One of the soldiers that had been part of this incident, possibly even the ring leader, had already been discharged for a "personality disorder" and has now been arraigned in a federal (civilian) court:

"Quoting other soldiers, the FBI affidavit states that Green and other soldiers planned to rape a woman who lived near the checkpoint.

It alleges that Green shot the woman's relatives, including a girl of about 5, and then raped the woman before shooting her to death."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/07/03/iraq.charge/

It was.

I think the whole thing was miscommunication as in how not to start a prossible hot topic. I also think Iceman was somewhat over the edge with his comments and overreacted.

My remark was not pointed at the USA.

A different view of US troops in Iraq, that the press seems uninterested in conveying:

Interview with an Iraqi general - Part 1.

Interview with an Iraqi general - Part 2.

As I, and others, have mentioned before, in any group of humans there will be a few bad eggs who will commit horrible crimes. No Army ever created in the history of the world has been immune to such things, nor will it ever be.

What is important is how the parent organization concerned deals with such incidents when (not if) they occur. Are the perpetrators actions ignored, or even encouraged and applauded, or are they investigated and punished when they are found out?

There are those who will point to such incidents and claim we're worse than Saddam or Al Quaeda or any of the insurgent groups we're fighting, but unlike them, we punish such the perpetrators of such actions, whereas they reward them with everything from money and promotions to promises of a privileged place in Heaven.

THAT is the essential difference between us and our enemies and a point even our harshest internet critics ought to remember.

Just one small addition to your excellent post, August.

Not only is it important how the parent organization concerned deals with such incidents but also how the society the parent organization belongs to views such incidents.

Is there anyone here who doesn't view this case with disgust and disdain, assuming the facts are correct? As far as I'm concerned, anyone directly involved in incidents of intentional killing, raping and plunder of innocents should be executed by firing squad.

You're too nice. If it were me i'd strip the perps of their weapons, equipment and uniforms, hog tie them, then drop them off in the middle of the town where they commited their crimes.

I would first try to find out what drove them to this, do the psychology thing first. I mean rape and pillaging has been going on in every war since day one. The only time soldiers can do an act like this and feel okay about it is in war, would they had done the same thing during peace time? Very unlikely. So what drove them to murder innocents? First whos to blardy well blame, who sent them there telling them to kill in the first place.

No dont kill them. long term prision yes but no need to bring out the knives.

You raise some interesting questions.

Let's deal in the tangible and not the abstract, that is if we're going to discuss "war" in the context of this article, then let's do it in the context of this war which is a concrete event and not an abstraction; in this vein, what is it about this war that you feel would make the premeditated rape and murder of a young woman, and the murder of her family, an okay thing to do? Personally I see nothing about this war that would make such an act "okay".

Why is this unlikely? Please elaborate on what specific circumstances of this conflict make it "very unlikely" that they could commit the same crimes in peacetime that they're accused of commiting over there.

Perhaps there may be some responsibility to go around for at least some of the various war crimes that have been making the news, but I don't know about in this particular case. Because of the nature of this specific crime I'm more inclined to put the blame, and the responsibility, exclusively on the shoulders of the perpetrators.

Personally I don't support capital punishment, but by the laws of their own country they are eligible for the death sentence and based upon what I have read so far, and if the accusations are true, I won't shed any tears if they are convicted and executed for their crimes.

I disagree, it's just as likely. Armies do tend to have lower crime rates than comparably sized civilian populations, mainly due to the increased supervision they undergo, but they still contain their fair share of evil minded people. Besides such things have occured in peace time armies as well, even ones stationed back home, just as they occur in civvie street.

Who is to blame? THEY are! The perpetrators of the crime, end of story man. How do you drive a person to commit such an act? Do you think someone could drive you do rape and murder a family in cold blood like that? I for one don't think I could draw down on a 5 year old even if someone held a gun to my head and threatened to blow my brains out if i didn't.

Scandium,
Hey man, im a ex - bushman by trade i left school at 14 to help my dad, i taught myself to read and write, I can kill a wild boar with a knive with my pitbull as backup. Pitbulls are very loyal angry beasts i might add :cool: Im not all that brainy academic wise therefore i can't reply to your blardy statement in a manner your all admire!!! :88) :D Be easy on me dudes. :lol:

We should try to find out what makes certain soldiers do these nasty crimes, shooting them aint going to solve the problem. Like i said do the psychology thing and treat them, find the signs then maybe change the training - make training very stressful (probably already is) and see how they react to it, surely they would show signs.

Hope that was okay :hmm:

That's the problem with your idea though Kiwi. You think it's somehow related to military training and/or a war environment but these type of crimes are also committed by members of the civilan population during peacetime who aren't exposed to such things.

Yeah true your made a good point, but soldiers are not suppose to lose there cool in war like this. They are trained to handle all types of dangerous situations. My theory is they lost it after probably seeing to much killings, buddies blown to bits some just couldn't handle it anymore and went on a rampage of total revenge killing everything in there way - raping and pillaging the enemy, no mercy. When a person flips what he does is right in his mind.

You don't need to be an academic to bring up interesting questions (or interesting answers) :D. You make a good point on the training issue, but I mostly agree with the answer August gave.

Where I disagree with him somewhat, and lean more toward what you said above, is a sentiment I've heard here and there since the Abu Ghraib scandal: U.S. troops are trained to kill (sorry to generalize by lumping all the military branches and occupations together), and are perhaps one of the most effective killing machines in the world (to give credit where credit is do) but are maybe not so effective at keeping the peace (and if this is true I don't place the blame for it on the grunt in the field).

Baghdad fell remarkably fast, but to me it appears that Iraq has slowly disintegrated ever since. What began with looting and lawlessness (which Rumsfeld dismissed with the remark "freedom is messy) slowly escalated into an armed uprising (which Rumsfeld dismissed as the acts of a "few dead-enders") and then a full blown insurgency. Could it have been prevented, or at least contained? I don't know and we'll never know, but as Rumsfeld famously said: "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might wish you had" and maybe liberating Iraq of its government wasn't such a good idea when the Army that has to replace so many of its functions (in having to provide for the safety and security of the people) hasn't had that much training and experience in the art of keeping the peace.

I'm not saying, by the way, that any amount of training would have prevented the types of people who are alleged to commit the acts they're accused of from commiting them, just that it might have weeded them out beforehand. However now that the acts have been commited, the only thing to do is, if applicable, punish the perpetrators.

By the way, I think the importance of tackling questions like this and punishing the perpetrator isn't so much to deal with any individual incident as it is to reduce the tit-for-tat that these kinds of incidents can lead to.

A more personal perspective on these crimes:

"BAGHDAD — He was the first to enter the charred farmhouse where the bodies of his relatives lay strewn about the floor, shot and bludgeoned to death.

And he watched more than three months later as a U.S. Army officer took the two surviving children in his arms, barely able to hold back tears as he told them that the people who had killed their family would be punished.

"Never in my mind could I have imagined such a gruesome sight," Abu Firas Janabi said of the day in March when his cousin, Fakhriya Taha Muhsen; her husband, Kasim Hamza Rasheed; and their two daughters were slain and their farmhouse set ablaze."Kasim's corpse was in the corner of the room, and his head was smashed into pieces," he said. The 5-year-old daughter, Hadel, was beside her father, and Janabi said he could see that Fakhriya's arms had been broken.

In another room, he found 15-year-old Abeer, naked and burned, with her head smashed in "by a concrete block or a piece of iron."

"There were burns from the bottom of her stomach to the end of her body, except for her feet," he said.

"I did not believe what I was seeing. I tried to fool myself into believing I was in a dream. But the problem was that we were not dreaming. We put a piece of cloth over her body. Then I left the house together with my wife.""

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines