SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Rape and Murder by US Troops in Iraq

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If found guilty, send him to Bagdad for punishment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by scandium

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

:o okay thats bad, no thats beyond bad thats just plain evil! What ive read just gave me a change of heart, do what ever you americans think is necessary. God bless those victims...

Quote:

Originally Posted by scandium

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).

Well relax, that statement "trained to kill" means trained in the operation of weapons and military equipment, not some kind of psychological regimen that turns innocent farm boys into killers.

Don't let anyone kid you. Our effectiveness is due mainly to our advantages in technology and our training methods to use that technology. Against an opponent that is an even match to that, it'd come down to which side wanted to win the most, and of course, "General Chaos" ie which side had the best luck.

Scum is scum. They used the war as an opportunity to commit and cover up this crime.
Would I sentence these guys to death? Most certainly.
Do I think it will happen? I don't think so, that would be a political landmine.
They will probably spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
I'm also leaning that death would be an escape of sorts for these people.
The rest of there lives in an 8'x10' cell 23 hours a day gives them plenty of time for reflection on what put them there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bradclark1

Yeah the rest of their lives spent in a steel cage in Leavensworth is not something they're likely to prefer over a quick and semi painless death. I wonder if they still have hard labor?

Quote:

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.

Because the criminals feel there is nobody to police them. They have the ultimate power. The power to give death and get away with it.
Combat and weapons change people for the worst or better. They can do in the combat zone what they wouldn't even think about at home.
How many times have you been around an a$$hole and wished you could put a bullet in his head, cut his throat or beat the crap out of him? I do often but I don't act on those thoughts because I don't want to go to jail.
Well guess what? In a combat zone you can act on those thoughts and can get away with it. You have a rifle in your hand and opportunity. All you got to say if questioned is "He was coming at me with a knife" or "He was running at me and wouldn't stop when I called on him to halt" or "I thought my life was in danger".
Pretty simple huh! Why would you question it? You are in a combat zone and that guys a deacon in his church back home. You have more on your mind running your fire team/platoon than having to worry about some rag-head.
Here is an example. Not to pick on the Brits. Remember a year or two ago when those British security guys were in the habit of going down the road then letting loose on cars that were just going about their business?
Do you even think they would do that back in the U.K.? Not on your life. They did it because they figured they could get away with it.
Look at it like this. You have to figure that 80% or more of people on this earth are s#!theads. Figure half of that at the minimum would commit a crime if they knew they could get away with it. You have to figure that a fraction of that 40% would join the military. Now give them a gun and stick them in Iraq or some other combat zone. What do you think is going to happen? Thats why armies have Military Police, CID, Uniformed Code of Military Justice and the Fort Leavenworth federal penitentiary.
Now you also have my view on the human race.:D

Some pretty good points there Brad and I can't say I disagree with you. The US Military has a pretty good track record when we think of how long this war's been going on, the relatively small number of incidents, and the brutal nature of the insurgency these guys (most of them you young guys in their late teens or early twenties) are up against, and so its unfortunate that its this stuff that grabs the headlines.