US MARINES CAUGHT ON TAPE PEEING ON DEAD TALIBAN SOLDIERS!

The U.S. Marine Corps is investigating a shocking video that appears to show four Marines cracking wise while desecrating the bodies of three dead Taliban terrorists.

Dressed in full combat gear and holding rifles at their sides, the four men stand over the three corpses sprawled out near an overturned wheelbarrow. The warriors start urinating on the bloodied bodies, and cracking sickeningly insensitive jokes.

“Have a great day, buddy,” one of the chuckling men in camouflage says in a comic, high-pitched voice as the group defiles the dead.

“Golden — like a shower,” another jokes.

The graphic, 39-second video went viral on the Internet Wednesday, sparking comparisons with the photos of soldiers posing with naked captives at Abu Ghraib prison — and threatening to spark a new, anti-American outcry around the Muslim world.

“While we have not yet verified the origin or authenticity of this video, the actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our Corps,” the USMC said in a statement. “The matter will be fully investigated.”

A Department of Defense spokesman offered scathing criticism of the conduct.

“Regardless of the circumstances or who is in the video, this is egregious, disgusting behavior,” defense spokesman Capt. John Kirby said, according to CNN. “It’s hideous. It turned my stomach.”

U.S. military law prohibits corpse desecration and the Geneva Convention requires honorable treatment for combatants and civilians after death.

"The government of Afghanistan is deeply disturbed by a video that shows American soldiers desecrating dead bodies of three Afghans," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a statement Thursday.

"This act by American soldiers is simply inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms,” he said. “We expressly ask the US government to urgently investigate the video and apply the most severe punishment to anyone found guilty in this crime."

Nihad Awad, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Wednesday condemning “this apparent desecration of the dead” and noting tha

t it could, if found to have been committed by U.S. troops, endanger other American soldiers.

The video, which appears to have been filmed by a fellow serviceman, possibly one who used a camera phone, was reportedly filmed in Afghanistan.

The person who first posted the video to YouTube late Tuesday identified the men as an elite sniper team from the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines out of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The battalion served in the northern Helmand Province in Afghanistan last summer and returned home in the fall.

U.S. military officials confirmed to NBC News that the men in the video were members of a Marine sniper team from Camp Lejeune and that the incident took place last year in Afghanistan.

The video’s uploader, known by the handle “semperfiLoneVoice” — a reference to the Marine Corps’ motto Semper fidelis — added a plaintive caption: “I thought Marines were supposed to do the right thing when no one is watching.”

The video, if the men in it are found to have been Marines, could be a setback for President Obama as his administration works to bring the decade-old war in Afghanistan to a close by gradually turning over security to the Afghans by 2014.

In 2004, photos of Army soldiers abusing prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, and reports of torture of detainees there, caused a global firestorm. Eleven soldiers were eventually convicted of various charges related to mistreatment at the prison.

Outrage over the Abu Ghraib scandal also prompted several retaliatory acts by Muslim militants, including the beheading of civilian contractor Nick Berg.

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