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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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May 23rd,
2009 - Slayings Dashed Dreams of Rural Iraqi Family 1st news article
from the Associated Press |
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Slayings Dashed
Dreams of Rural Iraqi Family By Brett Barrouquere Associated Press May 23, 2009 Paducah, Ky. - The
beautiful, dark-haired girl in the photograph stands near a wall in
pre-invasion Iraq. What is unseen and now lost, her family says, is her dream
of moving to the big city and getting married. "Abeer was a strong
woman," said her aunt, Ameena Hamza Rashid al-Janabi. "She was very
proud to be young." Relatives of the girl, Abeer
Qassim al-Janabi, and prosecutors detailed the teen's hopes and life during
the civilian trial of former Pfc. Steven Dale Green, 24, in western Kentucky.
They showed pictures of the family at home, and relatives recounted their
aspirations for a better life. Green, of Midland, Texas,
was convicted of multiple counts, including conspiracy and murder in the
March 2006 killings of 14-year-old Abeer and her father, mother and
6-year-old sister near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. But
jurors couldn't reach a decision Thursday on an appropriate punishment for
Green, resulting in the ex-soldier receiving a life sentence rather than the
death penalty. Al-Janabi family members
testified at the guilt and sentencing phases of Green's trial, telling jurors
through an interpreter about the al-Janabi family - Kassem, Fakhriya, Abeer,
and Hadeel, who were killed in the attack, and two boys, Mohammed and Ahmed,
who weren't home during the slayings. The family was close and
dreamed of owning a home, sending the four children to school and living in
peace, said a cousin, Abu Farras. Kassem al-Janabi, a thin man
whom jurors saw in a photo from his wedding day wearing a slightly too-large
suit, was so fond of his sister Ameena's children he named his own girls
after them. He called the oldest Abeer, which means "fragrance of
flowers," and the younger girl Hadeel, which means "sound of the
water," Ameena said. Kassem al-Janabi doted on
his family when he wasn't working as a guard in an orchard of date and palm
trees, Farras said. His oldest son, 15-year-old Mohammed, recalled Kassem
taking the two boys on car rides to the market and helping with homework. "He had a dream he
would live and eat like all the other people," Farras said. "He had
a dream he would have a house one day. He had a dream the kids would finish
college." Kassem's wife of 25 years,
Fakhriya, was described by her sons as a good cook and stay-at-home mom who
wanted a home and furniture of her own, not borrowed, Farras said. "My parents are not
like anyone else," said Mohammed, who shared a bedroom with his five
family members. Abeer, the oldest child, was
a typical teenager in a rural area - hopes for new clothes and a life in the
big city, Baghdad in her case. Soldiers who testified in Green's trial said
Abeer looked older than her early teens, with one soldier pegging her age at
about 20. Hadeel, shown in pictures
with dark hair like her sister, loved a sweet plant that grew in the yard,
was playful but not very mischievous, Ahmed al-Janabi said. The older
brothers and little sister enjoyed games of hide and seek. "She was good and she
would play with me," said Ahmed, who didn't give his age. Mohammed and Ahmed returned
from school the afternoon of the attack to find smoke billowing from the
windows. After going to their uncle's home, they returned to the house to
find their father shot in the head, mother shot in the chest, Hadeel shot in
the face and Abeer's remains burning. Since then, Mohammed and
Ahmed said, they haven't gone to school. "I refuse to go,"
Mohammed said. "I don't have the mood to study." Seeing the bodies of his
family changed Ahmed's dream. Now, Ahmed said he wants to be a policeman -
"so I can protect myself and other people and poor people." Copyright © 2009 The
Associated Press. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gEGFPQV9D_wMqdr46GE5bW3JXZAAD98C1SVO0 Iraq slaying
verdict highlights combat stress By Kristin M. Hall Associated Press May 23, 2009 Paducah, Ky. - There's no
question ex-soldier Steven Dale Green raped and killed a 14-year-old Iraqi
girl and murdered her parents and sister. Still, jurors in Kentucky
couldn't agree this week whether to sentence the 24-year-old to death for
heinous crimes he committed while serving in Iraq, indecision that may signal
growing public awareness of combat stress and its consequences, experts say. Jurors declined to talk to
reporters, but forms they completed during deliberations indicate some
factored in the stress of Green's bloody combat tour, poor mental health
treatment in Iraq and weak leadership in his unit. Green, who faces life in
prison because jurors couldn't agree on the death penalty, was tried in
civilian court because the Army had granted him an early discharge before he
was arrested for the 2006 killings. Several fellow soldiers were also
involved but were tried in military court. "I think there's some
hesitancy about executing people knowing how much we know now about
post-traumatic stress disorder and the effects of being surrounded by
violence," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty
Information Center. "I tend to think that people see the experience of
war not as an excuse, not as grounds for an acquittal, but perhaps a
mitigating factor, that this is someone who in a different environment would
not have acted this way." The killings by Green and a
recent mass shooting by a U.S. soldier at a combat stress clinic in Baghdad
emphasize the challenge the military faces as it tries to identify and treat
stress disorders, according to veterans and other military experts. "The problems of combat
stress are an issue that needs daily focus and attention for soldiers who are
deployed," said Anita Gorecki, a former military attorney who currently
defends soldiers through her firm in Fayetteville, N.C. "We're not
looking at these people and these cases in a vacuum and apparently the jury
in this case took that into consideration." In March 2006, after an
afternoon of card playing, sex talk and drinking Iraqi whiskey, Green and
three other soldiers went to the home of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi
near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Green shot and killed the
teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape her
before shooting her in the face. Her body was set on fire. His attorneys never denied
his involvement, instead focusing on building a case that he didn't deserve
the death penalty. Former Marines and other soldiers who served with Green,
of Midland, Texas, testified that he faced an unusually stressful combat tour
in Iraq's "Triangle of Death" with a unit that suffered heavy
casualties and didn't have sufficient leadership. But some veterans say that's
no excuse, no matter what Green went through. "Many of us experienced
combat stress, but Steven Green was the only one who killed a family and
raped a girl," said Capt. Brandon Friedman, who like Green served in the
101st Airborne Division during the early years of the war and is currently in
the reserve. The combat stress defense
also rang hollow to Iraqis who were shocked and disappointed that Green was
not condemned to die. The federal jurors who had convicted him of rape and
murder deliberated 10 hours over two days but couldn't agree on a sentence. "Has Iraqi blood and
honor become so cheap, where a family can be murdered and a daughter raped
and killed, and the verdict is life imprisonment?" said Tariq Dawood,
55, who lives in Baghdad. Haidar Kadom, 31, a teacher
there, called the sentence "a mockery of Iraqi rights." "If an Iraqi did the
same to an American female soldier, he would be regarded as a terrorist and
would be sentenced to death," he said. Combat stress is not unique
to current wars, but veterans say the public is now more aware of the mental
toll it exacts. "There was less of an
understanding back then," Vietnam War veteran Herman Campbell, 60, of
Jackson, Ky., said Friday. "Now, everyone comes back a hero. Back in the
Vietnam days, everybody who came back was kind of shunned. They talked bad to
you when you got off the plane. Nobody respected you. They just didn't care
much for soldiers." The jury forms showed that
members also debated whether the Army deserved some of the responsibility for
failing to recognize that Green could act on homicidal thoughts of killing
Iraqi civilians. Green's attorneys said in a
statement after the sentencing that if the military ignores the effects of
combat stress among soldiers, "we are certain a tragedy like this will
occur again in the future." Facing spikes this year in
the number of soldier suicides, the military is seeking new answers to treat
the estimated one-fifth of military members who served in Iraq or Afghanistan
and now have symptoms of anxiety, depression and other emotional problems. This week, the Defense
Department announced a new campaign featuring the stories of soldiers who are
getting mental health treatment to show that seeking help is not a
career-ending move. Gorecki, the former military
attorney, said increased awareness of combat stress has led to greater
scrutiny of the military as a whole and less blame for individual soldiers
who commit crimes. "I don't feel like the
public is blaming soldiers as a category," Gorecki said. "They are
looking to big institutions, like the department of defense, and want to make
sure the institutions are providing the help to the soldiers in order to
prevent such things from happening." Associated Press Writers
Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad and Jeffrey McMurray in Lexington contributed to this
story. Copyright © 2009 The
Associated Press. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYeOUInDxFuT4T8CsYG9-_KfQ9pgD98BI2H00 |