A new atrocity - US troops accused of murdering family.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060630/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_soldiers_investigated_5

BEIJI, Iraq - Five U.S. Army soldiers are being investigated for allegedly raping a young woman, then killing her and three members of her family in
Iraq, a U.S. military official said Friday.

The soldiers also allegedly burned the body of the woman they are accused of assaulting in the March incident, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

However, a U.S. official close to the investigation said at least one of the soldiers, all assigned to the 502nd Infantry Regiment, has admitted his role and been arrested. Two soldiers from the same regiment were slain this month when they were kidnapped at a checkpoint near Youssifiyah.

The killings appeared to have been a "crime of opportunity," the official said. The soldiers had not been attacked by insurgents but had noticed the woman on previous patrols.


Could it be that the later attack on the 502nd troops, resulting in the mutilation and kidnapping, were the result of revenge for the murders?

Will we again hear about the "stress" the troops are under as an excuse?

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy.” - Gandhi

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. kick for some comments.

[helderheid]

2. Good GOD.

It does sound like it was revenge - this is all so AWFUL.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. That was my first thought on reading the story.

[helderheid]

4. Of course we won't hear about this on the nightly news.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. Possibly.

Or perhaps Babineau or Menchaca were going to talk.

[Qanisqineq]

5. I heard this on the radio

Air America news. I am disgusted. No other words. Rape disgusts me beyond words, especially soldiers raping women in other countries. For some reason that just gets me more than anything and to be perfectly honest, my first reaction is shoot them all between the eyes. Horrible to say, I know. And I'm not even pro-death penalty. When I watched the movie Platoon, I felt that reaction when the soldier was raping the Vietnamese girl. Just blow him away.

[dysfunctional press]

6. this is the kind of stuff that makes freeper repooplick worth a visit...

their thread on the same article:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1658448/posts#comment?q=1

it has to be experienced to be believed.

[helderheid]

9. excerpts please - I cannot go there.

[Minstrel Boy]

12. here's an example of their thinking:

Whoever is behind this -- I suspect an American Left/jihadist terrorist alliance -- is trying to get more of our troops killed.

FWIW, I strongly suspect the bin Laden tapes come from the American Left also.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1658448/posts#comment?q=1

[helderheid]

13. HOLY MOLY! Someone please up his meds!!

[TahitiNut]

18. I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you, that there's jingoistic bigotry there!

Almost nothing makes their bigotry clearer than the presumption the "our guys" wouldn't do such things while "their guys" certainly would. This isn't a posture based on some common humanity, but one based on the pervasive assumption of innate superiority and inferiority based on race (racism), nationality (jingoism), and political stance (fascism).

Free Republic: Flypaper for sociopaths. :shrug:

[Catherine Vincent]

19. I read some of their messages.

Do they think stuff like that never happens in a war? And why are a number of them talking about John Murtha? WTF does he have to do with any of that?

[magellan]

36. Well most of them have never been in war

...but judging from their general demeanor towards anyone who disagrees with them and their hero, Bush**, they should still have a good idea of what power and aggressiveness gone mad is about.

[TahitiNut]

7. Forced 'democracy' is the same as forced 'love.' Both are rape.

I have no doubt that instances of rape are occuring - and that troop-bashers will drag out their broad brushes. A combat zone (whether during a 'war' or during a hostile occupation follwing an illegal invasion) is utterly insane. When the mythologies of 'righteousness' wear thin (or are paper-thin to begin with) and personnel are over-taxed, the essentials of good order and discipline go down the drain and the Lord of the Flies prevails. Good grooming and personal hygeine cannot be reasonably expected of those long-immersed in such sewage.

[nomo]

8. At this point it's business as usual

Or so it would seem. And right on cue there's the obligatory "Yeah but it's a WAR" excuse. Whatever man.

[TahitiNut]

10. Spoken like someone who's never served in a combat zone.

:shrug: Rock on.

[nomo]

16. So effin what

Being in a combat zone somehow is an excuse to rape and murder?

Interesting variation on the "she was asking for it" excuse. Rock on indeed.

[TahitiNut]

17. Try reading. Start with #15 below.

Your fallacious, posturing bullshit does not a persuasive argument make. :shrug:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Oddly enough, I agree with you.

The glorification of the military as noble guys heroically fighting for democracy is absurd. I was never in combat (other than a few bar brawls) but the hyper machismo instilled in what are basically adolescents results in just what troops are "supposed" to be. Tough, ruthless, murderous, and "real" men. They are rewarded for it by their peers and the brass. They don't carry guns to make a fashion statement.

I find it amazing that people are surprised and "shocked" when the troops behave like troops.

Though I have nothing but disgust and contempt for those who perpetrated this and Haditha, I have even more contempt for the fair haired killers who do so from a safe-distance and don't get their fingernails dirty. The pilots and artillerymen who dismember people from a respectable distance and alleviates them from anything from medals for "just following orders". Not to mention the monsters who give the orders.

[TahitiNut]

15. It's nearly impossible to convey to people without the experience.

First and foremost, and despite the proof offered by Milgram in in the Stanford Jail experiment, most folks who've only known civilian life in an affluent society are in denial about their own capacity/likelihood to engage in inhumane and abusive ways. It's always "them" for such folks, thereby proving even more their own capacity for such behavior even in the manner of the denial.

The propensity for folks to behave in inhumane and abusive ways is (deliberately) increased by military indoctrination and training. This is necessary; without it, a military force cannot be effective. Period.

The entire command and control approach of the military is based on aggravating the tiger and then holding the tiger by the tail. Let go of the tail and anything can happen. Worse, deliberately letting the tiger loose in a kindergarten is murder. The tiger is the weapon, not the murderer.

It's bad enough when the "boots on the ground" are a cross-section of people. Over the years, in net, that's the basis upon which the processes and approaches of military indoctrination and training have evolved. When, however, one has a 'volunteer' military and must lower standards in order to achieve staffing objectives, the mismatch of mental/emotional profiles to indoctrination and training practices increases. Indoctrination and training seeks to accomplish two things: (1) create a human being willing to kill other humans and (2) create a human being that accepts the saddle and harness of command. It's a precarious balance.

So, mix well and then insert these people into a situation where: (1) the national objective is corrupt and the Commander in Chief is a war criminal and liar, (2) the reality on the ground does not match the command propaganda, (3) a human being supposedly prepared to survive psychologically for 18 months in a combat context is stretched to 24-36 months, (4) the people who they're told they're 'saving' show that they don't want to be 'saved', and (5) too many guys have seen too many of their buddies get blown away. (That last is critical. It's the most basic of motivators in a combat zone.)

The surprise isn't that some of our troops are doing this. The surprise is that more aren't. That does not exonerate the behavior. But if people think Andrea Yates deserves any degree of leniency whatsoever then they've got to give even more to the troops. It's a failure at the highest levels of command and control - and it's a failure of We The People: the highest level of command and control in a democratic nation. Those who'd shift nearly all the blame to the troops in the field are the most ethically bereft, imho. It's not only clueless; it's scapegoating.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. Andrea Yates was clinically insane.

She belongs in a mental hospital.

If the troops that did this are clinically insane, they also belong in a mental hospital. If not, then they belong on death row.

[TahitiNut]

21. What color is the sky in that black and white world?

Responses such as yours demonstrate the near-futility of composing thoughtful, balanced posts on DU.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

23. Blue. With white clouds.

Call me clinically insane. But in my crazy, unthoughtful, ill-balanced world raping and murdering families is just about the worst sort of thing a person can do.

[TahitiNut]

24. Wow. It must take a magnificent effort to take such a courageous stance!

:eyes:

The wealth of experience and depth of study required for such a nuanced and in-depth comprehension is awesome.

[bobbieinok]

28. I found your post helpful...it did NOT defend, it EXPLAINED

[bobbieinok]

29. just like flying planes into buildings on 9-11 can't be defended

(from my viewpoint) but definitely NEED to be explained/understood

[TahitiNut]

31. Thank you - that was my intention.

I of course agree, like you say, that killing is indefensible, even if rationalized. There're many ways in which we're complicit in killing, if only by our (relative) silences. I don't believe responding to killing by killing or even by rabid condemnation and posturing (so easy!) gets us a hair closer to reducing or stopping it. So, I follow the age-old advice and "first, seek to understand." I post for the benefit of those similarly-minded.

[Marie26]

33. What if they were just

mean thugs who saw an opportunity to commit a crime & abuse their power? That never, ever happens? All troop atrocities must be a result of PTSD or war stress? I don't buy that. There's callous criminals in the US, & there's callous criminals in the US military. I think the punishment should be the same.

[TahitiNut]

34. I don't strictly exclude such a characterization ...

... I merely attempt to describe a context wherein it's the least likely. Generally speaking, "thugs" have personalities that don't fit in well with a military lifestyle, believe it or not. "Thugs" don't await a politically correct victim - and will typically act out their "thuggishness" long beforehand. The military, contrary to pop opinion, doesn't tolerate such behavior very well. If it gets in, it usually finds its way out or into the stockade.

We like to comfort ourselves in thinking such people are "other" than ourselves. Lacking the experience where we face the potential for our own more extreme behavior, we can think we don't have it. Studies show this just isn't so for the overwhelming majority of us.

It's interesting to me that we're so eager to use dehumanizing labels for these people such as "thugs." That's exactly one of the many ways the military (and others) paves the way for such behavior from folks such as us. Use dehumanizing labels. Enemy. Charlie. Jap. Nip. Kraut. Reb. Yank. Bluebelly. Raghead. Thug. Islamists. (And worse, of course.)


I don't think you'll be disappointed. I'm guessing they'll be punished. It's politically expedient. :eyes:
Educating people to the complicit roles played by the 'leadership,' and the public, however, is highly unlikely.

[Marie26]

35. Good.

They should be punished. I understand that soldiers are put into a hellish experience, trained to kill & overwhelmed. They're not properly trained & forced into a war most never wanted to fight, for politicians who don't really care what happens to them. Where I differ is in your characterization that these particular soldiers should be treated w/leniency because they're in a war zone. IMO, that seems to cross the line from explaining these actions to apologizing for it. I could almost understand an incident like Haditha, where troops acted right after being bombed by insurgents. That's not what happened here. This didn't occur in a combat zone, or in the heat of battle. If the allegations are true, this was a cold-blooded, premeditated crime. According to the soldier, these soldiers "noticed" the Iraqi woman on patrol & then made plans to assault her, possibly to kill her, & returned to the barracks w/bloody uniforms. That's pre-meditated rape & murder. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have served in Iraq w/o becoming monsters; it seems to do them a disservice to imply that serving in a war zone means that a soldier can no longer distinguish between right & wrong.

And the military itself disagrees with you - troops who murder/rape civilians are subject to court martial & even death under the Military Code. It is a war crime & justifiably carries harsh sentences under both US military law & international law. If someone rapes & murders a family in the US, they are most definitely a thug. The same goes for troops in Iraq. Not everyone was born a thug; people are victims of circumstance & bad luck & hard lives & traumatic experiences. But there comes a point where you have to take personal responsibility for your own actions. If they commited this crime in the US, or Japan, they'd face trial & sentence. And they should face the same sentence in Iraq. Thank you for offering the perspective of a war veteran. Look at through the eyes of the troops, but also try looking at it through the eyes of the victims, and their loved ones. They deserve justice, too. If this doesn't deserve a life sentence, I'm not sure what does. It might be politically expedient for them to go on trial :eyes:, but it's also the right thing to do. We can hardly scream about the rule of law when it comes to Gitmo & then fail to apply it when it comes to US troops.

[TahitiNut]

38. Of course they must be punished.

It's seen as an essential part of keeping "trained killers" in line and under command and control. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that even if capital punishment were to be abolished in the US, it would remain in the UCMJ. However, the attitudes you've expressed are nowhere near sufficient to prevent or reduce instances such as alleged. If that's what's wanted.

Quite frankly, I don't think many who express such simplistic perspectives are really very interested in actually reducing or eliminating such incidents ... or at least not as interested in that as in climbing aboard the "string 'em up!" stage of self-righteous indignation and expressing the hackneyed rhetoric of revenge, retaliation, and deterrence. It's easy. Anybody can do it.

The reason I made comparisons to Andrea Yates is because I saw the same dialecticism in discussions regarding her - even though the motives and perspectives were obviously not as cleanly bifurcated. I guess we're trapped in needing to share demographic attributes with someone before we can employ empathy and compassion in service to reason and amelioration.

I don't believe we'll ever become a truly just society unless and until we rightfully acknowledge our complicity-by-proxy in such appalling events. Why bother when we have fall-guys and symptom-bearers? Survival of the fittest requires that we keep the pressure on so some (but of course "not everyone"!) behave in ways that make us feel superior and give us an outlet for retribution.

That's sad.

[genie_weenie]

25. TahitiNut, I wish I could K & R your post.

I think your post on a GD thread would do nicely (that is until another deluge of Limbaugh-Viagra or Coulter incident wiped it from the GD). But your post rationally and intelligently analyizes the situation.

What surprises me is more DUers do not understand the simple dictum that "war alters people". And that no one remembers Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket the excellent film version of The Short Timers.

What makes the grass grow?
Blood! Blood! Blood!

I think more DUers should also read up about Harry Harbord Morant and read the new 2003 book Shoot Straight, You Bastards and see Breaker Morant with Edward Woodward.

[TahitiNut]

27. Thank you, sir. It's tragic, imho, that people don't constantly recognize

... that (1) government is a 'necessary evil,' not some wonderful system to wallow in self-righteous and vindictive behavior-by-proxy, whether it's called "war" or "prison" or "capital punishment," (2) all of us are capable, under some fairly and sadly common conditions, of behaving in appalling, inhumane, and reprehensible ways, and (3) there's nothing particularly difficult or enlightened in saying 'killing is wrong' - and then proceeding to say it's 'right' according to some simple-minded, infantile, and indolent pontification from the comforts of one's La-Z-Boy.

The older I get, the less difference I see between those who rationalize killing - other than the fact that those who do it face-to-face are somewhat braver than those who do it through their proxies. Killing the killers is no more sane or courageous than any other kind of killing - and sponsoring proxy systems that create killers is even less so.

[genie_weenie]

30. Credit were credit is due, sir.

Your posts are eloquent, thoughtful and statesman-like.

There's really not much else to write, I've only just recently been able to come to grips with my time in (although I would never engage in childish comparisons of bravery against those who've no doubt seen much worse than I) and it does mean *something* to read rational and understanding posts

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. Also, add in the "legal" targeting of civilians.

For quite a long period targeting civilians was considered utterly taboo. The carnage of our own civil war and the incredible stress put on those men didn't result in massive civilian death tolls. Nor, did the horrors of trench warfare in WWI. Not that individual acts didn't occur, but it wasn't condoned. Even Sherman, for all his ruthlessness, didn't allow his men to murder and rape. Not to mention the war fever stirred up by alleged rapes and murders by the barbaric Hun in Belgium give license to the allied soldiers to do the same.

Not until WWII did it become "acceptable" to target civilians purposely. The idea that "they started it" doesn't wash.

My four year stint in the marines left me with little doubt that a goodly number of my comrades were quite capable of committing atrocities without so much as blinking an eye. The military immerses kids in a sort of hyper-machoism where proving oneself a "man" is a constant. The peer pressure is immense and unrelenting. It takes great courage to stand against it. I certainly lacked it and swaggered and did the "tough guy" routine like the rest. Until, near the end of my soldiering, quite by chance, I began to realize what was expected of me in real flesh and blood terms. To kill people I didn't know, was even sympathetic to, because some bigshot wanted me to. Which, I must say, I kept mostly to myself save for a few comrades. One of whom now adorns that monument in D.C. and shared my views.

[TahitiNut]

32. 1969 was an 'interesting' year.

For many, things seemed to become simpler. For some of us, facing someone with whom we discovered we had much in common and some significant respect while knowing that we were in a situation where we were trying to kill one another ... made it seem we were in 'Another World.' We weren't, of course. We were like kids making their first visit outside of Disneyland.

Many of us had to come to grips with things we barely knew existed ... and it sure wasn't at all like the movies. Preparing one's self for the very real prospects we faced wasn't some comicbook cartoon.

[bigtree]

22. watch the 'trials' of these soldiers

[951-Riverside]

37. They didnt have to kill her she wouldnt have talked

She wouldnt have told anyone that she was raped by an American she would have been too afraid for her life. :puke: :cry: