Unless You've Been Shot at by the Taliban 'Shut Your Mouth, War Is Hell': Allen West Weighs in on Urinating Marine Scandal

Rep. Allen West (R-FL), a former Army lieutenant colonel, sent The Weekly Standard an email commenting on a recent video depicting what appears to be four U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban terrorists. The email reads as follows [emphases added]:

I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.

Rep. West, who served in both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, wrote the email in response to how some U.S. politicians and media pundits have reacted to the Marines' video. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for example, has strongly condemned the actions depicted in the video.

"Anyone, anyone found to have participated or know about it, having engaged in such conduct, must be held fully accountable," Hillary Clinton said yesterday, calling the incident a "potential war crime."

The four men in the video were members of a sniper team in a unit that lost seven members in action last summer in Afghanistan, according to Newser.

(h/t The Weekly Standard)