US Marines Posed With Nazi Symbol in Afghanistan

US Marines Posed With Nazi Symbol in Afghanistan

by Julie Watson | Associated Press | o2/10/2012

SAN DIEGO (AP) – “The Marine Corps on Thursday once again did damage control after a photograph surfaced of a sniper team in Afghanistan posing in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS - a special unit that murdered millions of Jews, gypsies and others.

The Corps said in a statement that using the symbol was not acceptable, but the Marines in the photograph taken in September 2010 will not be disciplined because investigators determined it was a naïve mistake.

The Marines believed the SS symbol was meant to represent sniper scouts and never intended to be associated with a racist organization, said Maj. Gabrielle Chapin, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton, where the Marines were based.

"I don't believe that the Marines involved would have ever used any type of symbol associated the Nazi Germany military criminal organization that committed mass atrocities in WWII," Chapin said. "It's not within who we are as Marines."

The Corps has used the incident as a training tool to talk to troops about what symbols are acceptable after it became aware of the photograph last November, Chapin said.

The image has since surfaced on an Internet blog, sparking widespread outrage and calls for a full investigation and punishment, including bringing those in the photograph and anyone who condoned it to court martial.

"This is a complete and total outrage," said Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, headquartered in Albuquerque, N.M.
His organization sent a letter to the head of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Amos, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday, demanding punishment for those involved.

It was the second time this year the Marine Corps has had to do damage control for actions of its troops. It's also investigating a separate group of Marines recorded on video urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters..
"First we have Marines peeing on dead bodies and now this," Weinstein said.

The Marines in the photograph are no longer with the unit. Chapin said she did not know if they are still in the Corps.

In the photo taken in the Afghanistan town of Sangin, the Marine Corps unit is posing with guns in front of an American flag and a large, dark blue flag with what appear to be the letters "SS" in the shape of white jagged lightning bolts.

Camp Pendleton spokesman, Master Gunnery Sgt. Mark Oliva, said he did not know where the flag came from but it was likely the property of one of the Marines in the photograph.

The photograph appeared on the blog for a military weapons company called Knight's Armament in Titusville, Fla. The company did not respond to emails or phone messages left by The Associated Press.

The SS, or Schutzstaffel, was the police and military force of the Nazi Party, which was distinct from the general army. Members pledged an oath of loyalty to Adolph Hitler.

SS units were held responsible for many war crimes and played an integral role in the extermination of millions of Jews along with gypsies and other people who were deemed undesirable. The SS was declared to be a criminal organization at the Nuremberg war crime trials.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, headquartered in Los Angeles, said he does not buy the explanation that posing with the flag was an innocent mistake and insisted the American public has a right to know what happened.

"If you look at any book on the Nazi period, this is the dreaded symbol of the SS, and to have a Marine Corps unit adopt it and put it beside the American flag when 200,000 Americans died to free the world of that dreaded symbol is just beyond the pale," he said.”

http://netscape.compuserve.com/pf/s...q=/ff/story/1001/20120210/1426.htm&sc=unknown
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What is with the Marines these days...are they having too many deployments again, or what? You cannot have a U.S. Marine put a Nazi symbol next to the American flag, and not expect to have repercussions. Further, they will not be disciplined because they were adjudged to have made a “naive mistake”.

There is nothing naive about the Marine Corp nor the specially trained elite sniper team who posed in front of the Nazi SS logo that was a Nazi hit team responsible for the murders of millions of Jews, gypsies, and others they deemed inferior. This is not acceptable whether they were exceptionally naive, deeply entrenched into the Nazi thingy. or just had a variation of ptsd.

They should be found guilty of disobeying orders, reveling in a secret organization, and serve time in the brig as compensation for their deeds, and find another logo that will be more suitable for their elite sniper team to carry around, like babies do with their teddies.

 

In regards to Nazi symbols, you do realize that the Swastika was in fact originally an American Indian symbol that the German party adopted don't you?

 

So the IED's they face, the combat they face isn't enough? Why should we care what they do, they face the real danger, and its only the home-grown, (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s that despise them... thanks agent, another stellar job of (*)(*)(*)(*)ing up why we need to support our troops, not despise them, as the left does at every turn! Do YOU REALIZE how many hundreds of thousands of troops have cycled through? And what do YOU DO? You pick a story that only represents what percentage of our troop levels??? Oh NO, I'll wait, tell the percentage of what these people are to the whole.. really.. take the time and figure it out...

 

Seriously, who cares? This is somehow national news?

 

It was actually a KISS flag, but somebody was standing in front of the KI.

 

VERY well said ....... but it'll float over her head..... not degrading enuf of the troops.

 

No, it was originally an Indian Indian symbol... not that it's relevant, because the troops weren't photographed with a swastika.

 

This has been the THING that has pissed me off the most, the left finds some (*)(*)(*)(*)ing story that is BAD and rides it like a horse, and NEVER once takes the time to compare whatever that story is to the actual number of troops that have done service! It's (*)(*)(*)(*)ing galling to see this (*)(*)(*)(*)! The vast majority of our troops have done their service honorably! These scumbags only pull some garbage out of when our troops do wrong, have they ever once posted of a medal of valor that our other troops earned? NO! You won't see that... these scum are so wretched, they have become less than human, they regard their own citizen soldiers with disdain... If there is need for a traitor tree, its for these scum.... If it comes to that, I'll be glad to provide the rope! I get a corporate discount if I buy in bulk...

 

It was a symbol of the Hopi (iirc) Indians as well... I am not sure which pre-dates...

I also was wondering if it was the kiss logo... lol.

An investigative panel dismissed any charges because it was simply ignorance on their part, thinking it stood for "Sniper Scouts". This is sort of a non story meant to disparage the troops.

Do not like.

 

Actually it's a highly used symbol in most cultures. Mayan, Buddhist, Sanskrit. It even resembles the Greek cross.

On one of my trips across America I found myself at the Corn Palace in Mitchell South Dakota. Every year they decorate the same building with corn, murals, husks, silk, leaves. etc.

They have a hall and corridor with all of the pictures dating back as far as the start of the festival. Somewhere in the 1920s the theme of the Corn Palace was decorated in swastikas.

 

Just a case of mistaken identity...

Marines: Nazi flag was mistaken for their own
February 9, 2012 - Marines caught posing with a Nazi flag say they thought the SS symbol was meant to represent their own sniper scouts team.

 

You do realize that's irrelevant, right? Any symbols associated with a hate group is banned. That said I don't think they're racists, just really dumb.

Why would it be? They get paid very well to do it.

Because US troops represent the US abroad, their actions reflect on us.

Funny... every time Veteran's Benefits it seems it's Republicans looking to cut funds.

Actually you'll find a lot of LA-style street gangs and hate groups use the US military to learn how to be better killers. It's especially common for groups like the Imperial Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. But then there's another problem brought to the fore here that needs to be addressed, which is a lack of education; that someone in a developed nation doesn't recognize the SS runes for the symbols they are is an indictment of the education system.

 

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My two brothers were in the Marines, left as boys and years later came back as hard living and hard drinking gorgeous Irish young men. They were my heroes. My older brother taught me how to ride my first bicycle, and my middle brother taught my sister and me the f-word after his kayak tipped over in the lake across the street and he had to drag it to shore using the
f-word all the way home.

At dinner, with Mum, Dad, six of us kids, and two uncles were eating and I asked my sister, who had witnessed the kayak incident, to pass the f**k**g butter and she said "certainly, if you will pass the f**k**g bread"...All hell broke loose. Our uncles were screaming at Mum, Dad was preparing to wash my mouth out with soap, and my sister was pointing at my brother who was trying to quietly eat his dinner.

My best friend was an only child and her Mother had divorced her father, and she always loved to visit. She said: "There's always something happening at your house."

Anyway, you can readily see where I feel the Marines should be held to a very high standard.

 

This is a bit off topic, but here's an interesting piece of history I learned while checking out the OP story:

http://www.45thdivisionmuseum.com/History/SwastikaToThunderbird.html

 

The military must be dredging the bottom of the barrel recruiting people these days.

Stormfront types, ghetto gang-bangers, illiterates, mental defectives, and violent right-wingers are really destroying the reputation of the military, especially marines and regular army.

Too many scandals involving really stupid or sociopathic characters are emerging, from the scandals in the Bush years to the marines urinating on corpses and now this.

And what we know is very likely only the tip of the iceberg.
There are probably many more incidents of these types that never get reported.

We need to go back to a national service model rather than the all volunteer service model we have today.
Many people who choose to join the military are simply too defective intellectually and morally to be good for the country.

 

What is with libs like you who hate the US military so much?

 

I guess that we find racism, stupidity and a mindless propensity for violence to be a national embarrassment when practiced by people who are supposed to behave like intelligent adults.

This is the sort of stuff we expect from right-wingers, racist and sociopaths.
Unfortunately, those are the very ones who have infested the military and are shaming our country.

On a larger scale, the emergence of the modern right-wing movement inspired by the likes of Nixon and Reagan has coincided with the degeneration of society as a whole.

That's what happens when a group of people who are not too intelligent to begin with get too much influence in shaping the social and political agendas.

The country was much better off when right-wingers were merely a rump lunatic fringe squirreled away in inbred groups like the kkk and the birchers and were the laughing stock of society.

 

What racism?

Do you really think the Afghans were thinking about Jews a thousand years ago when they adopted that symbol?

I don't think the Marines were glorifying the Nazi's or what the Nazi's stood for.

But all you libs are so bitter toward the military that you dump on them every chance you get.

It's really sickening because they are the best Americans we have to offer.

 

Notice the pent up hatred of the US Military here? The Hard Left loathes the military in peacetime, and only pays it lip service in war time as is politically necessary. The USMC is especially hated because they resisted PC as long as possible.


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Bwahahahahah!!!!



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I'm sure they were paying tribute to native Americans. I mean that seems logical, right?

 

Who cares if they are Nazi sympathizer? I thought conservatives love the Jews? If you go to war it becomes justifiable to be a racist? Seriously?

 

The symbol seems to be worldwide.

If I believed the Marines in that picture were pro-Nazi I would not approve of that.

But I think they are just typical products of the lib public school system and didn't know their history very well.

 

So they are just compete moron liberal troops? Is that what you are going with?

 

I refer you back to my previous remarks.

The lib public schools do not do a good job of educating students and this may be a perfect example of that.