The blackest hearts: War crimes in Iraq

The blackest hearts: War crimes in Iraq

www.guardian.co.uk

The blackest hearts: War crimes in Iraq

In March 2006, four US soldiers, strung out after months in the deadly battleground south of Baghdad, hatched a plan: to carry out one of the worst war crimes ever committed in Iraq

(visit the link for the full news article)

"Then Green turned to the little girl, who was running for a corner. This time the AK worked. He raised the rifle and shot Hadeel in the back of the head. She fell to the ground. "

"By this point, extreme hatred of Iraqis had become common in the platoon and was openly discussed. They became more aggressive: suspects were beaten, house searches got more violent, drinking became more open and was not limited to the ranks. The men were at a far lower ebb than even those meant to monitor them realised."

"Cortez briefed Howard. He said they knew of an Iraqi girl who lived nearby, and they were going to go and # her. "

"Caught off guard, Yribe dismissed it as more of Green's crazy talk. It was insane. How could a scrawny guy slip away from a TCP by himself in the middle of the day and rape and murder a family? But Green kept insisting. "

"The crime was making news, and al-Qaida was exploiting the outrage for maximum propaganda."

"After ruling out an insanity defence, Green's attorneys decided their best hope was to focus on the horrible conditions under which Bravo worked."

"The jury of nine women and three men found Green guilty of all counts of conspiracy, rape and murder, but hung, six against six, on the issue of whether to sentence him to death, triggering an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole."

"Green is currently serving five consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole."

WAR is horrible, it is corrupting soldiers, and creating more terrorists.

*sigh* Lets re-new our efforts in ending the current "wars" and not allow another one with iran or anyone else to begin under false reasoning.

That's all I have to say.

www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)


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[edit on 25-7-2010 by GAOTU789]

Why post stuff like this? Why? To try and run down American soldiers? To convince people that Americans are evil? What was the motivation behind this post?

Originally posted by Christian Voice
Why post stuff like this? Why? To try and run down American soldiers? To convince people that Americans are evil? What was the motivation behind this post?

Well I would not have to post it if it were not happening, if you don't like to read this stuff then just ignore it.

Motivation behind posting it? it is certainly not to say all soldiers are bad, are soldiers that are helping but we must also report the negative news even though we may not like it. Although positive news is not exactly flowing in but that is the medias fault imo.

Its not nice being stereotyped, i know a little about that but that was not the intention of this post.

[edit on 25-7-2010 by GoodLuckCharm]

American Military - Rape Endemic Issue.

www.latimes.com...

War is the enemy and those executing the plans are the victims. All of them on both sides. You can't blame a dog, trained to fight for learning to love the taste of blood. All you can do is put them down.

There is nothing righteous in war.

Citizens of the world must unite to end these atrocities.

reply to post by GoodLuckCharm


Ok, soldiers killed people and did bad.

Welcome to the world. How's it been under that rock?

War sucks. Don't fight.

Originally posted by stellify
American Military - Rape Endemic Issue.

www.latimes.com...

1937 Nanking

War breeds monsters. This is not an American thing.

Originally posted by stellify
American Military - Rape Endemic Issue.

See, that's stupid propaganda, why not say "Militaray - Rape Endemic Issue" noooo, it has to be "American Military" because only american soldiers do bad things and all others are saints (I hate that here in Germany, were the german military always is presented as the saviours who only do good things)

Sorry but i just have enough of the "All Soldiers are evil, all Cops are Bastards, all politicians only want the worst of things to happen"-Propaganda. It gets boring after a while to read the same # over and over and over again.

And the article doesn't say anything new. We all know that War is bad, that alot of ungly things go down.

Originally posted by zroth


War is the enemy and those executing the plans are the victims. All of them on both sides. You can't blame a dog, trained to fight for learning to love the taste of blood. All you can do is put them down.

There is nothing righteous in war.

Citizens of the world must unite to end these atrocities.

I disagree.

We aren't talking about dogs, were talking about human beings. Sure the environment had an effect, but you can't say that the soldiers aren't to blame.

They committed rape and murder, showed pure hatred towards other human beings for nothing.

I'm sorry but people must account for their actions, especially murderers and rapists.

According to this logic if I got out and beat a man or steal money or murder somebody, I can get away with it cause I'm conditioned that way because I've been watching cops for 10 yeras.

See how that doesn't make sense?

This is just as much the fault of the individual soldier as the commanders who were not watching them.

~Keeper

Been pretty nice and warm under my rock.

I think there are people who have the thinking that

"ALL ________ are bad!" or "ALL _______ are good!" (Soldiers, Police, Politicians, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Gays, Blacks, Etc etc etc blah blah BS)

I do not agree with that type of thinking (the world tends to be a LITTLE more complex than that) and like I said the intention was not to pain all soldiers under the same brush.

Having said that, just because something bad (although bad does not seem an adequate word) has happened many times does not mean that we should not continue to discuss and fight against it.

To start thinking ooooh this has been discussed to death and we can't do anything, well if you want to give up fighting for a just world then just go away, people must be held accountable for there actions as in this case.

Soldiers also must know that there good actions are celebrated and the bad ones are condemned and these issues are not just ignored.

I'm not too good at expressing my thoughts so I hope this serves well enough.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Sure. My point is at some point you are no longer human. Take MK Ultra, for example. That project created machines, not people.

Once you condition a person to ignore humanity I cannot consider them human. They are broken and become sociopaths.

Your example is flawed because you are sighting a premeditated act with the goal of escaping.

These soldiers (some, not all) are simply responding to conditioning. Seems silly but the Cobra Kai in the original Karate Kid is a good example. They are abused psychologically and there is always a good chance that the abused turn out abusers.

At the end of the day the government is guilty. They trained the monsters and gave them authority to break the Geneva convention.

So at what point is the line drawn once you pass from right to wrong. Is one thing a little more wrong or is it all wrong?

reply to post by zroth


I can't disagree with anything you said. The government is the MOST quilty party as the crime would never have occured if we weren't in Iraq illegally etc etc...

It's funny you mention the Karate Kid, I was watching it just yesterday lol.

The sad part is that war will alwasy exist and we will forever wonder why it's required and never know the real answer.

We can only hope that one day we stop letting the corporations decide why we go to war and let the people decide when it is acceptable to waste human life in conflict.

~Keeper

It is incongruous that some people have implied "that's stupid propaganda". Sometimes I try to stop reading at these points, because the article goes at great lengths to show what happened.

When an occupying military starts shooting kids in vans and murdering families, the result is all these horrific stories about I.E.D's and suicide bombings.

I remember hearing about this some years ago. The story rocked me to the core. As far as I am concerned, PFC Steven Green and his goons are the worst scum on the planet. What he and his fellow soldiers did to that little girl, Abeer, and her family is some of the worst barbarity I have ever heard about. It is in the line with what took place at May Lai during the Vietnam War.

There is no sense reasoning or trying understand why men would be prompted to conduct themselves as monsters and disregard common human decency. Green should have gotten the death penalty as well as the Army personnel who tried to cover it up. There is absolutely no excuse or justification for what went on at that little house in Mahmudiyah, Iraq. They are a disgrace to the uniform, their country, and the American people. I know some will spin and try to say it happened during the height of the insurgency. What did a little fourteen-year-old girl who was raped and burned have to do with it? Moreover, what did her six-year-old sister or parents have to do with the violence? An entire family was snuffed out in the barbarity displayed by the Iraqi death squads and terrorists. They were just common Iraqis who were enduring the tribulations caused by the brutal and oppressive insurgents and harassment from a paranoid military force.

These soldiers became terrorists and put their fellow comrades in harms way. There was a vicious reprisal against soldier's who were from Green's unit, but were innocent of the crimes. They had the misfortune of being assigned to the same unit as Green and his conspirators.

On July 11, the Mujahideen Shura Council (now a part of the group Islamic State of Iraq) released a graphic video showing the bodies of PFC Thomas Lowell Tucker and PFC Kristian Menchaca, soldiers from the same unit as that of the accused, who were allegedly kidnapped, tortured and beheaded. This video was accompanied by a statement saying that the group carried out the killings as "revenge for our sister who was dishonored by a soldier of the same brigade."

en.wikipedia.org...-19

There was a video released showing the desecrated remains of the two soldiers. These two men where put through hell by being subject to torture, mutilation, and death.

the video does not show the actual executions, it shows the two corpses laid out on a road and being taunted by the alleged captors, who present the head of Thomas Tucker to the camera like a trophy, and stomp on the head of Kristian Menchaca.

en.wikipedia.org...

The US military denied that the executions of their soldiers was an act of reprisal, but the circumstantial evidence speaks for itself. They were abducted manning an isolated checkpoint in general vicinity from where the initial crime took place.

I am glad someone is bringing up this story. When it happened it was in the news for awhile and then went away. It seems the the US military wanted to keep this one as quite as possible? Who knows what else happened over there that was not reported or is now taking place in remote corners of Afghanistan? This barbarity should never be tolerated or reasoned about. I was truly disgusted by this story when I heard about it as I am now. I think the convicted got off light. However, any punishment is better than nothing. Star and Flag!

[edit on 25-7-2010 by Jakes51]

reply to post by zroth


Is MK Ultra still being used?
Was it used on the soldier?
Would the psychological conditioning make them commit such acts?
Why aren't all soldiers doing this?
Are some immune to the conditioning?

I agree that the government holds the largest degree of guilt for putting the soldiers in this position in the first place, some people snap quickly, some later.

The longer they are subject to this the more likely this stuff is to happen because they have no reason to think they are going to return.

-----

Let me just add that a lot of this news would not even be out if it were not for some of the soldiers that that have come out and said this stuff.

Also lets not allow patriotism to blur what is happening, I am all for supporting the troops but if the soldiers are being manipulated, more info on that needs to be out there and if there is no evidence for that then the blame must be laid on those whom committed the acts.

This is not a hating America thread, this is not a hating the soldiers thread, yes there maybe propaganda out there, but given our current climate I don't think anyone is telling the full truth.

That's all from me unless I feel the need to reply to someone else.

Peace. (hopefully)


[edit on 25-7-2010 by GoodLuckCharm]

You know what? The OP said nothing about all american military being evil or guilty. They found something that they deemed important to them enough to post, thought other should know as well. He/she said we need to renew our efforts in bringing these men and women home, that the war was started on false pretenses. That we shouldnt allow it to happen again. Are these things easy to read? I think everyone should know of these evils, including the ones commited upon our soldiers.
The more ppl understand the crappiness of war maybe, just maybe, they'll think twice about being all gung-ho about invading a soverieign country that has had no affiliation with the made up, BS story of 9/11 or Bin Laden. You're stating the same thing the OP just did only in a manner that attacks and vilifies him/her. War tears ppl down, turns them into monsters that theyd never be if it wasnt for being placed in that position. It's not something that should pushed under the rug to be forgotten. When things are forgotten theyre destined to repeat themselves.
It's too often that our soldiers and the Iraqis are just 'things' with no face, just objects and maybe a passing thought to those who dont have a loved one serving. These ppl are someones child, someones wife or father. They live and breath love just like we do and should never be just 'something that happens during war'.
If our country is at war then I think we're obligated to see all sides of it, even the horrendous. It should sicken you, it should anger you and if there is a shred of heart and soul in You it should sadden You, for every man woman and child, regardless of where they fall in this cluster-f*** we're in.

Originally posted by Christian Voice
Why post stuff like this? Why? To try and run down American soldiers? To convince people that Americans are evil? What was the motivation behind this post?

He has every right in the world to publish this and if the truth upsets a few americans that are fighting for the corporations and bankers in every part of the world then i'm happy about that.

For every american soldier that dies a dozen kids die and i don't remember being asked if i want the americans to police the world.

maybe you should vent your anger towards the zionist cotrolers that are sending american kids to war and not take pops at the OP.

reply to post by LieBuster


The Zionist controllers? Good grief you sound like a movie line. The fact remains that this is old news. That is why I questioned the motive behind the post. Why drag this crap back up unless it's for some agenda? To defile the US military perhaps.

Also, do you have any idea what you are talking about when you spread around a word like Zionist? Let me help you,,,,

A Jewish movement that arose in the late 19th century in response to growing anti-Semitism and sought to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Modern Zionism is concerned with the support and development of the state of Israel.

So, tell me, what does Zionism have to do with US soldiers raping and murdering people?