The top three paragraphs from a story in today’s NY Times:
One of four Army infantrymen charged with raping a 14-year-old girl in Iraq last March and then killing her and her family pleaded guilty today to all charges in a military court at Fort Campbell, Ky.
The plea came on a day when a marine is scheduled to be sentenced at Camp Pendleton, Calif., for his part in the kidnapping and killing of an Iraqi man in a town to the west of Baghdad.
The legal actions are part of the fallout of the fighting in Iraq, where insurgent fighters blend in with the civilian population, frustrating soldiers who are subject to roadside bombing and other attacks.
Holy fucking shit!
So when four infantrymen decide to rape a 14-year-old girl and kill her and her whole family, that’s “fallout” from the frustration soldiers feel because “insurgent fighters blend?”
Yes, I’m sure the soldiers thought that the 14-year-old they raped and murdered – not to mention her 7-year-old sister, who they also murdered – were insurgents blending with civilians. In no way was this a problem of a culture of entitlement, racism and misogyny, combined with giving green soldiers absolute authority over civilians that some of them think of as subhuman.
Heck no! It’s the fault of those damn blending insurgent Iraqis!
(The soldier, by the way, plead guilty in order to take the death penalty off the table. The Times says he’ll probably get sentenced to life, but could be out in 20 years.)
It’s besides the point of this post, but I feel obliged to point out that the other case the Times mentioned involves soldiers who planned to kidnap and murder an alleged insurgent, but grabbed and killed the wrong man. That’s a genuine example of a death resulting from “insurgents blending with civilians,” I guess; but it’s mainly an example of the inevitable result of believing that war justifies punishing alleged “insurgents” without trial or defense. George Bush and conservatives have been fighting hard to erode the right of trial and defense, and their thinking may have influenced the murderers in this case.
[Comments on this post at “Alas” are open to feminists and feminist-friendly posters only. Crossposted at Creative Destruction.]
It’s besides the point of this post, but I feel obliged to point out that the other case the Times mentioned involves soldiers who planned to kidnap and murder an alleged insurgent, but grabbed and killed the wrong man.
Well, that’s certainly putting it nicely. Everything that I’ve heard about this other case indicates that the soldiers planned to kill a “known insurgent who had been released from prison.” When they couldn’t find the guy they wanted, they grabbed another guy and murdered him and tried to make it look like he’d been planting an IED.
{sarcasm}In either case, it’s just blowing off some steam, no?{end sarcasm}
Like a frat prank, Jake. You know the one where they brutally murder pledges. Ah, Delta Phi Kappa, the good memories.
But to be fair, anyone familiar with atrocities during Vietnam cannot pin these sort of actions on the -shall we say – unorthodox legal analyses of the Bush Administration. All Bush did was get us into a pointless and incredibly avoidable war with longstanding dire consequences.
The legal actions are part of the fallout of the fighting in Iraq, where insurgent fighters blend in with the civilian population, frustrating soldiers who are subject to roadside bombing and other attacks.
As someone who upholds the concept of individual repsonsibility, I call “bullshit” on this. The problem isn’t the frustrations of war and it’s not fallout of the fighting. Nor is it due to no way was this a problem of a culture of entitlement, racism and misogyny. The overwhelming majority of soldiers in this war have never done anything close to this, yet they are subject to the same frustrations and are operating in the same culture as these guys.
These acts are due to the people involved deciding to commit a criminal act due to deviant thinking. It’s their fault, not the war and not the “culture”.
These acts are due to the people involved deciding to commit a criminal act due to deviant thinking. It’s their fault, not the war and not the “culture”.
Then why isn’t being done by soldiers in the US or Germany as often as it is in Iraq?
Jake makes a good point to which I would like to add that rape has always been used in wars for as long as anyone can remember. Although many may not want to acknowledge it rape, given the nature of war and the realities of race and gender in US society, it is quite possible that rape was more likely to occure in non-white theaters than they did in white ones i.e rape in post-WWII Germany is likely to have occureed than rape in Jap (war brides) and Vietnam (I’m actually going to try and do some research into this).
I am in no way comparing the U.S. military use of rape as a tool of war as the Japanese Military did, however, the US military was very aware of the incidences of rape by the Japanese but actively stifled the evidence (some suggest because it would have also highlighted similar crimes by Allied personnel). The reality is that rape is far more rampant in war zones than not, given that the broken infrastructure and likelihood that rapes (like war-related deaths) are less likely to be reported in a religious heavily male dominated war zone. I think it is entirely naive, given historical evidence and a military culture has structural issues of racism and sexism adopted from larger US society, to assume that race and mysogyny has nothing to do with this case.
Typo correction
I find it vaguely comforting that soldiers who are court martialed serve, on average, 90% of their sentence. Otherwise, I’m speechless.
I can not believe that this article alleges the rape and murder of this girl to be a fallout of the fighting in Iraq. I think a clearer explanation of this crime would be to say that it follows suit with the desensitization, misogyny, patriarchy and hyper masculinity that function as the normative discourse in military training.
Not to mention that the military as always used rape as a method of discipline and control, to exercise authority and instill fear. Sadly, in every war, women are the nameless victims of horrible atrocities and most often, the degradation that comes with rape is meant to harm the males in these counties, not the actual female victims.
Just a note. In reading another story (which I can’t locate now) on this trial, it seemed that Specialist Barker explained the rape as fallout from the insurgents blending in.
It doesn’t excuse the way the Times wrote the piece, but it may explain how it got there.
And of course, the soldier who cut the plea deal has called the incident a “crazy, stupid idea.” Um, because you got caught? I think the whole thing was totally worse than that.
Then why isn’t being done by soldiers in the US or Germany as often as it is in Iraq?
How do you know it isn’t?
Then why isn’t being done by soldiers in the US or Germany as often as it is in Iraq?
Oh heavens, what a stupid question. It’s the social breakdown, stupid! I’m not saying that the “frustration” is an excuse; merely that if you’re the sort of horrible idiot that thinks this type of crime is a good idea, you’re more likely to try to commit it in a place where you think you can get away with it, than you are back in Scanton or whereever.
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