A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION by Judith M. Harmon Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 07/27/2006 - 12:51pm
Yesterday, my sixteen-year-old son was approached in an Olympia shopping center parking lot (Shades of "Fahrenheit 9/11") by two Marine Corp Recruiters. My son discussed my deceased Marine Corp brother's feats during and medals from Vietnam as he waited for his sister who was having her nails done in a shop owned by a Vietnamese family.
The recruiters hustled my son for about 20 minutes before asking his age.
I had previously jumped through hoops to find a statement that could maneuver around the No Child Left Behind Act, to present to his school district, leaving him unmolested by recruiters on campus. Obviously, I resented the predatory behavior, forced on a minor, without my consent.
As soon as I found out about the attempted lure I headed over to the recruiting office. I introduced myself as a mother who had been a state side Army medic during the Vietnam war. As I scanned the room I asked the Marine what a huge motorcycle, small video arcade and other props had to do with the military? He did not respond. I implied it resembled the game room of a child predator.
I explained that my son was only sixteen and had been approached by recruiters in the parking lot. I clarified that the Bush Administration has failed to demonstrate a moral compass or an ability to make substantive corrections and my son would not be taking the ill-fated journey with them.
I told him my father, a Marine Corp Artillery Officer during WWII, spent a couple of years in the Solomon Islands. He brought all of his men out alive and never asked them to do anything that he would not do himself. He became a rocket scientist and designed the fuel system that took Apollo 11 to the moon. Unfortunately, he died six months after the moon walk at the premature age of 56.
I filled him in that our moon shot had more to do with guidance systems for weapons of mass destruction than for space exploration. I explained that my brother John, who died at 46, spent two tours in Vietnam as a sniper and demolition expert. The Marines loaned him to the CIA. The CIA turned my nineteen-year-old brother into an assassin; two separate trips to Bangkok (civilian hits) securing a bar/restaurant hours before TET and eliminationg rogue troops whom he later figured out were not rogue but just like him.
My father never advised my brother not to follow an immoral order because he did not believe anyone would use his son in such a way.
I asked the recruiter why he thought a cabal of neocons, coming from a country that was being formed four hundred years ago could presume to march into a civilization with five thousand years of history and magically change it? No response. It didn't occur to me until I arrived home twenty minutes later what methods would be employed.
Extermination and reservations just as the Native American "problem" was handled.
This administration has worked with the goal of inciting chaos, in Iraq, as a way to break down the culture. The looting of the museums and historical records was allowed in order to disintegrate the sense of common heritage, failure to provide basic services such as water and electricity plus jobs will foment civil war. Negroponte, the father of Death Squads, need merely direct a few acts where it appears to be Sunni v Shia or vice versa, with private contractors or CIA as bad actors, to encourage a full blown civil war. Intellectuals are slaughtered and others leave by the thousands. The hope is the extermination of both sides by each other and a replica of the Pol Pot brain drain back into the stone age.
Not possible, you protest. Ah, but on July 23 The Seattle Times reported that a group of U.S. soldiers, charged with premeditated murder, claim that they were ordered to kill all military age males they encountered when routing out, or looking for "insurgents." The U.S. Calvary routinely wiped out all male Indians it deemed a threat. This is definitive Cowboy Diplomacy.
Ex-US Soldier Gets 5 Life Sentences For Iraqi Deaths
Former 101st Airborne Division Pfc. Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, is taken in the back of the court building in Paducah, Ky. by US marshals Friday Sept. 4, 2009 for formal sentencing to life in prison for the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenager and the shooting deaths of three of her family members. A civilian jury convicted Green in May of rape and multiple counts of murder for the deaths of the al-Janabi family on March 12, 2006. (AP Photo/ Daniel R. Patmore)
BRETT BARROUQUERE | 09/ 4/09 04:15 PM | AP
PADUCAH, Ky. — A former soldier received five consecutive life sentences Friday for his role in the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenager and the slaying of three of her family members.
"What the defendant did was horrifying and inexcusable," U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell said in sentencing to Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas. "The court believes any lesser sentence would be insufficient."
A civilian jury in western Kentucky convicted Green in May of raping Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, conspiracy and multiple counts of murder.
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 March 12, 2006, at their rural home outside Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.
The panel couldn't reach an unanimous decision about whether Green should get a death sentence, automatically making Green's sentence life in prison. Barring a successful appeal or presidential pardon, Green will not be eligible for release from prison.
Green told the judge he merely followed orders from other soldiers involved in the attack.
"You can act like I'm a sociopath. You can act like I'm a sex offender or whatever," Green said. "If I had not joined the Army, if I had not gone to Iraq, I would not have got caught up in anything."
At a hearing in May, Green repeatedly apologized to the al-Janabi family, saying he knew little about Iraqis and realizes now his actions then were wrong. Green described the attacks as "evil" and said when he dies "there will be justice and whatever I deserve, I'll get."
During Green's trial, defense attorneys never contested Green's role in the attacks. Instead, they focused on saving his life by putting on witnesses that testified that the military failed Green on multiple fronts – by allowing a troubled teen into the service, not recognizing and helping a soldier struggling emotionally and providing inadequate leadership.
During the sentencing hearing, defense attorney Patrick Bouldin said Green tried to take responsibility for his role in the attacks, twice offering to plead guilty and serve life in prison. Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford said one offer came on the eve of jury selection, the other two weeks into jury selection.
Green and four other soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Ky., were investigated after the killings. Three who went to the family's home, along with Green, received lengthy sentences up to 110 years but will become eligible for parole in seven years. Another who had a lesser role was released from military prison after serving 27 months.
All except Green were charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and faced a military trial, known as a court martial. Two of the soldiers who were at the home when Green shot the family pleaded guilty and a military jury convicted a third.
Green said the idea of his co-defendants being out of prison one day is "all right with me."
"They planned it," Green said. "All I ever did was what they told me to do."
Green was the first person charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, a law passed in 2000 that allows U.S. authorities to prosecute former military personnel, contractors and others for crimes committed overseas.
By the time the Army pressed charges in June 2006, Green had been honorably discharged with a personality disorder and returned to the United States. Because Green had been discharged, prosecutors filed an indictment against him as a civilian.
Green's attorneys have 10 days to file notice of an appeal.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
