as my one and only reader most often agrees with me anyway. However, this morning, as I was scanning the MSNBC news headlines, one in particular caught my attention: Perry: Marines in video are ‘kids’, not criminals.

If you haven’t heard about it, read about it, or worse yet, watched the video of it — we have among our military a few guys who thought it would be funny to piss on human corpses. There are many words to describe that sort of behavior: disgusting, disrespectful, stupid, and criminal. Take your pick. (The correct answer is: Technically, all of the above.)

As stated in the MSNBC article by Anne Flaherty, “A military criminal investigation and an internal Marine Corps review are under way. The Geneva Conventions forbid the desecration of the dead.”

With all the atrocities being committed in these horrible wars, why should we care about this one in particular? The guys are dead, so they don’t even know about it. The peeing Marines don’t care because they’ve been trained not to. And apparently Perry doesn’t care because he believes boys will be boys — what’s the big deal?

“Obviously, 18-, 19-year-old kids make stupid mistakes all too often. And that’s what’s occurred here… What’s really disturbing to me is the kind of over-the-top rhetoric from this administration and their disdain for the military.” –Texas Governor Rick Perry on CNN’s, State of the Union.

Seriously? Marines piss on dead combatants, but what really disturbs Perry is the fact that this administration is critical of them? What is really fucking disturbing to me is that our military trained those “kids” to be brutal and heartless. Who would even think of doing something like that?! Who would think of doing that are young men whom our government have brain-washed into seeing “the enemy” as sub-human. Stupid mistakes are drinking too much, cheating on an exam, taking the car without permission, or being videotaped desecrating a corpse. Seeing another human being lying dead on the ground and choosing to piss on him was not a mistake: it was a choice and a statement that said, “We are Americans and you are worthless pieces of shit.”

I am so very sorry for the families of the men whose bodies were treated with such disrespect. But I’m also sorry for those Marines. They will have to live with the memory of that act, and of undoubtedly far worse affronts to human life and dignity, for the rest of their lives. They are going to come home damaged and deeply scarred by the things they’ve seen and done while draped in a flag that made them less human.

While I am ashamed of those men and their actions, I do agree with Perry on one thing: these men aren’t criminals. However it is hardly “over-the-top rhetoric” to call the behavior of these Marines “deplorable” — over-the-top rhetoric is to say they were just boys being boys.

I am not an investigative journalist and the Geneva Conventions is a very long and complex document; that said this is what I found: “Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field. Geneva, 6 July 1906. Chapter I: Article 3. After every engagement the belligerent who remains in possession of the field of battle shall take measures to search for the wounded and to protect the wounded and dead from robbery and ill treatment.”