US troops suspected of raping Iraq teenager: mayor

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The attackers, who U.S. commanders now suspect may have been American soldiers manning a checkpoint near the family home outside the town of Mahmudiya, then burned the bodies to cover up the crime, mayor Muayyad Fadhil told Reuters in an interview.
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07/03/2006 12:58:44 EST [FONT=sans-serif,Arial,Helvetica]Ex-Soldier Charged in Iraq Rape, Killing [/FONT]
By TIM WHITMIRE
Associated Press Writer
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Federal prosecutors charged a former U.S. soldier with murder and rape Monday following an investigation into the killing of an Iraqi woman and three members of her family.
Steven D. Green, a 21-year-old former private first class who was discharged from the Army "due to a personality disorder," appeared in a federal magistrate's courtroom in Charlotte Monday.
The charges grew out of a military investigation involving up to five soldiers in the March rape and killing of the woman in Mahmoudiya and three of her relatives, one of them a young girl believed to be about 5 years old.
Prosecutors said Green and others entered the home of a family of Iraqi civilians, where he and others raped the woman before Green shot her and her relatives. According to an accompanying affidavit, photos taken by Army investigators showed a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."
FBI agents arrested Green on Friday in Marion, N.C., where he is being held without bond pending a transfer to Louisville, Ky.
The case is being handled by federal prosecutors there because Green, who served 11 months with the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., is no longer in the military. According to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, he was given an honorable discharge "before this incident came to light. Green was discharged due to a personality disorder."
He faces a possible death sentence if convicted of murder.
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I don't know what happened there. The fact that all these charges about civilian violence by GIs these days is unprecedented. Is this a crackdown as a reaction from haditha, i heard iraqis themselves are doing idependent investigations as well as the pentagon.
 
but then again.. it was rape and murder and the guy had behavior problems i heard watching the news.. it is said he killed the parent and the 5 year old, raped the girl, then burned the building down...

well.. soldiers even from long ago used to do this..
attack enemy villages, slaughter the males, rape the females, take over territory.. what happened 5000 years ago, are happening now.. and i guess its human nature..
 
the problem is that the guys who are charged with these sort of crimes are a small fraction of the overall force and everyone else is keeping their cool. Their indiscretions hurt the whole campaign there, and if there's one thing i'm for it's to stop the insurgency asap. I didn't agree with invading iraq at all, but this chaos needs to be stopped so that some progress can be made. The pentagon is on top of this though, they're retraining everyone for handling stressful situations and such.
 
This isn't the time of the Crusades ...

This isn't the time of the Crusades ... we have come a long ways from the day where to the victors belong the spoils - (looting, rape & murder).

We are more civilized and believe that a minimum level of behavior is just and mandatory for military forces during time of conflict ... violation of these standards trigger trials of individuals for crimes against humanity. The agreements that we are signatories in (Geneva Convention, etc), spell out guidelines of acceptable behaviour for a military force and it's individual members.

If (and I reiterate - IF), members of the Armed Forces are found guilty of rape (or other crimes), then they should definitely draw whatever punishment is called for by the court in which they are tried. I would even go so far as to say that they sometimes should be turned over to the country in which they committed their crimes for their punishment.

The problem with the blanket acceptance of charges levied against ANY military member is the fact that sometimes the charges are false ... sometimes the charges are brought by an enemy who is more interested in smearing the reputation of the forces facing them than they are in real justice.

Enemies of the United States are quick to point a finger when there is a chance of embarrassing our military and government. Not all of our enemies are foreign ... we also have our share of domestic enemies that hate our military and our government and it's policies. They are very quick to jump onto the smear campaign bandwagon and are more vociferous than our foreign enemies.

SO - before you jump to the wrong conclusion, await the findings of the investigations and the trials of those charged of these crimes. The US has a history of holding military personnel responsible for their actions even during combat.
 
British troops have had a number of these complaints made against them and when it got to a British Court of Law and the accusers where cross examined they admitted they had been lying as people had told them they would get large amounts of compensation. They had also been brought over from Iraq and put up in a good hotel and given spending money every week which was more than they earned in a year before the trail started and during the trail. So I would we should wait and see what happens before throwing rocks at the lads as it could all be a publicity set up, as we all know mud sticks and if throw enough of it people will believe it.
 
Is there a connection between the length of operations, the guerilla nature of the operations, the decreasing "quality" of American militia, the decreasing morale of American soldiers and war crimes? Are the journalists mentioning battle exhaustion? If not, why not?

It should come as no surprise to the members of this forum that battle exhaustion breeds all sorts of bizarre behaviour. Can we really hold the men totally responsible? Maybe I am an equally strange fellow, but I would like to believe that western men are not Mongols. If battle exhaustion warps the mind and leads to the rape of children, then we had better start sending the troops on holiday...and fast. From what I can see, too many soldiers are starting to fall to pieces.
 
The gratifying part is that, even if Green is convicted, he is still only one of hundreds of thousands. In a group that size, it's a virtual statistical guarantee that there will be those capable of and willing to commit the acts that Green is accused of.
 
I read an article about psychological evaluations in the military and how many people are discharged because they failed to meet those test standards. Apparently Green was one of them and he might just have a screw loose. This can really explain why so many guys are just dealing with the problems and you get the occasional guy snap for no particular reason.
 
WarMachine said:
I read an article about psychological evaluations in the military and how many people are discharged because they failed to meet those test standards. Apparently Green was one of them and he might just have a screw loose. This can really explain why so many guys are just dealing with the problems and you get the occasional guy snap for no particular reason.
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I have no faith in the ability of academics in this case. How can they possibly determine who will snap and who will not? Sure, they can give us mountains of "data" and countless studies. But, I am not convinced that they have even scratched the surface. The battlefield remains a tough environment to study. The human mind is even more difficult. The two together are just daunting.
 
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