Desecration of the dead defies religious teachings

The outrage over a video allegedly showing U.S. marines urinating on
dead Taliban fighters provided Americans with a disturbing reminder that
war can reduce men to revenge-seeking brutality that defies human
norms.

It's nothing new: the desecration of enemy soldiers during
the Civil War,  Japanese soldiers during World War II, North Vietnamese
fighters during the Vietnam War and Iraqis and Afghans in the most
recent conflicts is well documented.

Such acts have religious
implications. "Virtually all religions have reverence for the dead.
Different religions, especially the monotheistic faiths, don't accept
any desecration of their own dead, or the enemy's dead," said Carl
Raschke, a religious studies professor at the University of Denver.