Her name means "fragrance of flowers."

[Bfgrn]

Ex-U.S. soldier found guilty in Iraqi rape, deaths

Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi (عبير قاسم حمزه الجناب&#1610 (February 28, 1992 - March 12, 2006) was an Iraqi girl who, at the age of 14 years, was gang-raped and murdered together with her 5-year-old sister, mother and father, in their home, by U.S. soldiers who then set fire to the building before decamping.


Abeer means "fragrance of flowers." She was 14 years old.

The soldiers noticed her at a checkpoint. They stalked her after one or more of them expressed his intention to rape her. On March 12, after playing cards while slugging whisky mixed with a high-energy drink and practicing their golf swings, they changed into black civvies and burst into Abeer's home in Mahmoudiya, a town 50 miles south of Baghdad. They killed her mother Fikhriya, father Qassim, and five-year-old sister Hadeel with bullets to the forehead, and "took turns" raping Abeer. Finally, they murdered her, drenched the bodies with kerosene, and lit them on fire to destroy the evidence. Then the GIs grilled chicken wings.

These details are from a sworn statement by Spc. James P. Barker, one of the accused along with Sgt. Paul Cortez, Pfc. Jesse Spielman, and Pfc. Bryan Howard; a fifth, Sgt. Anthony Yribe, is charged with failing to report the attack but not with having participated.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/40481/

 

[strollingbones]

what can one say about something so shocking? you cannot blame this acts on war.. it was planned..the victim picked out. . i do venture to wonder if the army or armed forces lowering entrance qualification had anything to do with this type of behavior....there are just plain evil people in the world...be they wearing miliatary uniforms etc. look at the victims in dafaur and other areas...rape is so common it is not considered that "bad" by other standards

 

[editec]

Hanging these vermin seems kind compared to what I suspect the girl's family would do to them.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Rape, murder, and brutality during times of war is not new. (Have we already forgotten Abu Ghraib?)

What is new, is holding our American ssoldiers and their superiors accountable for it. When 'ordinary people' become like this, we understand how a holocaust and genocide can happen.

One notorious training song (with lewd gestures) goes: "This is my rifle, this is my gun; one is for killing, one is for fun." The U.S. Air Force admits showing films of violent pornography to pilots before they fly bombing raids. Military manuals are replete with such blatant phrases as "erector launchers," "thrust ratios," "rigid deep earth-penetration," "potent nuclear hardness."

When I wrote The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism (updated edition 2001, Washington Square Press), I presented far more evidence than space here permits on how the terrorist mystique and the hero legend both spring from the same root: the patriarchal pursuit of manhood. How can rape not be central to the propaganda that violence is erotic -- a pervasive message affecting everything from U.S. foreign policy (afflicted with premature ejaculation) to "camouflage chic," and glamorized gangtsa styles?



(From the OP link)

 

[del]

Rape, murder, and brutality during times of war is not new. (Have we already forgotten Abu Ghraib?)

What is new, is holding our American ssoldiers and their superiors accountable for it. When 'ordinary people' become like this, we understand how a holocaust and genocide can happen.

One notorious training song (with lewd gestures) goes: "This is my rifle, this is my gun; one is for killing, one is for fun." The U.S. Air Force admits showing films of violent pornography to pilots before they fly bombing raids. Military manuals are replete with such blatant phrases as "erector launchers," "thrust ratios," "rigid deep earth-penetration," "potent nuclear hardness."

When I wrote The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism (updated edition 2001, Washington Square Press), I presented far more evidence than space here permits on how the terrorist mystique and the hero legend both spring from the same root: the patriarchal pursuit of manhood. How can rape not be central to the propaganda that violence is erotic -- a pervasive message affecting everything from U.S. foreign policy (afflicted with premature ejaculation) to "camouflage chic," and glamorized gangtsa styles?



(From the OP link)

bullshit.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Rape, murder, and brutality during times of war is not new. (Have we already forgotten Abu Ghraib?)

What is new, is holding our American ssoldiers and their superiors accountable for it. When 'ordinary people' become like this, we understand how a holocaust and genocide can happen.

One notorious training song (with lewd gestures) goes: "This is my rifle, this is my gun; one is for killing, one is for fun." The U.S. Air Force admits showing films of violent pornography to pilots before they fly bombing raids. Military manuals are replete with such blatant phrases as "erector launchers," "thrust ratios," "rigid deep earth-penetration," "potent nuclear hardness."

When I wrote The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism (updated edition 2001, Washington Square Press), I presented far more evidence than space here permits on how the terrorist mystique and the hero legend both spring from the same root: the patriarchal pursuit of manhood. How can rape not be central to the propaganda that violence is erotic -- a pervasive message affecting everything from U.S. foreign policy (afflicted with premature ejaculation) to "camouflage chic," and glamorized gangtsa styles?



(From the OP link)

bullshit.

Why aren't we holding war crime trials?

A review of the Iraq War by the Washington Post last year showed that:

The majority of U.S. service members charged in the unlawful deaths of Iraqi civilians have been acquitted, found guilty of relatively minor offenses or given administrative punishments without trials, according to a Washington Post review of concluded military cases. Charges against some of the troops were dropped completely.

Though experts estimate that thousands of Iraqi civilians have died at the hands of U.S. forces, only 39 service members were formally accused in connection with the deaths of 20 Iraqis from 2003 to early this year [2006 – ZA]. Twenty-six of the 39 troops were initially charged with murder, negligent homicide or manslaughter; 12 of them ultimately served prison time for any offense.

Going back to the Vietnam War, the Los Angeles Times had this to report:

The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.

The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators — not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.

Though not a complete accounting of Vietnam war crimes, the archive is the largest such collection to surface to date. About 9,000 pages, it includes investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military brass.

The records describe recurrent attacks on ordinary Vietnamese — families in their homes, farmers in rice paddies, teenagers out fishing. Hundreds of soldiers, in interviews with investigators and letters to commanders, described a violent minority who murdered, raped and tortured with impunity.


Abuses were not confined to a few rogue units, a Times review of the files found. They were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam.
http://www.zackvision.com/weblog/2007/11/war-crimes-military-justice.html

 

[Bfgrn]

Prosecutors told jurors that the plot against the family was hatched among Green and fellow soldiers who were playing cards and drinking whiskey at a checkpoint. Talk turned to having sex with Iraqi women, when one soldier mentioned the al-Janabi family, who lived nearby, Skaret said.

Soldiers then went to the home where, according to prosecutors, Green pulled the father, mother, and daughters ages 6 and 14 into another room, then pushed the 14-year-old out.

Skaret said Green used a shotgun to kill the three in the room and told the soldiers that the family was dead.

He then raped the girl and shot her, according to Skaret.

As the girl lay helpless, "Steven Green went over to the wall and picked up a gun and he shot her in the face again and again," Skaret said.

Green then used kerosene to set fire to her body.

"They left behind the carnage of all carnage," Skaret said of Green and other soldiers accused in the attack.

Later, Green talked about the killings to superior officers, other soldiers and even civilian friends, Skaret said.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/30628635/

 

[Kalam]

Hand him and his accomplices over to a mob of Iraqis. Gang rape warrants gang justice.