Talk of the Nation

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington. A police officer draws a weapon and fires. We see that on TV dramas every night. But what actually happens afterwards? Do investigators check the flight of every bullet? What kind of questions do officers face, and what kind of sanctions if they messed up?

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

The Marine Corps has identified at least two of the four Marines in a video that surfaced last night as Marines based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The video shows four U.S. Marines in Afghanistan in full combat gear, standing over the corpses of three men, laughing and urinating on the bodies. The audio is difficult to understand.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Here's the tough guy (unintelligible).

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I think so (unintelligible).

Since the 2008 presidential campaign, many Washington watchers have advocated for an Obama-Hillary Clinton ticket. New York Times columnist Bill Keller says swapping Biden for the popular Secretary of State is the best way for President Obama to ensure re-election.

Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry all hope to derail Mitt Romney's front-runner status in the South Carolina primary. Former South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis joins NPR's Ken Rudin for a preview of the Palmetto State primary.

In his book, Justice and the Enemy, British journalist William Shawcross says the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders after World War II created a template for the trial of future war crimes. He considers the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, who's being held in Guantanamo prison and will be tried in a military commission.

In December, Ethiopian troops seized the city of Beledweyne, in Western Somalia, from al-Qaida-linked terrorist group al-Shabab, in an attempt to weaken their influence in the country. The decision to increase international presence in Somalia has raised serious questions among analysts about the effect armed intervention will have on the region.

NPR's Neal Conan reads from listener comments on previous show topics, including the moment that changed your life, differences between identical twins, and a proposal for a new calendar.

Sites like PolitiFact and Factcheck.org are designed to verify political claims and hold politicians accountable. But critics say fact-checking entities are themselves biased. The Weekly Standard's Mark Hemingway and Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post discuss fact-checking in American politics.