MoFo: Marines Sport Nazi SS Flag in Afghanistan… yes, really.

[Lost-in-FL]

Last edited Thu Feb 9, 2012, 09:12 PM - Edit history (1)

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/02/marines-nazi-ss-flag-afghanistan





The Marine Corps' scout snipers in Afghanistan could probably use a safety stand-down. Just weeks after news broke that one elite unit of the forward-deployed Marines urinated on the corpses of dead Afghans, a photo has surfaced of another unit posing proudly beside a flag of the Nazi's killer SS troops.

[mailman82]

1. As a retired Marine!

I don't like this! It offends me!

[Lost-in-FL]

2. I am sure that as part of their training they learn about previous wars...

specially WWII.

I really hope this is a photoshop. This is embarrassing and so unnecessary.

[Lurks Often]

8. No, unless training changed since I went through Army Basic in 1993,

enlisted training, especially the entry to lower NCO, does not get training in military history. I pretty sure junior officers don't either. (I spent some time in ROTC) Military training is more concerned with teaching skills, techniques, planning and other such things more directly related to running a modern military.

[VMA131Marine]

9. As another former Marine

I'm right there with you

[gratuitous]

3. Your tax dollars at work

Am I a bad American if I'd rather spend tax dollars feeding our citizens? Nobody in Afghanistan ever did anything to me, and if they did, I don't want the American Wehrmacht taking it upon itself to deal with the situation.

[Bruce Wayne]

4. Are we sure it's not a KISS banner?

The similarity is creepy, especially considering their lead singer is Israeli by birth.

[The Midway Rebel]

6. That is being generous.

Paul Stanley was born in Manhattan, although he is Jewish.

Somehow these guys don't strike me of the Kiss fan club type though.

[Bruce Wayne]

10. How odd. Normally I say "not a Kiss fan" as a compliment.

Here, not so much.

[NAO]

23. Gene Simmons was born in Israel

[The Midway Rebel]

5. Shame on top of shame and waste.

Shame and disgust. Semper fuck.

[Fumesucker]

7. Scout Sniper

Sheisskopf platoon.

What I want to know is where the hell are the officers?

[jsmirman]

13. I don't know

it sure looks similar to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sig_%28rune%29

I'm hoping it's a photoshop.

[jsmirman]

20. I don't know which one you would like us to look at

nothing I saw there on the main page seemed nearly the match that the link I pasted displayed.

[jsmirman]

29. I saw that one on the line running across the top

and it does not look nearly as similar as the SS symbol looks to the flag they are displaying (the two are identical).

And I would further add that the swastika, itself, was used for different meanings before the Nazis. But you better damn well know its current association with the Nazis if you are going to use the symbol publicly.

[jsmirman]

12. Are we sure this is real?

I don't want to believe this is real...

[ellisonz]

16. Yes.

Major media organizations are running it. The military has confirmed it. There is no reason to think otherwise:

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group, sent a letter Thursday to Gen. James F. Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, and other officials, including Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, calling for the photos to be removed from the Internet and for everyone involved in the incident to be court-martialed.
"We've seen everything, but this literally astonishes us," said the group's president, Michael L."Mikey" Weinstein. "This is a felony; this is absolutely horrible in the worst degree."

Weinstein said the photographs were brought to his organization's attention by a group of 45 active-duty Marines who were afraid to go up the chain of command within the Marine Corps because they felt they would face reprisals.

Marine officials said those involved were not Nazi sympathizers.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/marines-nazi-symbol-afghanistan-camp-pendleton.html

How can you not know what those symbolize? Scout-sniper my ass.

[jsmirman]

21. Yeah, I caught that (see post #15)

unreal.

[dana_b]

14. where did you find that photo?

Highly disturbing but suspect only because it is hard to believe that they are THAT stupid!

Oh wait - some did piss on dead people. I should say stupid and repulsive.

[jsmirman]

15. Looks like it's real, unfortunately

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002290486

[dana_b]

24. crap

stupid fucking Nazi symbols below a United States flag!! I find this much more disturbing than burning a flag at an Occupy demonstration.

[jsmirman]

25. While

I'm not personally a fan of burning the flag, I have got to agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment.

[Lost-in-FL]

27. My bad... link didn't show.

Link is up now.

[dana_b]

28. thanks!

[FarCenter]

18. On the other hand, the Nazi's had all the best insignia and uniforms

If style and design of uniforms won wars, we'd all be speaking German.

[jsmirman]

19. And if Hitler spent less time building dioramas of imaginary cities

and more time understanding the realities of contemporary warfare, or less time being insane, we might all be speaking German.

Fetishists fetishize.

[Blue_Tires]

31. I'd argue that we'd be Ancient Romans

[Moonwalk]

26. This might come as no surprise, but apparently there are a white supremacist groups....

in the military.

The the guy arrested for planting a bomb along the route of an MLK parade a year back likely gained "experience with explosives while stationed with an artillery unit at Fort Lewis in the mid-1990s. (That's the same place where a military investigator told the Intelligence Report that he had identified some 320 racist extremists in the Army ranks around 2005.)" (Quote from here)

I do wonder, however, if these Marines even know what that symbol on the flag is all about. If they do, I wouldn't be surprised in the least to learn that they're white supremacists. We certainly make it easy to create such when every aspect of our country from politicians to airport security to Hollywood movies racially profile.

[Blue_Tires]

32. I had posted in the other thread

at how much of this was uncovered after the OKC bombing and people started to look at his background at Ft. Bragg...McVeigh was part of a decent-sized neo-nazi subgroup that had a bunch of little secret symbols to promote their allegiance

[Son of Gob]

30. The background seems weird

They're posed in front of a steep hill? What's holding the flags up?

[appleannie1]

33. Actually, they have had that insignia for years. It is 2 lightning bolts and they are Sniper Scouts

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the SS or Nazi or Hitler. The lightning bolts signify speed and deadly precision. The shape stands for who they are, Sniper Scouts. They have had it for years and no one objected until some religious group saw the picture and had a hissy fit.

[appleannie1]

34. From the MarineTimes

Eric Hornbuckle · Springfield, Virginia
As a Marine veteran with a son currently serving our beloved Corps, I am getting a little tired of seeing the rush to judgment by our media. Shame on the MCT. Check your facts before you besmirch our Brothers. Lightning strikes from out of nowhere, like a Marine Sniper, hence the lightning bolt SS.
Reply · 10 · Like · Follow Post · 6 hours ago

John Stryker · Platoon Sergeant at United States Marine Corps
I have this tattooed on my calf, I'm a Sniper not a Nazi. I have had this tattoo for the last 13 of my 17 years of being a Marine, way to pick up on old news Marine Corps Times.
Reply · 9 · Like · Follow Post · 6 hours ago

Ssgt Mckeon · United States Marine Corps
If you think Marines are defending nazism, then you are an idiot. Scout Snipers have used the "SS" as long as I can remember. the only difference is that now there's media and facebook telling everyone our business. Before the nazi party used the swastika, it was used as Boy Scout award. hitler turned it into a sigin that represented hate. Think about it zenly-what would be so bad about Marines rebranding the "SS". is it trademarked by the nazis's? doubt it. anyways, this is old news. has it had any profound effect on your ungrateful existence?
Reply · 5 · Like · 2 hours ago

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2012/02/marine-scout-snipers-nazi-ss-logo-020912/

[ellisonz]

37. SSgt McKeon is mistaken partially about the swastika.

Hitler didn't just appropriate the swastika, he altered its form making it an entirely different symbol. For those that don't know the history of that symbol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

[Viking12]

35. I think it likely that, "the symbolic appropriation may indeed be unwitting" as the article suggests

I also agree when the author concludes, "but witlessness is no more desirable a trait in downrange warriors than malice is."

[cthulu2016]

36. Very, very, very, very, very unlikely. Think it through

First, nobody designs insignia and flags who has no eye for/interest in of insignia and flags. And the double lightning bolt is one of the most famous military insignia ever.

Second, is the idea that whoever made the flag had no idea and that nobody who has ever seen the flag had any idea?


Here's my best face to put on it. These are men born around 1990. WWII is a distant thing. They have seen a zillion war movies and a zillion derivations of the SS insignia -- tatoo flash, bike designs, video games, album covers, etc. -- and looking like a nazi insignia doesn't jump out at them as a problem. It's just a snazzy logo to them. If it was a swastika they would probably be more aware.

The other alternative is that there are some neo-nazis there surrounded by a larger number of men who don't see the zap-zap flag as an obvious problem.

[ellisonz]

38. It's older than that...

Off the top of my head it dates back to Vietnam when snipers were established as a separate unit. Either way, any thinking person knows what it was previously used as by armed men.

[ocpagu]

39. I've read somewhere that...

..."an investigation found the symbol was meant to identify the Marines as scout snipers" and the soldiers just didn't know the meaning of the flag...

Is that some kind of sick joke?

I see ten soldiers in the pic, plus the photographer. 10 soldiers. Soldiers ignore the existence of the Nazi SS troops flag?

This symbol is everywhere. History books, movies, t'is almost impossible not to know the meaning of this flag being a civilian. And we are supposed to believe soldiers don't know what that means?

This is serious. Not because of the behavior of these group of soldiers, but because their repugnant action is being endorsed by top military officers. The official explanation given is obviously a blatant lie.

Really. This ruined my day. Repugnant.