US Marines Pose With SS Flag In Afghanistan

[Flagg]

MSNBC

Marines posed with flag resembling Nazi SS logo in Afghanistan



By NBC News, msnbc.com and news services

SAN DIEGO -- The U.S. Marine Corps confirmed Thursday that a sniper team in Afghanistan posed for a photograph in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS.

Use of the SS symbol is not acceptable, and the Marine Corps has addressed the issue, Lt. Col. Stewart Upton said in a statement. He did not specify what action was taken.

Upton said the Marines in the photograph, posted on an Internet blog, are no longer with the unit. The picture was taken in September 2010 in Sangin province, Afghanistan.

The photo shows a flag with what appear to be the letters "SS" in the shape of jagged lightning bolts. The symbol resembles that used by SS units in World War II.

Another photograph, which showed a stylized “SS” on a rifle held by a Marine, also recently began circulating, the Marine Corps Times reported.

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 Adolf 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 classed as undesirables. The SS was declared to be a criminal organization at the Nuremberg war crime trials.

The Knights Armament Company blog published the photo in May 2011, and attributed it to Tayler Jerome, of the 1st recon BN Charlie Co.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation in Washington D.C., which found the picture online and alerted the Marine Corps Times, said it was outraged and wants a full investigation.

Foundation officer Mikey Weinstein said he has been flooded with calls from former Marines offended by the photo and from one member of his organization who is an Auschwitz survivor.

"This needs to be fully investigated. This is a complete and total outrage," he said.

War stresses to blame in Marine urination video?

Weinstein said his organization was sending a letter to the head of the Marine Corps and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Master Gunnery Sgt. Mark Oliva, a spokesman at Camp Pendleton, Calif., said the photo was brought to the attention of the 1 Marine Expeditionary Force inspector general in November, and he found there was no intent on the part of the Marines to identify themselves with a racist organization.

Oliva said the investigation found that the SS symbol was meant to identify the Marines as scout snipers, not Nazis, but it was nonetheless not acceptable.

This is the second time this year the Marine Corps has had to do damage control for its troops' actions.

The Marine Corps is also investigating a separate group of Marines recorded on video urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters.

Here is Upton's statement on the SS symbol, also called "runes." It was emailed to msnbc.com by Capt. Gregory Wolf, Marine Corps spokesman.

In November, the I MEF Inspector General became aware of the "SS" flag photo. They then received confirmation from the 1st Recon Battalion Commanding Officer in Afghanistan in November 2011 that several of the personnel in the photo were from 1st Recon Bn from the OEF 10.2 deployment (Afghanistan deployment in 2010). These Marines are no longer with the command. 1st Recon Bn is deployed forward again, but none of the personnel in the photo are still in the unit.

Certainly, the use of the "SS runes" is not acceptable and Scout Snipers have been addressed concerning this issue ("SS runes" are prohibited from use as a symbol or any other use).
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sickening, especially since they have been explicitly trained in not using them.

[Stofsk]

Jesus christ. There are ten guys in that picture. Plus however many were behind the camera. Plus anyone else who was like, walking by or whatever. Was there seriously not a single one who went 'Hang on a tic guys don't you think this might be sending the wrong message because like, goddamn'?

[Baffalo]

The picture raises several questions.
1) Where did they get the SS flag? Was it mailed to them? Or was it with their personal belongings?
2) If it was the property of a single Marine, does he believe in Nazi ideology?
3) Were the others joining because they believe they're like the SS? Or was this poor judgement on their part?
4) Whose decision was it to post it on a blog and why? Was this a bad political statement? Was this a joke?

This could be a really tasteless joke, or a bunch of people making a very bad political statement.

[Stark]

The SS has a whole bunch of 'is tough' 'elite' ideas around it. I wouldn't be surprised if they saw themselves as 'the American SS', in the sense that they are the 'elite' 'tough' guys in the American defence forces.

[Alkaloid]

I'd guess that someone has rocked up with the flag and gone, "hey, I got us this flag with SS on it cos we are Scout Snipers," and no one really twigged at what he was actually up to. It's just too blatantly stupid otherwise.

[Flagg]

I'd guess that someone has rocked up with the flag and gone, "hey, I got us this flag with SS on it cos we are Scout Snipers," and no one really twigged at what he was actually up to. It's just too blatantly stupid otherwise.

Certainly, the use of the "SS runes" is not acceptable and Scout Snipers have been addressed concerning this issue ("SS runes" are prohibited from use as a symbol or any other use).

Answer your question?

[Baffalo]

I have decided to officially break out the stamp.

[Alkaloid]

What question? I'm speculating that some neo-Nazi shithead was a little bit devious in getting his mates to pose in front of an SS flag because that's how these groups often operate. You plant the idea in someone's head that this is a 'Scout Snipers' flag and it may not occur to them when they see it that it is in fact an SS flag. It's a bit like the Kiss logo, I didn't realise for years that it essentially has the SS runes in it, but it clearly does, I just wasn't looking for it.

[Ritterin Sophia]

What question? I'm speculating that some neo-Nazi shithead was a little bit devious in getting his mates to pose in front of an SS flag because that's how these groups often operate. You plant the idea in someone's head that this is a 'Scout Snipers' flag and it may not occur to them when they see it that it is in fact an SS flag. It's a bit like the Kiss logo, I didn't realise for years that it essentially has the SS runes in it, but it clearly does, I just wasn't looking for it.

It's more likely they're all just really fucking stupid, knew they weren't allowed to use SS runes, but didn't know what SS runes actually were.

[madd0ct0r]

Yeah, it's not like the swastika - i didn't actually recognise it until the article explained the concept.

The Capt's statement is unclear whether they were told not to use it before or after the photo.

googling it - the ss flag was always white on black.

could be a neo-nazi statement
could be a neo-nazi trick by unit member or relative posting it in
could be a really stupid unit member googling 'ss logo'
could be a rock fan nicking it off the kiss logo
could be convergent design (scout snipers = ss. Hey, can we do that in lightning bolts? cool!)

some of those seem more likely then others, but I doubt the enitre group were making a neo-nazi statment.
hell, at the start of the war didn't some marines need coaching to recognise the union jack?

[Eulogy]

The United States is its own worst enemy. Nthing the utter stupidity of that, and now I'm wondering how the apologists will spin this.

[Sea Skimmer]

It's more likely they're all just really fucking stupid, knew they weren't allowed to use SS runes, but didn't know what SS runes actually were.

Yeah right, and maybe they all also all had never heard of a Nazi? It is absurdly more likely they knew exactly what they were doing and wanted some connection to the 'Waffen SS = SUPER ELITE' meme that always ignores the horrific losses SS divisions took in combat or the fact that half of them were barely trained to begin with. Any other explanation is really reaching for it. Now the really stupid part, that's a given but claiming ignorance is the most implausible excuse ever.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

This is a grave insult and dishonor to the service of every last WWII veteran who fought and died to defeat the Nazis. These pieces of human trash have aided and abetted anti-American terrorist acts nearly as surely as the animals who urinated on dead Taliban or massacred civilians in Haditha!

TO HELL with them! We don't need their kind representing us!

[Simon_Jester]

The United States is its own worst enemy. Nthing the utter stupidity of that, and now I'm wondering how the apologists will spin this.

Squad full of idiots, with an unknown but probably significant percentage of neo-Nazis.

What's there to spin?

[Flagg]

The fact that there isn't a single brown face in that picture is worth noting as well.

[Darth Wong]

What question? I'm speculating that some neo-Nazi shithead was a little bit devious in getting his mates to pose in front of an SS flag because that's how these groups often operate. You plant the idea in someone's head that this is a 'Scout Snipers' flag and it may not occur to them when they see it that it is in fact an SS flag. It's a bit like the Kiss logo, I didn't realise for years that it essentially has the SS runes in it, but it clearly does, I just wasn't looking for it.

When you saw the article, I suspect your first reaction was disbelief, as in "I can't believe that our soldiers, who are generally honourable and decent human beings, would do something like this knowing full well what it means." Then you started coming up with scenarios which would lead to some other conclusion.

The problem is the initial assumption: why should we assume that soldiers are generally more honourable or decent than anyone else? If you saw a bunch of gun-toting Confederate flag-waving Alabama hillbillies posing the same way, you would have no hesitation in taking the picture at face value, rather than looking for excuses why it might be something else.

I'm willing to give KISS a pass, given the fact that Gene Simmons himself is Jewish, and a bunch of 1970s rockers might well be dumb enough to honestly not know (particularly given the fact that there is no reason to believe any of them had any particular interest in history or military things). But given that people in the military have rules they're supposed to follow, and that one of those rules specifically prohibits the use of this particular symbol, I don't see any reason why these guys should get a free pass. This reminds me of the people who say "but the swastika is also used by ancient Buddhists!" That's actually true, but that doesn't mean you can reasonably assume that some jackass waving a swastika around is just being a proud Buddhist.

[Flagg]

What question? I'm speculating that some neo-Nazi shithead was a little bit devious in getting his mates to pose in front of an SS flag because that's how these groups often operate. You plant the idea in someone's head that this is a 'Scout Snipers' flag and it may not occur to them when they see it that it is in fact an SS flag. It's a bit like the Kiss logo, I didn't realise for years that it essentially has the SS runes in it, but it clearly does, I just wasn't looking for it.

Fine, then it counters your dumb statement that it must be one guy or some misunderstanding, or anything other than a bunch of dickwaving knuckledragging racist shitheels doing exactly what the picture depicts them doing.

[Alkaloid]

When you saw the article, I suspect your first reaction was disbelief, as in "I can't believe that our soldiers, who are generally honourable and decent human beings, would do something like this knowing full well what it means." Then you started coming up with scenarios which would lead to some other conclusion.

True enough, I was a shocked when I first saw it, but then I started thinking about why it may have happened. I quite frankly doubt that an entire Scout Sniper section in the 1st Recon battalion, joining both of which require passing a physical and mental selection process designed to weed out, among other things, individuals that hold attitudes likely to make them unable to work with any locals they might meet in country, would be neo nazis or stupid enough to think they would get away with this. The most likley scenario I can see, given that the photo was a propaganda piece on a neo nazi website, is someone in the unit is, and has rounded up a bunch of his unit, specifically the white ones, to get a photo taken in front of this new, unnoficial unit flag he has just whipped up, and they just did it, didn't even really think about it or what the flag looked like.

I'm not saying kiss were nazis or anything similar, just pointing out that even though it is literally a mirror image, I didn't notice it until someone pointed it out to me because I was thinking 'it's the Kiss logo' every time I looked at it, and it is entirely possible that having been told 'its the scout sniper logo' the SS connection may not have even crossed their minds.

It's also possible that they are all nazis and knew exactly what the flag meant. I don't know, but I doubt it simply because they are a unit inn the army, members will have come from all over and have different backgrounds, and if you were to grab 10 people off the street the odds any of them will identlfy as being a nazi are low simply because admitting to being a nazi in most of the west is like admiting to being a baby eating monster, and the odds of all ten people in one unit identifying as nazis are staggeringly low. If I see a picture of rednecks with the confederate flag, I assume they probably grew up in the same city and in very similar environments which are actually conducive to being a gun toting redneck who wants to lynch black people.

[noncredible]

I think it's fairly irrelevant whether they knew it was a Nazi symbol or not - they are not permitted to use it. If you're either unwilling or too retarded to follow regulations, you can't be trusted to carry around a bigass gun.

Thankfully, they were booted out of the unit, as it says.

[Baffalo]

I think it's fairly irrelevant whether they knew it was a Nazi symbol or not - they are not permitted to use it. If you're either unwilling or too retarded to follow regulations, you can't be trusted to carry around a bigass gun.

Thankfully, they were booted out of the unit, as it says.

You sure? I thought they had just moved on to different units. I might have read that wrong though.

[Block]

My first and only reaction, one guy is probably a racist shithead, the others are just meatheads who like to try and make themselves sound smarter by using big words incorrectly. Scout snipers tend to be slightly more intelligent than your average Marine grunt, which means in my experience they're still of below average intelligence. Most people I've served with have no idea what the SS were, who Himmler, Goebbels, Mengele, etc. were. They know Hitler,the Swastika, Nazis and maybe something about the holocaust, maybe. The article makes it sound like the briefings were done after the pictures were found, not before.

[Shadow6]

True enough, I was a shocked when I first saw it, but then I started thinking about why it may have happened. I quite frankly doubt that an entire Scout Sniper section in the 1st Recon battalion, joining both of which require passing a physical and mental selection process designed to weed out, among other things, individuals that hold attitudes likely to make them unable to work with any locals they might meet in country, would be neo nazis or stupid enough to think they would get away with this.

Have you read Generation Kill or watched the miniseries based on it? It follows the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the invasion of Iraq. You might reconsider your evaluation of the unit based on some of the individuals portrayed.

[Alkaloid]

Fine, then it counters your dumb statement that it must be one guy or some misunderstanding, or anything other than a bunch of dickwaving knuckledragging racist shitheels doing exactly what the picture depicts them doing.

Don't get me wrong, I don't for a second think that this was a misunderstanding. Someone involved here almost definately knew what this symbol was and what it meant. I don't think that necessarily means that all of them knew what it meant, or that any of the guys in the photo did. If the guy responsible is smart he won't be in the photo at all, and if worst comes to worst 10 unfortunate and slightly dim men get kicked out of the army and he is left on his own to keep pedeling his hateful shit.

I think it's fairly irrelevant whether they knew it was a Nazi symbol or not - they are not permitted to use it. If you're either unwilling or too retarded to follow regulations, you can't be trusted to carry around a bigass gun.

If your workplace prohibited you from showing any iconography from the Knights of the Order of the Garter, would you know what that meant? Would you look it up, or just assume that given that you don't know what that is, it's exceedingly unlikely that you will actually display any of it?

[Flagg]

I love how blindly the military reverence has become in this shithole of a country that blatant racism by its soldiers is desperately handwaved away by morons who just can't wrap their heads around the idea that alot of our soldiers are pieces of shit.

[noncredible]

Use of the SS symbol is not acceptable, and the Marine
Corps has addressed the issue, Lt. Col. Stewart Upton said in
a statement. He did not specify what action was taken.
Upton said the Marines in the photograph, posted on an
Internet blog, are no longer with the unit.

The wording makes it sound as though they've been booted out, but it isn't a direct quote, so it's impossible to be sure.