General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMoFo: Marines Sport Nazi SS Flag in Afghanistan… yes, really.
Last edited Thu Feb 9, 2012, 09:12 PM - Edit history (1)
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/02/marines-nazi-ss-flag-afghanistanThe 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
(399 posts)I don't like this! It offends me!
Lost-in-FL
(7,093 posts)specially WWII.
I really hope this is a photoshop. This is embarrassing and so unnecessary.
Lurks Often
(5,455 posts)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
(4,159 posts)I'm right there with you
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)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
(692 posts)The similarity is creepy, especially considering their lead singer is Israeli by birth.
The Midway Rebel
(2,191 posts)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
(692 posts)Here, not so much.
NAO
(3,425 posts)The Midway Rebel
(2,191 posts)Shame and disgust. Semper fuck.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Sheisskopf platoon.
What I want to know is where the hell are the officers?
Response to Lost-in-FL (Original post)
Obamanaut This message was self-deleted by its author.
jsmirman
(4,507 posts)it sure looks similar to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sig_%28rune%29
I'm hoping it's a photoshop.
Response to jsmirman (Reply #13)
Obamanaut This message was self-deleted by its author.
jsmirman
(4,507 posts)nothing I saw there on the main page seemed nearly the match that the link I pasted displayed.
Response to jsmirman (Reply #20)
Obamanaut This message was self-deleted by its author.
jsmirman
(4,507 posts)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
(4,507 posts)I don't want to believe this is real...
Major media organizations are running it. The military has confirmed it. There is no reason to think otherwise:
"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
(4,507 posts)unreal.
dana_b
(11,546 posts)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
(4,507 posts)stupid fucking Nazi symbols below a United States flag!! I find this much more disturbing than burning a flag at an Occupy demonstration.
I'm not personally a fan of burning the flag, I have got to agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment.
Lost-in-FL
(7,093 posts)Link is up now.
dana_b
(11,546 posts)FarCenter
(19,429 posts)If style and design of uniforms won wars, we'd all be speaking German.
jsmirman
(4,507 posts)and more time understanding the realities of contemporary warfare, or less time being insane, we might all be speaking German.
Fetishists fetishize.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Moonwalk
(2,322 posts)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
(55,445 posts)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
(1,502 posts)They're posed in front of a steep hill? What's holding the flags up?
appleannie1
(5,082 posts)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
(5,082 posts)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
(27,711 posts)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
(6,012 posts)I also agree when the author concludes, "but witlessness is no more desirable a trait in downrange warriors than malice is."
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)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
(27,711 posts)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
(1,954 posts)..."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.