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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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May 22nd,
2009 - Iraqi Relatives Decry Life for U.S. Rape Soldier News article from Agence
France Presse |
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Iraqi Relatives
Decry Life for U.S. Rape Soldier By Sami al-Jumaili & Habib al-Zubaidy Reuters May 22, 2009 Mahmudiya, Iraq - Relatives
of a 14-year-old girl who was raped and killed along with her family by U.S.
soldiers expressed outrage Friday that the ringleader received a life
sentence in a U.S. court instead of execution. Former U.S. soldier Steven
Green, 24, will be sentenced to life in prison after a jury Thursday failed
to agree on whether he deserved death, the penalty sought by prosecutors. He was found guilty by the
same jury two weeks ago of committing the 2006 crimes on the outskirts of the
town of Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. "It's a real shock. That
court decision is a crime - almost worse than the soldier's crime," said
Raad Yusuf, 40, the girl's uncle, from his house on a farm near the town. Prosecutors said Green was
the ringleader of a gang of five soldiers who plotted the attack, donned
black "ninja" outfits and raped Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi before
killing her, her father, mother and 6-year-old sister. Execution is commonplace in
Iraq and across the Middle East for lesser crimes than Green's. At least a
dozen convicts were executed this month in Baghdad and over 100 are on death
row. Double Standards Raad said Green's sentence
smacks of double standards. "Imagine the situation
reversed: if a non-American had done this crime, the world would be up in
arms and surely he would have been executed," he said. The girl's grandmother
Muneera Mohammed Janabi broke down and wept when she was told of the court's
decision. "Why did they kill her?
Why?" she sobbed. "And why this unjust verdict? They should
consider our family - we live in sadness. I will hate American soldiers until
I go to my grave." Another uncle, Hamza Mehsan,
53, shouted and shook the sleeves of his traditional white dish dasha or
robe: "How can that criminal rape and kill in cold blood and still evade
execution? We reject this verdict," he said. Iraqis interviewed by
Reuters in the agricultural market town of Mahmudiya agreed with the family's
sentiments and some said the court was hypocritical for sparing the life of
an American soldier when an Iraqi committing such crimes against Americans
would, they said, have faced death. Alaa al-Haribi, 35, a civil
servant, said Iraqis felt powerless because the trial had gone ahead in the
United States. But one Mahmudiya resident,
truck driver Mahmoud Janabi - not a relative - said the sentence, though
falling short of what he hoped, would still send a strong message to U.S.
troops. "I'm happy because at
least other American soldiers will see this and think twice before doing acts
like this again," he said, drinking tea and smoking a water pipe at a
local cafe. Additional reporting by
Muhanad Mohammed in Baghdad; Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Mark Trevelyan. © Thomson Reuters 2009. All
rights reserved. External link: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE54L2OW20090522 Iraqi anger
over US soldier being spared death By Abbas al-Ani Agence France Presse May 22, 2009 Hilla, Iraq - A US court
decision sparing ex-soldier Steven Dale Green the death penalty for raping
and murdering an Iraqi teenager after killing her family was met with anger
by the girl's relatives on Friday. "American courts showed
their bias and injustice and did not issue the correct decision that all
religious values and moral norms demand," said Abdullah al-Janabi, 35,
one relative of slain 14-year-old Abeer al-Janabi. Umm Amer al-Janabi, 45, also
lambasted the jury. "The punishment should
have been the severest possible against this criminal. We will never forgive
him," she said. The crimes took place in
Mahmudiyah, a small farming town south of Baghdad, and the mayor, Jabar Faraj
al-Kelabi, added his voice to the complaints. "The death penalty is
the right decision for the soldier, and it must be accompanied by a US
apology for the criminal incident," he said. Town council member Abu Ali
Obeidi added that the decision was a "slap in the face" of all
Iraqis. Two weeks ago a federal jury
in Kentucky declared Green guilty of all 17 charges - including rape,
premeditated murder and obstruction of justice. Also murdered were Abeer's
mother, father and six-year-old sister. Green, 23, named as the
ringleader in the March 2006 atrocity, was tried as a civilian because the
army had discharged him due to a "personality disorder" before his
role in the crime came to light. Three other soldiers were
given life sentences for the attack which they plotted over whiskey and a
game of cards at a traffic checkpoint in Mahmudiyah. After the jurors' decision
was read out, representatives of Abeer's family openly wept in court. Green,
a former private first class, smiled slightly. His father, John Green, said
the result was "the better of two bad choices, but the better one by
far." Iraqis had openly called for
Green's execution and a member of the defence team, Darren Wolff, suggested
politics had trumped justice. He revealed that Green had
offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence but that such a deal
had been rejected by some in the highest levels of the US government. "He offered to plead
guilty on two separate occasions in exchange for his life. Those pleas were
rejected by the Department of Justice. "That is when it became
obvious that this case was not about fairness or equity, it was about
appeasing the overseas communities who have been calling for Mr Green's
execution." Defence lawyers argued that
the stress of the combat environment after the US-led invasion of 2003 had
prompted Green to commit his crimes, underscoring the growing concerns over
the mental health of US soldiers. Green's case is one of
several involving US soldiers that has infuriated Iraqis, prompting
government officials to insist during negotiations for a key military pact
between Baghdad and Washington last year that American troops be subject to
Iraqi law when off duty and not on base. Earlier this month Sergeant
John Russell, who had been on his third tour in Iraq, allegedly shot and
killed five fellow US soldiers at a mental health counselling clinic at an
American base in Baghdad. The US military has said it
will take on a comprehensive review of its efforts to treat combat stress. Copyright © 2009 AFP. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iTf2J-VRn0S_kLxcKyPq3zfczAGA Iraqi official says trial
that spared ex-U.S. soldier’s life ‘unjust’ From Cable Network News May 22, 2009 An Iraqi official condemned
Friday the decision by a U.S. jury not to sentence a U.S. soldier to death. "He raped a girl and
killed an entire family, and he got only life in prison. ... This is an
unjust trial," said Mustafa Kamel Shabib al-Jabouri, leader of the
Awakening Council in Yusufiya. "We demand a new trial." Steven Green was found
guilty earlier this month of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and of murdering
her, her parents and her 6-year-old sister. He was the last of five
soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division convicted in the crimes and the
cover-up that followed. During Green's trial, relatives
of the murder victims gave gripping testimony about how the crimes still
haunt them. Some family members said their lives have been ruined and it
would have been better if they'd also been killed. Thursday, Green avoided the
death penalty when a Kentucky jury could not reach a unanimous decision. Green was tried in civilian
court because he had been discharged from the Army by the time his crimes
came to light. The three others were tried by a military court and
imprisoned. Spc. James Barker, Sgt. Paul
Cortez, Pfc. Jesse Spielman and Pfc. Bryan Howard received sentences ranging
from 27 months to 110 years, with the possibility of parole in 10 years in
the most severe cases. After the trial, defense
attorneys called for the military to "take a hard look at the resources
they provide our service members dealing with combat stress issues. If they
do not, we [are] certain a tragedy like this will occur again in the
future." Doug Green, Steven's
brother, said he was grateful his brother's life was spared. "I was
incredibly relieved," he said. "This is as good as it gets." He also offered an apology. "Our hearts and prayers
are with you. We're sorry. We're sorry," he said. "This has been
hard for everybody involved. Not just my family, but the Iraqis. Everybody is
going to need some healing." "I think it is hard for
any one of us to put on those shoes," he said. "Unless you have
been to Iraq and fought in that war, or fought in any war, it is impossible
to know what they are going through and impossible to judge them." The murders of members of
the al-Janabi family occurred in 2006 near Yusufiya, about 20 miles south of
Baghdad. External link: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/22/kentucky.iraq.murder/ Sentencing of Steve Green in
the Death of Abeer In Iraq By Gail McGowan Mellor Huffington Post May 22, 2009 Originally Reported for
Women's Media Center. Former U.S. Army 101st
Airborne Private 1st Class Steven Green of Midland, Texas, 24, was sentenced
to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole by the first civilian
jury in U.S. history to try a soldier for acts committed during military
service. Many across the world have condemned these felonies as war crimes
and they opened Green, the shooter, to a possible death sentence. He instead
received life without parole, the lesser of the two possibilities, because
the jury "hung," could not reach a unanimous decision on the
verdict. The Paducah, Kentucky
federal court jury of nine men and three women had already unanimously found
Green guilty on all 16 counts of conspiracy, gang rape of Abeer al-Janabi,
felony murder in the killing of her and her family, and arson in the burning
of Abeer's body and their home in Yusumiyah, Iraq. Rural Western Kentucky
people however are conservative libertarian, generally opposed to giving any
government the right to kill its citizens, and the kind of Bible Belt
Christians who believe in personal redemption. They rarely give death
sentences, and when they do those are rarely carried out. (Three people have
been executed in Kentucky since 1978.) Pvt. Green moreover had confessed the
night of the killings to a sergeant who, to protect the unit, did not report
the crime and got Green out the military, out of Iraq. Once in the federal
court system, Green had tried to plead guilty twice in exchange for his life
but the federal government had twice refused to accept his guilty plea,
apparently wanting a show trial. Aware of his confession and attempts to
plead guilty, Kentuckians would reliably reject what might be construed as an
attempt to turn a capital murder case into a political bargaining chip. The
predictable choice for these Kentuckians would therefore have been a quick
unanimous vote for life without possibility of parole. Instead they split. The
story of Abeer and Hadeel had visibly touched some members of the jury to the
core, and the split indicates that at least one of them, just how many is not
yet known, was arguing hard for execution. Doug Green, the accused
Steve's only very slightly older brother, had been portrayed by the defense
as a monstrous bully and had not taken the stand as defense attorneys drew a
picture of Steve, once a bowlegged West Texas kid with absent parents and a
mean sibling. Now a slender businessman with who looks very much like Steve except
for the infinity of pain in quiet eyes, Doug had sat with trembling hands as
the sentencing came down and was seen by several reporters to cross to
Abeer's relatives to speak to them. To the al-Janabi relatives
and Iraqi official, who had journeyed 6556 miles to plead that Green be put
to death, the refusal of a jury of Kentuckians to kill Green meant that in
Americans' eyes, Iraqi lives were worth less than U.S. lives. Retired Colonel
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserves, one of three State Department officials to
resign in protest to the invasion of Iraq, details murders by soldiers of
Iraqi civilians, and states that if punished at all, service people who
killed Iraqis in cold blood were given far lighter sentences than those dealt
out to U.S. troops who killed fellow soldiers. Enlisted people moreover are
only one dimension. The truly dangerous distortion is at the top, in the
command structures. The part that officers
played in the killing of the al-Janabi family is obvious on the surface only
with regard to non-commissioned officers [NCOs]. One of the perpetrators
acting with Green was Paul Cortez, who had just been approved for sergeant's
stripes and by pretending to "investigate" the crimes immediately
after committing them, managed to blame "insurgents." Steve Green
confessed to Sergeant Anthony Yribe only hours after the killings, taking
full responsibility, yet Yribe, who had helped Cortez suppress evidence, did
not report Green's confession and engineered an honorable discharge with
"antisocial personality disorder" for Green, putting him back in
the States and beyond the reach of military law. At that NCO level, people
were punished. The sergeant who covered up, Yribe, got a dishonorable
discharge; and Specialist Promotable Cortez got life in prison, but with the
possibility of parole. (Making a deal with the federal prosecution, in
exchange for his testimony against Green, he could be out by 2012.) That is not where command
responsibility ends. Back in 2006, Green, 20, constantly said or shouted that
he wanted to kill Iraqi civilians, and officers were alerted. He told one,
Lt. Col. Karen Marrs, numerous times. Yet he was given no help beyond a
sleeping pill. The officers were not even reprimanded. The U.S. general who
set the worst example to the troops in Iraq, numbed young soldiers to the
suffering of civilians and brutalized many by involving them in barbarity was
meanwhile being promoted to the highest rank. General Ray Odierno is now
Commanding General, Multi-National Force, Iraq. In 2003-04, the year after
the United States invaded Iraq, when he was just one of many two-stars
rotating in and out with their units, he ordered his 4th Infantry Division to
break into private Sunni homes at night, in order to maximize terror, and
round up all males who were between the ages of 16 and 60. In FIASCO: The
American Military Adventure in Iraq, and The Gamble, General David Petraeus
and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008,
Pulitzer-Prize-winning Thomas Ricks, Pentagon correspondent for the
Washington Post, quoted many who admired Odierno for his extraordinary
ability to "read" a battlefield, organizational capability and
independence, but Ricks also noted Odierno's brutality in "rounding up
tens of thousands" of Iraqi men and boys from their homes in night
raids. Since numerous studies show
that a fourth to a third of people in the U.S. still accept the former
administration's assertion that pre-invasion Iraq was involved in 9/11 or
linked to al-Qaida, it is worth emphasizing that Osama Bin Laden was Saudi,
the pilots of the hijacked planes were Saudi and Egyptian, the al-Qaida
hideout was in Afghanistan, the secret service giving help were Pakistani. A
secular Sunni, Saddam Hussein had no use for religious Islamic
fundamentalists like Bin Laden nor they for him. Al-Qaida, a Middle Eastern
terrorist group who were not Iraqis, came to Iraq after the U.S. came,
because the U.S. had invaded a Muslim country. Yet tens of thousands of
ordinary Iraqi people., many of them beaten while hooded and bound, awaiting
transit, were sent by Odierno by the truckoad to Abu Ghraib prison. Formerly
Brigidier General and Commander (Abu Ghraib), now Colonel Janis Karpinski
estimated that 90 percent of the people there were innocent. According to the
detailed report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, some U.S. soldiers on the staff
of the prison sexually humiliated, tortured, sodomized and occasionally killed
inmates. The population overflowed the cells and was housed in the yards. Yet
Odierno opposed the release of any Iraqis from Abu Ghraib, wanting them held
without charge. He called them Military Aged
Males (MAMs). Command attitudes are viral. In 2004, soldiers in Odierno's 4th
Infantry forced zip-tied detainees into the Tigris River. One drowned. In
2006, Col. Michael D. Steele, a decorated combat veteran and brigade
commander in Iraq, 101st Airborne, was said to have issued orders to kill all
military-aged males in a raid. Four hand-cuffed detainees were drowned.
Generals and intelligence officers saw Odierno's MAM raids, the abuse and
killing of captured Iraqis and the atrocities at Abu Ghraib as a main fuel
for the suddenly growing armed resistance to U.S. occupation but did not stop
the abuses until the U.S. media found out and alerted the public. Enlisted
people very publicly found guilty of killing and torture were thus at the end
of a long chain extending from political officials for whom torture was
policy; to generals and intelligence offices who watched wholesale abuse
without stepping in - and Odierno who treated being "Iraqi and
male" as a crime. Apart from Karpinski's
demotion to colonel, no higher ups were punished, only enlisted people. Meanwhile,
in toppling the Iraqi government, the U.S. government had not sent sufficient
troops to maintain order, so Iraq descended into a sectarian bloodbath. At
first using homemade bombs (IED stands for improvised explosive device), they
were also fighting feverishly to get Americans out of their country. By 2005,
60 percent of the American people favored withdrawal. By early 2006,
according to Ricks, most top U.S. military officers had concluded that even
though U.S. politicians kept redefining "winning," the war was
unwinnable and swift U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was imperative. Even Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was on board. The table was set for getting out of
Iraq. Unfortunately for the
al-Janabis who were killed in March 2006, the will of the U.S. people was
overridden. Instead of withdrawal, a retired four-star general, former Army
Vice Chief of Staff. John ["Jack"] Keane and two minor generals,
Odierno and worked the back channels of the White House, took command and
engineered a Surge of 30,000 "extra" troops. With Petraeus, who had
authored the Army's counterinsurgency manual, serving as Commanding General,
MNFI , troops were no longer taught to get the "bad guys" at all
costs but instead to protect the civilian population even if it meant letting
the bad guys go. His plan was to bring in a Surge, secure Baghdad
neighborhoods, pay the Sunni to turn on foreign al-Qaida fighters, then get
the Shia-dominated government to absorb the Sunni troops so they would not
constitute an independent force. Having for three years been
ordered to help the Shia-backed government battle Sunnis, U.S. troops were
therefore sent to protect Sunni neighborhoods as U.S. commanders began
bankrolling a 100,000-person Sunni army. Troops in other words were ordered
to defend those they had previously been told to kill. These Surge troops
were not actually "extra," either; they were soldiers kept on
extended duty or ordered back for third and fourth tours, with insufficient
"dwell" time in the States to cope with the huge increase in PTSD
rates, let alone prevent it, and in a permanent war. Since the Shia would not
let the Sunni troops into the national military in any numbers, Iraq soon had
three opposed militaries - the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Shia government
military and the new U.S. funded Sunni army - capable of taking the Middle
East down a black hole. Long troop stays and
multiple deployments became the order of the day, with no end in sight.
(Green in 2006 had been on his first tour and there for only five months
before going berserk, and Army studies and surveys show that multiple
deployments and long stays contribute to higher rates of post-traumatic
stress disorder [PTSD], depression and "marital problems" which
include the savage beating and killing of military spouses.) Suicides by U.S. troops have
soared. U.S. troops are also killing
other U.S. troops. During Green's May 2009 jury trial, Sgt. John M. Russell,
44, of Sherman, Texas, in Iraq as a communications specialist with the 54th
Engineer Battalion, shot seven U.S. soldiers, killing five. On his third tour
of duty, Russell was only a few weeks from his scheduled return to the
States. If his rampage had been delayed even slightly it might have happened
in a U.S. civilian community. As it was, it took the lives of everyone from a
19-year-old Army private to a 52-year-old Navy commander. Major General David Perkins,
a spokesman for the military in Iraq said that the Army had handled the case
appropriately. From The New York Times: "The tools were all
being used," General Perkins said. "They thought that he needed a
higher level of care than the unit could provide, so they sent him to the
clinic. I mean, you see, all the kind of things that we're taught to do were
in place. "… Lt. Col. Edward Brusher, the deputy director of behavioral
health proponency for the surgeon general, said in March that there was one
provider for 640 service members in Iraq. "There are currently enough
behavioral health providers," Colonel Brusher said. (One wonders,
though, about their efficacy. Russell was at a mental health facility when he
shot the others. Seen as dangerous he had been forced to surrender his
personal weapon, but weapons are not hard to come by in Iraq.) The source of trouble though
is higher. As Petraeus took command of the multinational forces in Iraq,
Odierno became his second in command. As Petraeus took Central Command of the
entire Middle Eastern theater, Odierno became supreme commander of the U.S.
military in Iraq. Apparently having undergone a complete strategic change of
heart because he did not want to "lose," Odierno is in the cat
bird's seat. Dedication to the U.S. military can be life-long, and most
warriors are honorable and controlled. If the initial cover-up of Steve Green's
crime is an indication however, for every outrage that has surfaced, more
remain hidden. Those generals who create the situations that lead to MAM
round-ups, or detainee abuse and torture, or the cold-blooded killing of
civilians, or domestic violence by returning troops, or soldier suicide and
armed troops turning on each other are left unpunished, even promoted to the
military's top rank. At the pinnacle of
democracy's chain of command however are citizens largely unaware of their
own clout. Power is only lent to presidents and the Congress, which in turn
create, head, monitor and can restructure the military. If activated, the
real power in the United States might have saved Steven Green from himself;
could have saved Qassim, Fakhrira, Abeer and Hadeel from Steven Green; and
may still save countless others. External link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gail-mcgowan-mellor/the-death-of-abeer-in-ira_b_206793.html |