Whether you agree with that theory or not, you must find something odd in the coverage of the story. Take, for example, this bit from the Washington Post:
U.S. soldiers at the scene initially ascribed the killings to Sunni Arab insurgents active in the area, the U.S. military and local residents said. That puzzled villagers, who knew that the family was Sunni, Janabi said. Other residents assumed the killings were sectarian, with Shiite Muslim militiamen as the likely culprit.Janabi is the name of the key witness -- a neighbor who came across the scene shortly after the crime occurred. Compare the WP paraphrase of what Janabi said with this direct quote, available here:
"After three hours the [American] occupation troops surrounded the house and told the people of the area that the family had been killed by terrorists because they were Shi'ah. Nobody in town believed that story because Abu 'Abir was known as one of the best people of the city, one of the noblest, and no Shi'i, but a Sunni monotheist. Everyone doubted their story and so after the sunset prayers the occupation troops took the four bodies away to the American base. Then the next day they handed them over to the al-Mahmudiyah government hospital and told the hospital administration that terrorists had killed the family. That morning I went with relatives of the deceased to the hospital. We received the bodies and buried them, may God have mercy on them."I'll bet dollars to donuts that the WP had no other local sources beyond Janabi. So how does this man's firm statement "Nobody in town believed that story" get softened into the WP version, which speaks of "puzzled" villagers who are of varying opinion?
And why doesn't the WP mention Janabi's report that the murderers numbered ten or more?
Perhaps the most important detail -- curiously left out of most American accounts -- is that the bodies were taken to an American base. I believe that this was done to remove any DNA evidence which would identify the culprits. Such an action would scuttle the view that nobody knew the truth until June 23, when one of the perps confessed during therapy.
Personally, I find absurd the idea that the murder party did not include anyone of a rank higher than private. The house, it seems, is near a checkpoint; weren't there any soldiers there to investigate the sounds of gunfire? If all of the soldiers assigned to that checkpoint were involved in the crime, then why didn't someone in charge of that unit -- a corporal, a sergeant, a captain -- make sure that these men were doing their job? After the crime, wouldn't investigators ask the guys manning the checkpoint if they heard gunshots?
And I'm still trying to understand why the perpetrators dressed in dark clothing. Seems to me that they would gain entry more easily dressed as soldiers. The civilian clothing is consonant with the theory that they were trying to pass as insurgents.
In sum: We have a group of men playing dress up to pass themselves off as "the bad guys." The officials immediately tell a wild fib that insurgents did the crime. When the fib immediatley falls apart, the body is whisked away to an American base, where who-knows-what sort of examination occurs. The poor girl's corpse then heads to an Iraqi hospital.
If these details are true, it is difficult to maintain that simple lust motivated this vile incident.
UPDATE: We finally have a copy of the official complaint against Steven Green. It's here. Interesting reading, although it doesn't answer all of our questions. According to the complaint, the crime occurred "on or about" March 12 and the rape victim was 25. The first number probably is wrong, and the second number certainly is. We do learn more about the proximity of the house to the checkpoint. We do not learn who was in charge of the unit.
The FBI agent making the complaint emphasizes that he has not told everything he knows -- merely enough to get an arrest. So I see nothing here that invalidates my suspicion that we have yet to learn of some very important details.
The link comes by way of the invaluable Huff's Crime Blog. (And a tip of the hat to the even-more-invaluable Brad Friedman for pointing the Huff piece out to me.)
8 comments:
Now THAT's what I'm talking about. It's no secret that military and administration officials have been screening "The Battle of Algiers" -- as though that film were a recipe for what an occupation force SHOULD do, instead of what NOT to do.
Thanks!
Interesting theory and grouping of facts as you know them. I have been suspicious all along that most or much of the violence against Iraqi people by other Iraqis or "al Qaeda" insurgents is really psy-op by US or coalition troops blaming it on insurgents. The bombing of the UN HQ in Baghdad in August 2004 was probably perpetrated by US forces, IMHO. The aim is to try to instigate civil war and conflict to keep the country unstable and more easily under the coalition's "control:" divide and conquer as the military imperative goes. This is not unlike the CIA's Phoenix Program during the Viet Nam War.
The question now is what end does this policy serve for the US(if the theory holds)?
US usually installs a puppet regime after using minimal force or at times only supports the oposition groups from the outside.
Case in point is Afghanestan.
Even in Algeria this situation arose after the French were driven out and had installed a puppet regime.
US could have easily installed a puppet regime shortly after invading Iraq or even backed any number of oposition groups while Saddam was in power to overthrow him.
The only model that fits this policy is Israel's policy toward Palestine.
That means the US didn't just want regime change in Iraq, but to destroy Iraq as a nation.
Why? I am going to mull this one over, but there is more to it than regime change.
hm. i am in a rush and can't really address all your points, joe, but just a couple of quick things off the top of my head.
first, there were no eye witnesses to actual crime, so the number of 10 - 15 soldiers likely references the number of soldiers who showed up AFTER the fact to surround the house.
two, jannabi, if i'm not mistaken, was the mother's cousin and not merely a neighbor.
three, if these grunts were planning this rape ahead of time, then the dark clothes would fit with their cover story about telling the villagers this was the work of terrorist. i still contend it would be just too sloppy for psy-ops to make the error they made here of claiming it was sunnis after shi'ah victims.
four, according to one of those reports, the four guys were assigned to a checkpoint, and they left one guy there while they went to commit the crime.
finally, hey, i hear ya; there is no doubt that all along our guys have been staging all manner of atrocities to incite whatever. nick berg's beheading comes instantly to mind.
but those are professional operations, and this mess has all the earmarkings of a random, stupid idiocy, of poor slobs driven mad by the madness of war.
two things gave me considerable pause regarding the planned psy-ops notion. one was the fact that two guys came forward after stress therapy following the brutal murders of their fellow soldiers, likely in retaliation for the rape. had this been planned and coordinated by professionals at this kind of job, no one would have blinked an eye because they're trained to do this sort of stuff. disgusting as that is.
the second was, i believe, in one of the wapo pieces, and recounted i think jannabi's report that, after the army was alerted to the event by those confessions, the commander of that unit contacted the family of the surviving boys and invited them to his office. when he saw them, the family memeber said (again, jannabi?), he said the colonel broke down and cried.
again, i have absolutely no doubt that the sort of operation being hypothesized goes on, and has gone on all along in our occupation of iraq. however, i still do not think that this case rises to that level.
still, i think it's important to debate the details to force the truth to the surface.
"That means the US didn't just want regime change in Iraq, but to destroy Iraq as a nation.
Why? I am going to mull this one over, but there is more to it than regime change."
Beeta: see 'Baghdad Year Zero' by Naomi Klein in Harper's Magazine, sept.2004 about the total destruction of Iraq.
Perhaps the most important detail -- curiously left out of most American accounts -- is that the bodies were taken to an American base. I believe that this was done to remove any DNA evidence which would identify the culprits. Such an action would scuttle the view that nobody knew the truth until June 23, when one of the perps confessed during therapy.
Today's New York Times says that the bodies went first to an Iraqi hospital, and then were buried. No mention of going to an American base:
The debate over exhuming the bodies could complicate the military investigation. American military officials declined on Thursday to talk about specifics of the investigation, but prosecutors undoubtedly want detailed forensic evidence to build as strong a case as possible against the suspects. The victims were examined by doctors at the local hospital months ago before being buried, Mr. Fadhil said, but the Americans want to check the corpses for themselves.
BTW, the WaPo has many Iraqi stringers, and even lets some of them share bylines. It is entirely likely that one of their Iraqi employees spoke to sources besides Janabi.
There is an active U.S. military info-op being conducted using the circumstances of this case. It involves planting the (false) story in the U.S. media that the abduction and beheadings of the two soldiers in PFC Green's unit was not a reprisal for the rape and killings of the Janabi family.
The insurgents are not supposed to have valid grievances.
""""anonymous"""""
TNX for the tip on the article by Naomi Klein....
This entire event makes me sick to my stomach and makes me feel like as an American I have blood on my hands for living in a country that supports a Pinochet style takeover of Iraq and encourages its soldiers to kill, maim, rape, torture at will as long as they can get away with it and find some low level private to scapegoat for those rare occasions in which they get caught. Yes, obviously some higher ups were involved and these folks will get away with whatever they did to this poor girl. I shudder to think if they filmed this horrific event to play back at home. They sell this sort of thing in private circles, these rape and murder scenes. Hopefully these higher ups didn't sell "tickets" to this engagement of rape and murder.
2 dead, 8 more soldiers to go:
Two dead soldiers, eight more to go, vow avengers of Iraqi girl's rape
By Akeel Hussein in Mahmoudiyah and Colin Freeman
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/09/wirq09.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_09072006
(Filed: 09/07/2006)
The American soldiers accused of raping an Iraqi girl and then murdering her and her family may have provoked an insurgent revenge plot in which two of their comrades were abducted and beheaded last month, it has been claimed.
Pte Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pte Thomas Tucker, 25, were snatched from a checkpoint near the town of Yusufiyah on June 16 in what was thought at the time to be random terrorist retaliation for the killing of the al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an American air strike two days earlier.
Private Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker were beheaded
Now, however, residents of the neighbouring town of Mahmoudiyah have told The Sunday Telegraph that their kidnap was carried out to avenge the attack on a local girl Abeer Qassim Hamza, 15, and her family. They claim that insurgents have vowed to kidnap and kill another eight American troops to exact a 10-to-one revenge for the rape and murder of the girl.
Last Monday Steven Green, 21, a former private recently discharged from the US Army, appeared in an American federal court on murder and rape charges relating to her death. At least four other soldiers still based in Iraq are also under investigation.
Prosecutors alleged that Green and others entered the home of a family of civilians, where he killed the girl's parents and young sister, raped the teenager along with another soldier then shot her in the head. The bodies were found burnt in an apparent cover-up attempt last March. US commanders initially thought the killings were the work of insurgents.
The case, potentially the most serious by far of the various abuse charges facing American troops in Iraq, was investigated only after another soldier - shaken by the deaths of Menchaca and Tucker - revealed in a counselling session that US troops might have been involved.
US army officials have already begun a separate inquiry into possible links between the two cases, although they insist at this stage that it is purely "speculation". However, locals in Mahmoudiyah, a Sunni market town in the heart of the "Triangle of Death" south of Baghdad, say relatives of the dead girl's family with contacts to insurgent groups asked them to take a "blood for blood" revenge.
Because of the sensitivities in Arab society about reporting sexual crimes, they were unwilling to press either the US army or the Iraqi police to deal with the case through the courts.
Steven Green was charged with rape and murder
Saba Shukr, 44, a Sunni sheikh at al-Aziz mosque in Mahmoudiyah, said: "We knew about this crime but the mujahideen brought revenge when they kidnapped two American soldiers in Yusufiyah. They are still waiting to kidnap and kill another eight soldiers, as the price of the death of the girl should be the death of 10 Americans. "I am sure about this. The mujahideen promised us revenge."
One of the family's neighbours, Abu Hazem, 51, said: "We went to visit the cousin of the family who lived about half a mile away to tell them the news. He said, 'Please keep it secret and we will take revenge on the Americans the quiet way'."
Military officials initially thought the abduction of the soldiers in Yusufiyah, about five miles from Mahmoudiyah, was an opportunist strike carried out when the troops became separated from their unit during an insurgents' ambush. Their bodies were found dumped three days later, showing signs of torture. However, the complexity of the ambush - and the level of preparedness required to have manpower to take them away alive - suggests that the kidnap was planned.
Residents of Mahmoudiyah claim that they had long been alarmed by the way some US troops took an interest in their womenfolk. They said that Abeer, who lived in an isolated farmhouse less than a mile from a US checkpoint, had caught the attention of the troops as she did daily chores in the garden.
"She had been told by her parents not to go to school any more because of poor security," said her neighbour Mr Hazem. "She spent most of her time at home cleaning and in the garden so the American forces saw her many times. She was a beautiful girl, and my wife told me that the Americans kept watching her. When I told her father, though, he said it was no problem and that she was just a small girl."
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