The news that charges were filed against Former Pfc. Steven D. Green, 21, and other members of 1st Platoon, B Company, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division casts a new light on the capture and execution of two U.S. soldiers two weeks ago. Whether or not the charges against the U.S. soldier are true, the fact that Iraqis in the area where the soldiers were taken prisoner believed that soldiers from the 101st were responsible provides another motive for the torture, beheading, and booby trapping of the bodies. This was an act of tribal revenge rather than a random act of terrorism. Al Qaeda took responsibility but I suspect they were taking credit for the action of others.
Call it terrorism, call it vigilantism, the fact remains that U.S. troops who were part of the unit perceived to be responsible (or actually responsible) for the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl were specifically targeted. Welcome to the 12th Century. Our soldiers who were murdered were not responsible for the heinous act against that Iraqi family. Nonetheless, it appears they were forced to pay the price for the belief that their fellow soldiers were guilty of an atrocity against Iraqi Sunnis. We’re talking Old Testament “justice” here folks.
Notice the resemblance?
Makes you wonder doesn’t it? I seriously wonder if someone did a DNA study of our military and compared it to the general population what they would find?
“…they were forced to pay the price for the belief that their fellow [ ] were guilty of an atrocity against[ ].”
And this is different from the bloody punishment of Fallujah, how? Iraqis are by no means the only Old Testament tribalists operating in Iraq.
Speaking in even broader terms, you could say that the whole Iraqi war is a great payback according to previous statements from President Bush.
This was definitely payback. I heard this while watching Chris Matthews last week on Hardball. I find it interesting that Green was honorably discharged with personality disorder. Did some higher ups KNOW about this incident before the other soldiers in their division confessed to this crime while seeking therapy? Was this a cover up that was blown when the soldiers told the therapist what happened? Covering up criminal behavior puts American soldiers at MORE risk, not less.
Old Testament “justice”? Interesting perspective and fascinating that you called it by a Biblical term rather than a Muslim term. So it’s okay if it’s Christian ‘an eye for an eye’ but not okay if another religion does this?
What are the people of Iraq supposed to do when they see the ‘justice’ that is being handed out in the streets of their country?
When do they say enough is enough and take the ‘law’ into their own hands?
What kind of justice did the U.S. Government claim when it attacked Iraq without cause and has persisted in killing 10’s of thousand of Iraqi citizens?
What kind of justice is being served with Rumsfeld and Bush getting away with war crimes?
What kind of justice is being served with Gitmo?
I’m not sure what you were trying to say with this diary but it was offensive in it’s defense of the rest of the soldiers. They knew what happened and did nothing about it…so they were punished by the Iraqi people. Right now – I have little sympathy for the entire platoon that permitted the atrocity to occur and then covered it up.
When a nation invades a tribal society that is being held together by an authoritarian regime and removes first the leaders of that regime, then (under Jerry Bremer and his Heritiage Foundation-vetted staff of idiotlogues) [misspelling intended] what do you expect?
You have two choices. You replace the police, military and justice system you disbanded [because the members all had to belong to the Baathist Party] with a new one. But, Oops! “Leaner, faster, smaller” – wasn’t that Rumsfeld’s motto? So where do you get the (Arabic-speaking) people to replace the police and military? The tribal society that was held in place by the authoritarian government will provide only people who put tribe above “Nation” and all the Iraqis who were Iraq nationals have been blacklisted.
Besides, the U.S. doesn’t have enough troops to run an authoritarian government and won’t politically accept the draft required to get them. Then there is the problem that the Americans aren’t going to accept the press reports of the unpleasantnesses involved in holding a group of conflicting tribes together by force, which was what Saddam had been required to do.
But the Heritage Foundation Idiotlogues knew the answer. Remove the government. Take off the shackles and let the free market flourish. Government was the problem, not the solution.
In the power vacuum that the American invasion has created, the sociopath PFC Green saw a pretty 15 year-old girl that he wanted to rape, so he planned it for a week or more and then did it, murdering the whole family to do it. [I’m not a court of law. I don’t have to say “allegedly.”]
Green made someone mad, and since there was no other route to justice, they applied traditional tribal justice. They captured, tortured, killed and beheaded two of the rapists’ “friends” and left their bodies to be found. Not a bit civilized of them, but what PFC Green did was no more civilized and the American invasion-for-the-fun-of-it left no other course open to getting justice.
That’s not 12th century. That’s just simple Hatfields and McCoys, which was 19th century U.S. Or it’s Crips and Bloods or Avenues and Blacks which is last month’s Los Angeles. That’s yesterday, today and tomorrow if you destroy – or don’t accept – the normal institutions of government.
Either the government has to be accepted, or it has to become authoritarian. Elections are a social mechanism of creating government acceptance – as long as the results of the elections are accepted as valid. Which is why the 2000 and 2004 US elections were really bad news, as is the current election being counted and recounted in Mexico. Without social acceptance, the government has to become authoritarian. If it doesn’t, it ceases to be of any use in providing stability and social conditions become lawless.
That lawless social condition is what any serious effort to apply Libertarianism will lead to, as does the Republican effort to “Get government off our backs.” These cases are in addition to the problem caused when some idiotic government invades, decapitates and disbands a government without replacing it. Any replacement requires decades of authoritarianism to create because it has to earn social trust and acceptance. As in Taiwan and South Korea.
But the all-knowing Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush and the brains at the Heritage Foundation and CATO Institute [like Norquist] have no F**king clue. As far as their concerned, this is all Green’s fault. Which it is, but who let him out of the cage of civilization and handed him a rifle?
Sorry. Whenever I think about this situation I get really mad at Green, at his accomplices and his failed leaders who let it happen then tried to cover it up, and then I remain perpetually angry at those I named above who, as I said, let Green out of his cage and gave him a rifle in a land where there is no government (wonder why?) and he doesn’t speak the language. Green and the parties named above are all to blame for the rape and murder of that 15-year-old child and her family and for the deaths of Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. [Babineau was killed, the other two kidnapped, tortured, and beheaded.]