Crime and punishment

This story may be one that some of you have come across before, but it's one that I think is incredibly important.

It's a BBC update about five American soldiers who allegedly raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killed both her and three members of her family, including her 5-year-old younger sister. Currently there's an investigation going on, and at least one of the soldiers complicit in the murder/rape has testified against the others.

This is an example of the lawlessness and power that some of our soldiers feel in foreign countries that we're occupying.

From the BBC:

On the day of the attack the soldiers had been drinking Iraqi whisky mixed with an energy drink and practising golf strokes at a checkpoint south of Baghdad, Mr Barker's statement said.

One of the soldiers, Steven Green, said he "wanted to go to a house and kill some Iraqis," it alleged.

The four eventually went to a house about 200 metres (yards) away and put the parents and their five-year old daughter in the bedroom, but kept the older girl in the living room.

According to Mr Barker's statement, he and Mr Cortez took it in turns to rape or attempt to rape her.

Mr Barker heard shots from the bedroom, and Steven Green emerged with an AK-47 in his hand saying "They're all dead. I just killed them."


Steven Green, who has pleaded not guilty, is being tried separately

According to the testimony, Mr Green then also raped the girl and shot her dead.

Her body was doused in kerosene and set alight.

My gut reaction to this story is that these bastards should be handed over to an angry Iraqi mob for castration and hanging. But this story is deeper and more symbolic than a simple case of animal brutality. It's the kind of thing that hearkens back to the countless atrocities that happened in Vietnam, the type of incident that the military seems all too happy to sweep under the carpet and brush off with a quick "the matter is under investigation."

Also, the simple fact that this kind of act could occur is disturbing. I'm not certain as to the exact prerequisites of joining the military, but I'd guess that rapists and psychopaths would almost certainly not be allowed to enlist. I could be wrong, but I doubt it, if for no other reason than that such men would most likely be more of a liability than an asset. No, I'd guess that their actions are more likely to be the result of a desensitized environment, one in which morality and humanity are suspended in a kind of limbo, traded off for the trappings of "duty."

Not to start a thesis on the nature of modern warfare and the ridiculous notion of imposing morality into such a thing, the problem for the U.S. and for Iraq is that none of the lines are clear. This is illustrated and enhanced by what must be the extreme paranoia felt by U.S. troops, having to try and survive day to day in a world where the enemy looks exactly like the innocent. This is an enormous problem, one which I have no idea is being addressed (I'd be surprised if it is).

If anyone with any military background happens to read this, however, please leave a comment and help me to understand how such a thing can happen. Are men like these simply aberrations, criminals, mad dogs? Or are they, as most of us are to some extent, products of their environment? Or is it some kind of combination?

I'd very much like to know.