Wing-nut says stress could make soldiers rape and murder a 14-year-old

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11506

Iraq: Understanding Why They Raped

Suki Falconberg

I can kind of understand why Marines in Iraq may have raped a 14-year-old girl and then killed her and her family. (I would like to stress the ‘may have.’ Nothing has been proven against these men yet. They have not been tried, or convicted. They are as innocent as you and I at this moment.)

It seems like a statement of the obvious, but the men are in a wartime situation. Full of the fear of being killed, the frustration of having to deal with this enemy they don’t know or understand—Iraqi culture is incredibly different from ours. They see their friends killed. They could get maimed, disfigured, have their legs blown off at any moment. They’re in the middle of this awful heat and loaded down with 50-100 lbs. of gear and angry as hell. Maybe rape and other atrocities are understandable responses? Maybe I would behave in a really savage way, too, if I were faced with what’s hitting these boys everyday? snip

If the six soldiers implicated in the March rape-murder of the young Iraqi girl and her family are guilty, we should remember that they are ordinary men pushed to extremes. They are just like the men around us everyday—just like our boyfriends and brothers.

How can I condemn any soldiers for wartime rape-murder if I can’t answer for myself? What kind of savagery might I inflict on a woman or child if war pushed me far enough?

for these kind of acts. :sarcasm:

because that's the only time that people really experience stress.

And this gentleman is good enough not to mention it, but I'd wager a guess that democrats questioning the war effort contributed to the stress these soldiers felt :sarcasm:

Stress is hell.

People react differently.

In the military, soldiers are trained for the purpose of power and conquest.

It is unfortunate, but it does happen.

Does it make the violation right? Hardly! The guy shouldn't be let off the hook.

Maybe there's a better way to pick which troops go where and reduce the probability. I dunno.

It could be entirely random too. One who looks the most secure could crack, whereas the one who is most insecure can handle it for the long haul. Humanity's a bit of a bugger in that respect.

:shrug:

The perps in this case planned the rape. Killing her, the parents and her 7 year old sister may not have been part of the plan but once they got into the house they decided to kill everyone. These men are psychopaths. No excuses!

This sick creep -- with a serious mental illness i.e. anti-social personality disorder, aka sociopathy -- was capable of committing this crime anywhere his sorry ass happened to find itself in.

This guy is a Ted Bundy or Danny Rolling type -- not "just like our boyfriends and brothers."

No "fog of war" and "moral uncertainty" here -- what a pile of horseshit. PU.

The writer needs a brain enema. I'll send her a prescription.

It certainly does not excuse horrific acts (as you stated), but with "stop loss" orders, long deployments, National guard deployments and a willingness to enlist "any comers" ... in violent settings some people snap and commit horrific acts.

I DO hold the individuals committing these atrocities responsible, but the US military and their policies are certainly complicit.

who looks at you funny. My uncle came back from the Pacific after World War II and beat the crap out of two teenagers for just looking at him as he was driving his car down the street for no apparent reason.

But this was a premediated act, if true. It involved days and days of stalking. It involved repeated efforts to hit on an underaged girl. It involved a conspiracy with others to commit murder. It involved the soldiers leaving their post, removing their uniforms, wearing dark clothing, monitoring the radio, bringing along a shotgun to possibly avoid leaving ballistics evidence. In fact, they ended up not using their shotgun but instead used an AK-47 they found in the house, showing that they had the cool presence of mind to attempt to cover up their crime. The attempted burning of the body to destroy the evidence is a further indication. It was intelligent and it was planned. It was not a sudden outburst of pent up stress.

If soldiers feel stressed to the point of deserting their post and planning a detailed murder and rape, they should immediately report to their commanding officer and seek help. They don't think about the crime over a period of time and murder in cold blood. And they don't all conveniently get battle stress of the same degree of seriousness coincidentally.

Combat stress doesn't explain this. If true, this was a thoughtful, premediated, intelligent, and planned act of sick men.

This wasn't revenge. This wasn't bloodlust. This was a cold, calculated plan. Maybe they freaked after the rape but too damned bad. There is no justification for this AT ALL.

in the civilian community?

even though you are right that stress is hell.

It would explain (not excuse) some of the other atrocities we've heard, like the slaughter after they saw their buddies get killed and they went from house to house shooting. That was horrible, they knew the little kids hadn't done it. But in the heat of the moment after months of stress and never knowing who or when or where the danger is people could flip and do horrible things like that.
They are not less guilty but it was a crisis triggered horror.

But this one? No way. War isn't the vaguest explanation except perhaps it made them think they could get away with it and that maybe war made them dehumanize the Iraqi people so they didn't care. Easy to guess why they aren't winning hearts and support there.

The teenager was said to be beautiful, it was said she was afraid of the way they looked at/talked to her. I'd guess they saw they weren't going to get anywhere with her in a normal way.

They are "trained for the purpose of power and conquest" but that's against the enemy, not a pretty teenager. This was a cold, cruel plot. They wanted to f@#$ the teenager and were willing to kill to be able to do it.

If this is understandable then I hate to see what they are like when they get home, there are many pretty girls and women they would surely like to f^&* that won't give them the time of day.

There are a HUGE number of soldiers who would surely like to have sex with a pretty girl. There is a tiny number who would rape and kill her and her family for a chance to do it.

War is no excuse or explanation for this. I have no idea how these guys ever had a normal moment after that, could eat a meal, could see their face in the mirror. I hope they all face life in prison.

It helps the soldier immensely when the child rape victim "looks different" as well. It is easier to "dehumanize" the 14 year old and mentally turn her into a 25 year old who is at the age of consent.

There is no blame unless the victim is blonde, blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked and fair complected.

Nothing external does -- it is a personality disorder. The same one Ted Bundy, etc. had.

This is not "unfortunate." It is a sick, sick crime that the huge majority of people -- and soldiers -- would never do. Blaming it on stress, etc., is saying that anyone could do it -- and that is patently incorrect.

but I guess I'm just old fashioned.

rape a woman you would not slaughter her and her family, then leave and just go about your normal routine.

I like old fashioned people.

Furthermore, I can't see any possible connection between that guy being stressed and raping the woman. Other than total raving foaming at the mouth insanity or being a sex criminal there isn't a reason or justification. Any freeper who sees some wiggle in this ought to be investigated.

whenever anyone is accused of a crime they are always guilty, and the punishment should be especially severe, especially if a black or Hispanic or poor person is involved? But if a police officer, or a corporate CEO, a Republican politician or a US soldier is accused of a crime, the Right tells us that "nothing has been proven against these men yet. They have not been tried, or convicted. They are as innocent as you and I at this moment".

Gee -- aren't liberals unfairly charged with having too much empathy with vicious criminals? It is one of the main sources of ridicule against liberals, who are accused of coddling violent criminals. What did Karl Rove say in 2004 -- that liberals try to empathize with criminals, while NeoCons lock them up?

And yet, here is a Republican writer who is intensely identifying with the perps, and offering excuses for their behavior.

It's a mixed up, muddled up world. Hypocritical too.

I guess, most of the time, they just manage to repress their deadly urges by giving into the less lethal ones.

My husband was in Iraq. He saw death. He saw destruction. He dodged bullets and IED's. He carried loads in the heat. He saw his fellow soldier get blown to bits.

Guess what? He didn't rape and murder anyone..and furthermore...he didn't have the urge to do such horrible things.

So fuck you, Suki Falconberg, for even entertaining the thought that those monsters are just like "our boyfriends and brothers"

:hug:

I hope your honey stays safe.

:hug:

He's good. We're in garrison now. (no deploying)Thankfully!!!!

I know combat brings stress. I know it screws with their minds. But such actions are never understandable...at least to my mind. I can't "grasp" it. It's not exactly part of my nature. And I do believe a person has to have that already in their nature to consider doing it.

guys all along. Probably would have done it regardless of combat stress.

if he isn't a descendent of one of the troopers who massacred the Lakota at Wounded Knee.

how can she miss the OBVIOUS cause on her winding way to some namby-pamby, momma's boy explanation about constant fear and physical stress?

obligation to respect the laws of the (supposedly) 'civilized world' under any circumstance?

What is he then if he would not?

A brainless barbarian borg?


'thanks' georgie... see what you have done? :mad: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

I can understand that someone who is the victim of whatever mind poison it is that makes one become a vicious killer would be apt to be pushed over the edge by such horrific conditions, or to start assuming that such behavior is ok in the general melee.
I can understand the mechanism, but rapist murderers are rapist murderers because that's what they are, not because of the conditions they find themselves in.

The BFEE and the rest of the neo-fascists, as well as their neo-con enablers, are guilty of that rape-murder and should be held accountable--sigh--maybe someday.

Yes -- Green has a serious mental illness -- but, in this crime, how much is *personal* sociopathy, and how much is *political* sociopathy?

There is such a thing as "command influence" -- other people get away with war crimes (Bush and Cheney, to name a few), so why not us?

Then there is the aspect that the US strong-armed the International Criminal Court in 2001 to absolve US troops involved in the War Against Terriers of ever having to face that court for war crimes. Iraqis cannot try them as criminals either.

Perhaps there is a prevailing idea that one can trust the Pentagon to make sure one's crimes never get reported, let alone prosecuted.

But -- yeah yeah yeah -- these guys are certainly in a Bush Crime Family sponsored meat grinder, but they brought personal criminal sociopathy with them to Iraq.

or take them in .In the first place

The military will never go for it. They will continue to "take all comers"
:shrug:

(sarcasm not directed at you)

with the attendant minimal IQs and fragile emotional stability put already damaged people into a hellish situation. While it might have taken far greater provocation (drugs etc.) to do such a heinous deed back home, the circumstances there almost guarantee it happening in that maelstrom of random evil ---- caused by GWB, DC, and of course,Rummy.

Not that they are not to blame --- but what can be expected given the lack of moral leadership at the top?

The fact that this was reported suggests that FAR MORE along these lines has not.

....should be used to avoid just punishment. On the other hand, I do think mental illness should be considered when it's time to pass sentence.

Since I've never been in a war zone - thank the gods - I don't know how much a useless war, that is not winnable, and there's no way to get out of, could affect a person's mental/emotional health. I think I can safely guess that the affects wouldn't be good at all and acting out inappropriately might even be expected.

And I'm sure he would have "understood" why a small few people decided to steal TV's and designer clothes after Katrina last year. I'ms ure he would have "understood" that poverty and class separation causes people to do things sometimes.

No, I'm sure he's one of the same people who called for shooting looters in New Orleans after Katrina. No doubt he would have been one of the first people calling for people who stole television sets to be executed on sight.

...others rape and murder a 14-year-old girl and slaughter her family.

Different strokes....

Does that make it OK for us to go in and massacre them and their families? I think not. And I bet the wingers agree with me.

We're all under stress of some sort. Many of us face the horrors of illness, pain, poverty, abuse - you name it - on a daily basis. We may get depressed or drink to much, but planning rapes and murders? I don't think so. Talk about soft on crime, for God's sake!

:mad: :puke:

Edited to add: Every time one of these "conservatives" works to explain away the crimes of one of the GIs, it only serves to diminish the sterling service of decent veterans - like my father!

Viet Nam news, fragging of U.S. officers, My Lai massacre and others, the whole damn range of explanations after the fact....and then the abrupt withdrawal.

When do we all say it, QUAGMIRE? When do we see the forest, not the bombed trees?

I agree with your post. This is exactly why so many of us were against this invasion of Iraq in the first place. We know what happens during war.

I'm actually reincarnated on DU after an email/server fiasco.
(JohnnyLib1 and 2)

:wtf:

May the author always remain as blissfully ignorant as s/he is right now... but should wartime rape and murder ever befall his/her own family, I would be most interested to hear if s/he is still so "understanding."

personal responsibility for their own actions. It's part and parcel of their identity -and always has been. . .I'm sure they were "stressed" when they decided they have to drag a Black man behind a truck and murder him....and they are just "stressed" when they have to murder a gay man because the guy allegedly "looked" at them. . .I had an EX who said it was "stress" that caused him to have an affair for months and lie about it. . .

Anything but responsibility - that should be the Republican motto.

a little Googling:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Suki+Falconberg&btnG=Google+Search

Funny how a person that is soooo concerned about human trafficking (but condoms are a no no) can justify rape. And is Suki pretending to be a doctor?

PS: I'm pretty sure Suki is a female name

It's about the criminal exploitation of vulnerable women as prostitutes for soldiers, including our own. She herself has been the victim of brutal rape. This essay is a MUST READ. While I still disagree about her assessment of the Green incident, I humbly apologize for pigeon-holing her as a wacko. (I burn with shame....)
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=9947

Snippets
"Iraq is like Vietnam in this respect. Silenced women suffering sexual brutalization. During that war, gang rape in the villages and the forcing of half a million hungry girls into prostitution to service our men was the picture, and we never heard about it. A tacit conspiracy on the part of the media to keep all this "dirt" from impinging on the attention of the "decent," privileged girls back home. (Sources for Vietnam material: Historian Arlene Eisen and my own conversations with Vietnam vets over a period of thirty years.)"
-snip-
I would like to know if vulnerable Iraqi women and girls are being trafficked/prostituted/brothelized for our soldiers. I would also like to know if girls are being brought in from countries with histories of exporting their women’s bodies for sex-- like Thailand. If so, I would like to believe that our men are trying to help these sexually brutalized women, rather than adding to their misery. But I’m not too optimistic. Since the end of WWII, American soldiers have been among the largest consumers of exploited women and girls. Korean Comfort Women, sexually imprisoned by the Japanese, were not the only victims of the Second World War. In Tokyo, as soon as our men landed in August l945, destitute, homeless, and unprotected girls were rounded up and forced into “Comfort Stations” by both the Japanese and American authorities. Most of these “Occupation Comfort Women” were teenage girls, and most were virgins. They were forced to service anywhere from 15 to 60 American soldiers a day. One dispassionate official’s report describes a girl that 50 soldiers lined up to use as “busy,” as if she were baking a cake or doing her homework.

When the girls tired to escape, they were pushed back into the brothels by our Military Police. Even when they cried and showed how terrified they were, the American boys still used them. Some were raped into unconsciousness. The conditions were so unbearable that some girls committed suicide. (Sources for Occupation Comfort Girl material: Historians John Dower, George Hicks, and Yuki Tanaka.)

-snip-
Hilary Clinton should take a world-wide trip with the specific purpose of visiting the brothelized, the trafficked, the sexually enslaved. She could call enormous attention to their plight. Would that I had her power to make the world notice the soft and the ravaged. As a former prostitute, I know that we are scorned as “filth” and considered “disposable.” If high-profile women would accord us some importance and humanity, consider our lives worthy of notice, maybe others would not be so quick to despise us. I know that once you are in the camp of the brutalized and sexually mistreated, escape is practically impossible. World-wide, there is too much cultural barbed wire keeping you in that prison, blaming you for your own rape/prostitution. A recent Frontline show on “Sex Slaves” said that trafficked girls who manage to escape, return home, are shamed by their experience, turned into village whores
-snip-
I wish that some of the news accounts of Darfur would point out that Sudanese women are subjected to Female Genital Mutilation and that this makes rape all the more devastating. These poor women can barely handle any kind of 'normal' intercourse, given this 'cultural' damage to their organs, let along the violence of rape. When will this be in the forefront of women’s concerns--rather than the latest Kama Sutra position in Cosmopolitan? (This is not to condemn the joys of the Kama Sutra or the pleasure that this magazine believes is our sexual birthright, merely to say that, as Western, privileged women, we hold a tenuous grasp upon out own sexual freedom if so many other female bodies are being enslaved.) When will the liberal media devote more than a few inches of space, every few months, to the ongoing misery inflicted on our bodies? When will it write long stories about the children fathered by UN Peacekeepers on prostituted bodies? (No peace for the ravaged.) Or notice the masses of Amerasian street children recycled into the prostitution their mothers had to undertake, to eat? When will it seek out and listen to the stories of the refugee girls that were “conscripted” and sold for $2 a lay in tent brothels across Vietnam because the soldier at war “must have his fuck,” as one vet said so eloquently said to me."

and if he's under some kind of terrible stress, we should remember he might be just another regular guy pushed to the edge?

The ringleader of this little jaunt had a record was let in on a moral waiver and then tossed out even before they found out what he did.

wanted to there..... how many hundreds of thousands of people we got in prison anyhoo???

Perhaps I could break badly enough to murder someone in the middle of combat.

But rape? Pulling down my pants and someone else's and puncturing her for the power rush or sexual pleasure? Nothing I've ever seen or heard suggested in this world could move me to that. I'd rather die.

qualifications to speak on these topics?

Or is this just a bloviation exercise???

I found the comparison of the kids under fire in Mogadishu and having to face the ethical difficulty of firing on human shields to these guys, who sneaked out at night in civilian clothes to do their nefarious deeds, a bit appalling, to put it mildly.

Those scenarios are NOT equivalent.

...phychiatric help!

Does this ingrate realize that he is identifying with and supporting the behavior of a soldier who has a severe "personality disorder"? This soldier was diagnosed as either a psychopath or a sociopath, and this bum says he understands this soldier's behavior and may act the same?

Sometimes, it's good when predators reveal who they really are. This author is letting us all know that it's normal for a stressed-out person to rape a minor child. Interesting....that someone so depraved and ignorant, would drone on and on--as if his opinion means something. Most sociopaths overestimate their own importance and intelligence. This guy is no exception.

I hope to God this guy is just some young fool who will do a great deal of growing up in the near future. I hope he's not a father. Or a husband.

This writer, though an obvious wingnut, has hit on some truths - stress can make ANYONE do horrible things; things they wouldn't otherwise do.

And YES - these guys COULD BE our brothers or boyfriends.

The proof is all around us, people - look at WWI vets, WWII vets, Korean, Vietnam, Gulf War, and now Desert Storm II troops returning: some of them get really fucked up; some are terribly wounded emotionally and spiritually. Being in a war zone is a hell of a stressful thing. And I bet just about every vet who comes home, and has PTSD or other problems, and has done heinous things, has a whole cadre of friends and family who would otherwise say "Oh, he could never do that." But, he has.

Someone up above said "My honey didn't rape anyone" and used that as a reason to dismiss, quite dishonorably in my opinion, the possibility that the ones who DID (allegedly) rape might have done so as a cause of war fatigue, stress, or other emotional/psychological problem. The point is true: stress will cause SOME to do heinous acts.

Now, while I do agree with the author of the article that we should try to understand why people do these things, and I would even say that we should also have compassion and empathy for why they did it, I do disagree with the author that we need, therefore, to accept it.

And I think this is where a lot of people on DU get their stuff fucked up - understanding why someone does something doesn't mean that we accept why they do it. But understanding is the first step to compassion.

If they rapists are found guilty, then they should be persecuted greatly, yes indeedy. But even so, we - who aren't in their situation - should at least try to understand why they might have done it; and that part of the reason why they did it is because we, the American people (and yes, I include those of us who hate this war and still haven't managed to stop it) have sent these young boys into not only a horrible situation, but have them sent them ill-prepared, have also refused to give them the leadership they need, the skills they need, and the resources they need to actually do something that isn't a quagmire piece of dangerous shit over there.

So long as this war goes on, and so long as it is run as pisspoor and without regard for anyone as it has been done, our soldiers are going to continue to suffer mental, psychological, spiritual, and physical breakdowns that lead to these kinds of atrocities.

Show a little compassion, people; and show a little maturity. These soldiers aren't monsters in and of themselves - they are being turned into monsters by this criminal administration, while we stand idly by on the sidelines, and while some of us who are standing over here in safety, stand safely and judge them as monsters and subhuman scum.

Well, they aren't scum - they are human beings. Human beings who deserve our respect and our empathy; and who, most of all, deserve to be brought home, deserve to never have to engage in war to begin with let alone ever again, deserve to be given the medical attention they need, deserve to be with their loved ones, and deserve to live in a world in which criminal assholes don't send unprepared teenagers into illegal, unnecessary, immoral, and shittily run wars.

I posted above about stupid decisions about war, but didn't think to go into (forgive me) "collateral damage." Ours, theirs, everyone's.

Like those freaks showed the young girl and her family?

THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR RAPE OR MURDER OF A FOURTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL!

NONE!

that there is a difference between compassion/understanding and ACCEPTING?

That's the issue I'm talking about. That I can at least UNDERSTAND why people might do terrible things, even if I don't agree with what they did or accept it as a valid action; even, in fact, while I can condemn them for it.

And I think it is VERY important for us to try to understand - that's empathy, and empathy is a kind and wonderful thing, and something that can tie us together as human beings. And especially in the instance of war and/or other highly stressful, dangerous, awful experiences that we often ask people to go into: such as policework, firemen, detectives, rescue personnel, doctors, etc.

Not to excuse bad behavior - but to at least understand that, even for me or for you, anyone can buckle and do heinous things when subjected to extremely stressful situations. Hell, look at the stupid things that people can do simply when they're grieving the death of a loved one. We are emotional beings; and any one of us might be the one to snap, if we were in those situations. That's empathy -- understanding that it could very well be me, and in that case, I would want people at least to understand, even if they must condemn me to jail or worse.

And we should remember that, whenever we ask people to super stress themselves, we could very well be asking them to lose their minds, and we risk the chance that they will snap and do something heinous.

I cannot in my right mind put myself in the shoes of these rapists and murderers. This is like asking me to understand why Dahmer or Bundy did what they did. I have tons more empathy for the families, friends, and neighbors who are victims of such wanton violence. If I heard that a guy, tomorrow, drove a truck filled with explosives into a checkpoint of US soldiers, and blew the shit out of them as a response to this depravity, THAT I COULD UNDERSTAND! But I will NEVER UNDERSTAND what these MONSTERS did to that family! NEVER!

stress makes you do terrible things, yes, but this horror is the product of pre-disposed minds - there is no way these guys were not f****ed up before they ever set foot in Iraq

Do we have only a certain amount of compassion to pass around, and so must be stingy with it?

Why can't we be infinitely compassionate to all? I think we can - I don't think we can "run out of" compassion.

And I do think you're right that this act seems to be clearly premeditated, and thus even more heinous because of it's thoughtful process.

But we do not want to ask the question of "Why were they fucked up before they entered the military?" or even "Why were they fucked up?" Maybe even to look for some answers to the questions, "Were they fucked up before before stepping foot in Iraq? What was their turning point between acting like a human being and acting like an animal? Junior high? High school? Basic training? Drinking beers with their living buddies after watching other buddies die?"

I think it's important to ask that question, and to probe for an answer far deeper than "because they're fucked up" or "because they're evil".

Do we blame them personally, or do we blame the system that created them - a system in which we are all participants, however unwillingly that might be? Or is it a shared blame?

the vast majority of whom would never THINK of rape and murder as acceptable responses to stress

Rape, tragically, occurs in war time, and has always been a component of the madness that is unleashed in war conditions -- but carefully planning it out over a week is characteristic of inherent criminal insanity, not the "fog of war."

Damn right the vast majority of troops would never, ever, think of rape and murder as "acceptable responses to stress!"

I think the writer of this essay has WAY too much time on her hands if she can dream up wacky stuff like this.

BTW -- HI Skittles!! Long time, no see. :hi:

yeah, you know it. It's like excusing college students for date rape because they were drunk - I remember a guy's letter in the paper that said I SPENT THE VAST MAJORITY OF MY TIME IN COLLEGE DRUNK AND I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT RAPING A WOMAN. These excuses for such disgusting behavior are just pathetic

I noted above that I'd be slower to judge those who did cruelties and slaughter after seeing their buddies get killed, even though the kids they killed sure didn't do it. In the heat of the moment stress can make you do crazy things you wouldn't do otherwise.

This does not seem the same. This was watching a pretty teen and planning an ambush and slaughtering a family and raping the girl and then slaughtering her. That is not a stress response. War did not cause them to do it, just perhaps caused them to believe they might get away with it.

They might be like our brothers or husbands but that girl and her little sister were like our sisters and daughters. The girls were "Human beings who deserve our respect and our empathy" and they didn't ask us there and they didn't fight us there. They were little girls trying to grow up.

My sympathy goes there first.

I've attempted to delve into the reasons behind any number of heinous activities on other boards many, many times and have reluctantly come to the conclusion that most poeple have absolutely no interest in the why of these acts.

It helps not at all to tell them that understanding is the first step along the way to putting a stop to such behaviour. The usual response is that a bullet/needle/noose stops the behaviour.

Even when I flat stated that my purpose is to simply explain and to never excuse the inexcusible, I was attacked as an appologist for paedophiles, anti-christian (no insult since I am an atheist), anti-semitic and pro-terror and my words would be twisted beyond recognition to mean something entirely different to what I wrote.

Their interest begins and ends with the act and the act alone. They (fuguratively) roll the salacious details around in their mouths, throwing them in my face for daring to try to understand. I don't need it. I've seen the autopsy photo of the nine year old girl fucked to death. My brothers had to wash pieces of the brains of two friends off their faces when one turned a shotgun on the other and them himself at a party. I've watch WWJD and several other of Ava heart grabbing pieces. And to take nothing away from her: Without an understanding of the why behind the scenes in those images, we will be doomed to see many many more like them.

I understand what was done. I don't need to be told again for the umteenth time.

What those frothing at the mouth need to understand is that it is impossible to make something go away after it has happened. The only way to make something go away is to understand why it happens and then to, formulate interventions that prevent (or more realistically) minimise the chances of the undesired behasvious from recuring.


zbird: Suki, I think is well qualified to say what she has said. I'm sure that after her own assault she asked the question "Why did this happen to me?" and along the way, in her search for an explanation, she discovered that the question is better put as: "Why did this happen?" Who it happens to is only really important to the victim and those close to them. The why is important to all.


I'd just like to leave you all with some very rough probabilites that I once attempted to work out based on some very incomplete statistics that I was able to dredge up at the time. If anyone could help me with better numbers I'd be appreciative.

The lifetime probability of being subject to an actionable sexual assult as a female is at least 90% and possibly as high as 98%.

It's even odds for all of us that someone no more distantly related than first cousin has paedophilic leanings and as high as 1 in 4 that a family member has acted on those desires.

Further to the last. It is a virtual certainty that each and every one of us is unknowingly personally aquainted with an active paedophile and still very high (my guess 80%+) that one is a close aquaintance if not an intimate friend. You only ever find out when they themselves are found out.


These are the sort of figures we have to work with. Amd the results of the response to paedophilia over the past quarter century or so, speak volumes on the effectiveness of the lynch mod mentality that prevails today.

* Innocents assaulted and murdered over mistaken identity.
* More and more of todays victims turning up dead in ditches or never found at all.
* Parents actually no longer able to photograph their own children in numerous public venues.
* Fathers looked at askance for daring to show affection towards a child in public.
* Fewer and fewer men willing to enter/stay within the teaching profession.
* Accusations over the most innocent of contacts.
* Accusations out of pure spite as the "best" way to hurt someone.

In no way am I saying the past was good. Or that what happened then was acceptable. However, it may arguably have been better. A lifetime of therapy beats becoming wormfood at six hands down every time. And when you knew that Uncle George was a bit strange well, you just never left the kids alone with him. Now, all to often, you only discover his strangeness when he rapes (and possibly kills) the a kid down the street. How is that better?


We know what happens, and how often. Far too few however, care as to the why, and until more do, there is very little chance of ever achieving any real understanding, and even less of actually doing something positive to change the situation.

We do indeed need to enter the realm of "why?" and far more into the realm than the answer "because they're evildoers".

It's disgraceful that our asshole president uses logic like that; it's even more shameful and especially disgraceful, not to say disheartening, when my fellow liberals and democrats use that language.

We're better than that.

These dudes, at least the ringleaders, ARE sociopaths. They literally have no conscious. This was a cold, calculatingly act of evil. They are sociopathic killers... the EXACT same as Ted Bundy, etc. They are no different.

I have huge amounts of compassion for those soldiers who have PTSD... I have some of them in my family.

Stress can make you a killer, but it dies NOT make you a rapist and murderer.

I save my compassion for those that truly deserve it -- not for cold-blooded murderers.

From one of her previous writings, she claims to be a former prostitute who had been gang raped by Vietnam vets.

snip...

"Thirty years ago, I was gang raped by men who had raped in Vietnam. They had a lot of practice over there, and then came back and used my body as their rape playground. After the attack, I ended up in prostitution, near a military base, because I felt I was a piece of public garbage, fit only for more rape by men.

One thing that I garnered from talking to Vietnam vets about rape was how easy it was because the women were so small and fragile. Since Asian woman are about the size of ten-year-olds, it didn’t take much to overpower them. It has always haunted me, how badly torn up these girls must have been due to their smallness. (It must have been like raping children.) I’m a medium-sized Caucasian woman and my attackers, all pretty big Caucasian males, almost killed me."

snip...

http://www.veteranstoday.com/article1307.html

How can ANYONE who has been raped rationalize/justify/excuse rape? I just don't understand.

After reading the essay in the OP, I rashly concluded that she was a far-out wacko -- but the essay that you cite -- and which I cited below -- is a pretty powerful indictment of sexual exploitation of women in war time, which I recommend to everyone.

I agree -- it's weird that someone who was brutally assaulted, and who writes so eloquently about sexual exploitation of vulnerable women, tries to take a walk in a sociopath's shoes....

murder her and her family and burn
her body.

There is a word for Suki's attitude

PSYCHOPATH.

Someone completely lacking
in affect and emphathy for the rights
and suffering of others.

...imessurably better than your's.


My take is that Suki, in her search for the answer to why her rape happened to her all those years ago, came to realise that the better question was: "Why does rape happen at all?"

She found an answer that should frighten each and every single one of us.

{Everybody) Have a look at this and then ask yourself if you can truthfully say that you would never do something like that. That no friend of yours could act in such a fashion. That no member of your family could ever commit such a heinous crime.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s10729.htm

Leigh too was fourteen years old.

Google search "leigh leigh"+murder for more information.

Something like 30 kids were a party to this horendous, sickening murder.


Of the two of you Suki appears to be the saner of the two. She understands that given the right(wrong) circumstances ANYONE (absolutely anyone, including herself) can be a rapist or a murderer.

Extrapolating at my expense for reasons known
only to you.

My point is rather clear; if Suki's comments were
meant to be ironic his/her irony is stillborn and
rather crude.

If it was meant as an apologia/condemnation of the
inherent evil of mankind it is hamfisted and obvious.

I'm rather embarrassed that I fell for your moral
posturing.

And my comments about you were for the way you belittled what she said. It's not about being a little stressed. It's about being in a world where gut churning paranoia is a barely adequate saftey precaution.

You called her a psychopath for daring to have compassion for all the victims of this sorry mess, including the young men who performed this heinous crime. They are in no way innocent yet they are victims all the same. Victims of an illegal and immoral war. They should not go unpunnished, they deserve to be punished, but the one thing they do not deserve is unreasoning hatred not if you want to consider yourself better than they are.

I shall ask you too. Did you read the link I supplied in my Post #77? If a bunch of schoolkids can do this fueled by nothing but alcohol, then what is wrong with showing some understanding for young men utterly mindfucked by the insanity that is the current war.

The only difference between these men and Lindy England is a matter of degree not kind. I have seen compassion here for her, why not for these scared young men?

diredted towards Lawrence Provost or whoever made the following remarks re rape
as just one of those things that happen in war

"War can make you do terrible things,'says Lawrence Provost," a man who has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq with the Army Reserve.

“Moreover,” Sappenfield reports, “soldiers and marines resent what they see as the self-righteous condemnation of critics who sit thousands of miles from the fight and have little concept of what it means to fight an insurgency.” And he writes of “the stress of a combat environment where friend and foe blur into uncertainty."

a 14-year old girl? You said ANYONE, so I assume you include yourself in that group.

That might do it. I trully hope not. But I just don't know. No one knows what will drive them over the edge until they see the rocks coming at them from below.

What drives a parent to murder their own children and then kill themselves? All to often the answer is to hurt the parent left behind as bady as possible.

What drove two entire nations to carry out programs of genocide in WWII?

Setting Japan aside, WE (you and I) have far far more in common with the German people than there are differences. Atheist that I am, I still say: "There but for the grace of God goes I."


Did you read the article I pointed you at? What drove up to thirty odd kids to participate (or at least cheer on the participants) in Leigh's degradation, rape and murder? She was spat on and urinated upon.

There are dark, dark places in the human psyche. I have seen dozens of people here (and elsewhere) screech like the worst of the RW's blatherbots over this or that outrage. Hang them; evisverate them; castrate them; Let them be Bubba's bitch and see how they like it. I've read all this and more right here on DU. I've said these things myself. Humanity has the capacity for near limitless love, and it also has the capacity for bottomless hatred.

What circumstances would you RAPE & MURDER someone? I don't want to know your theory as to why OTHERS commit these crimes, I'm more interested in your assertion that ANYONE (including yourself) could commit murder & rape. I'm also not talking about "hateful" speech, I'm talking about MURDER & RAPE.

I do not know exactly what would drive me to such an act. Essentially nobody knows until after they have done it.

What drives an apparently sane and rational person to throwing a crying baby up against the wall, simply because the child will not shut up?

What of the baby in M*A*S*H Goodbye, Fairwell, Amen? Was that childs mother a murderer? Or did she make a sacrifice beyond the one normally called "ultimate" in order to save the lives of others?


I reiterate. Did you read the link to the Leigh Leigh muder article? Can you with a straight face say that something like that could never, ever happen with you, a family member, a freind?

No one can.

girl & murder her family. That goes for my realtives as well. I'm sorry that you think so little of your own family that you would hoist the rapist/murderer title upon them, but I guess you know them better than I.

Remember, we are talking about a planned-out rape here. I want to know what circumstances where you would plan out the rape/murder of a 14 year old girl and her family...you haven't given me a good circumstance yet.

No one can fathom before the act. I simply accept that my psyche has it's dark corners and I know not what lurks in all of them. I do know that in the past I have been guilty of behaviour (specifically lashing out in rage) that I am not now proud of and if you are honest you will admit (at least to yourself) that you too have had your own dark moments.

(edited to add) What I have been saying (and asking) is not specifically about this particular crime. It's about any horrific crime. I'm sure that you can envsiage a scenario in which you repeatedly (and knowing in advance that you will do so) driving while inebriated. You get away with it for years and then one day you wipe an entire family (or possibly worse all but one menmber) off the face of this Earth.

It is you that is dodging the question when you answer that you could never premeditatedly take part in the rape and muder of a 14 year old girl. Does this mean you're all right with fifteen year olds? Of course not.

The question I asked, and I appologise if I was not clear, was, can you truthfully say that you/your family/your freinds are completely and utterly incapable of never ever capable of committing some specially heinous act under any and all possible circumstances.
(end edit)


For the most part I have been speaking in general terms and not specifically about this event, even when I refered back to it.

However, if you want a scenarion for how this can come about, I can posit that one of these six individuals is very charismatic and that he, one little step at a time, led his compatriots (and himself) deeper and deeper into depravity until this happened.

One supremely charismatioc man dragged an entire nation into a war that engulfed all of Europe. I think that the only reason many of us find it hard to see Hitler's charisma today, is that we are inocculated againt it by our knowledge of what happened.


Events like this don't generally happen out of the blue. They come at the end of a long string of increasingly dehumanised behaviour. Serial killers often begin with small animals.


If there is one thing that virtually every single individual on this planet is guilty of rationalising certain unacceptable behaviours on their part to themselves. Drunk drivers tell themselves: It's only around the block. I'm only a little bit over and can handle it. 40% (IIRC) of parents have raided their kid's piggy banks when they've been caught short. Wife/child beaters tell themselves and their victim that they deserve it, and can quote chapter and verse on why they do. In Vietnam they were "only Slopes".

The only diference between our rationalising lying out way out of a speeding ticket and what these men talked themselves into doing is a matter of degree not kind.

Look at the Stanford Prison Experiment and look at the Milgram experiment. Explanations aren't excuses, but just writing this off as psychopathy is pure ignorance. Ordinary people are capable of extraordinary acts, for good and for evil.

It is definitely not something I agree with, but I understand how someone can say the war itself drove them to do this horrible deed or Bush drove them to do this horrible deed.

While I don't think that an insanity defense will work and not even a claim of diminished capacity for purposes of sentencing, I expect the attorneys for these soldiers to introduce evidence of how the endless and open-ended tours of duty drove them crazy, as well as the daily sight of death, destruction, and the cheapness of life. I don't think those are valid defenses in the case of these sick, sick acts but I expect that the war in Iraq and what the troops have faced there to be part of the defense.

How precious of her.

This person is trying to take a walk in Green's shoes, and is searching her soul as to whether she herself has it in her to commit such a crime? This has got to be the wacky-assed thing I have read on the subject of this alleged crime.

Some call this a "war crime" -- but to me, it seems to be more precisely a crime that *just happened* to have been committed while a war was going on.

Green has an anti-social personality disorder, a very serious diagnosis. It is my view that he was/is potentially capable of such a crime where ever the heck he happens to be -- Iraq, Indiana, France, Zanzibar, etc.

War time stress, however psychologically destructive, in my view, had nothing to do with this crime. War time stress will cause someone --anyone -- to snap, and spontaneously commit acts of violence without thinking.

This crime was not committed in the "fog of war." This crime was plotted over a week, involved a conspiracy with like-minded weak-willed creeps, with a deliberate plan and a strategy to avoid bring linked to the crime, and a well-executed plan to destroy all the evidence of the crime. That's text book sociopathy, not "an understandable response" to stress. In my view -- if you ain't a sociopath, you ain't going to execute a crime in this well-planned and organized manner.

"Moral uncertainty" -- my ASS! Try "pathologically criminal," Ms Falconberg.

The notion that these guys are just ordinary fellows -- just like our boyfriends and brothers -- but pushed to extremes is as big a pile of horse-shit as I have recently encountered. The perps of this crime are purely sociopaths -- a subspecies of humanity, not "one of us."

How fucking nuts have people become to rationalize the horrid stories that come out of Iraq, and "support the troops" even when certain troops commit such dastardly acts like a carefully plotted rape?

She needs to get to Blockbuster and watch some other movies....

..."good kids" when they were little.

I do not in any way condone or seek to excuse the actions of these men, they are inexcusiable.

They are however, not inexpilcable.

The "Stanford Prison Experiment" backed up by the example of Abu Grahib, Guantanamo, Tiger Force(?) in Vietnam and other like examples demonstrate just how easy it is to turn the kid next door into a monster.

If people are allowed (or enabled) to act without limits then at least some will do so.

10% of the people in this world lack (or have an extremely stunted) empathic sense. Blame the parents, or blame the genes the results are the same. These people only follow rules because generally it is in their own best interest to do so. Take away the rules, or the oversight and many will act for their own immediate gratification.

Now factor in an impossibly stressful situation; a pervading if unspoken message that the locals are fair game; a culture that is just different enough to be jarring (Islam can look much like a perversion of x-tianity (and vice versa) ("We beleive much the same things, so why the hell Won't they just bloody well see the light));

These men were once: "Just like your boyfreinds and brothers" They are today someone's bf/bro/child.

The true evil of this situation goes far, far beyond what was done to that poor girl and her family. It was the poor leadership and all the many flawed (and deliberatly evil) policy decisions that created the climate that turned once (in the main) good boys into the monsters that they have become and made this incident possible.

It's about the criminal exploitation of vulnerable women as prostitutes for soldiers, including our own. She herself has been the victim of brutal rape. This essay is a MUST READ. While I still disagree about her assessment of the Green incident, I humbly apologize for pigeon-holing her as a wacko. (I burn with shame....) I speculate that the essay we are currently critiquing may be a kinda "Stockholm Syndrome."

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=9947

Snippets
"Iraq is like Vietnam in this respect. Silenced women suffering sexual brutalization. During that war, gang rape in the villages and the forcing of half a million hungry girls into prostitution to service our men was the picture, and we never heard about it. A tacit conspiracy on the part of the media to keep all this "dirt" from impinging on the attention of the "decent," privileged girls back home. (Sources for Vietnam material: Historian Arlene Eisen and my own conversations with Vietnam vets over a period of thirty years.)"
-snip-
I would like to know if vulnerable Iraqi women and girls are being trafficked/prostituted/brothelized for our soldiers. I would also like to know if girls are being brought in from countries with histories of exporting their women’s bodies for sex-- like Thailand. If so, I would like to believe that our men are trying to help these sexually brutalized women, rather than adding to their misery. But I’m not too optimistic. Since the end of WWII, American soldiers have been among the largest consumers of exploited women and girls. Korean Comfort Women, sexually imprisoned by the Japanese, were not the only victims of the Second World War. In Tokyo, as soon as our men landed in August l945, destitute, homeless, and unprotected girls were rounded up and forced into “Comfort Stations” by both the Japanese and American authorities. Most of these “Occupation Comfort Women” were teenage girls, and most were virgins. They were forced to service anywhere from 15 to 60 American soldiers a day. One dispassionate official’s report describes a girl that 50 soldiers lined up to use as “busy,” as if she were baking a cake or doing her homework.

When the girls tired to escape, they were pushed back into the brothels by our Military Police. Even when they cried and showed how terrified they were, the American boys still used them. Some were raped into unconsciousness. The conditions were so unbearable that some girls committed suicide. (Sources for Occupation Comfort Girl material: Historians John Dower, George Hicks, and Yuki Tanaka.)

-snip-
Hilary Clinton should take a world-wide trip with the specific purpose of visiting the brothelized, the trafficked, the sexually enslaved. She could call enormous attention to their plight. Would that I had her power to make the world notice the soft and the ravaged. As a former prostitute, I know that we are scorned as “filth” and considered “disposable.” If high-profile women would accord us some importance and humanity, consider our lives worthy of notice, maybe others would not be so quick to despise us. I know that once you are in the camp of the brutalized and sexually mistreated, escape is practically impossible. World-wide, there is too much cultural barbed wire keeping you in that prison, blaming you for your own rape/prostitution. A recent Frontline show on “Sex Slaves” said that trafficked girls who manage to escape, return home, are shamed by their experience, turned into village whores
-snip-
I wish that some of the news accounts of Darfur would point out that Sudanese women are subjected to Female Genital Mutilation and that this makes rape all the more devastating. These poor women can barely handle any kind of 'normal' intercourse, given this 'cultural' damage to their organs, let along the violence of rape. When will this be in the forefront of women’s concerns--rather than the latest Kama Sutra position in Cosmopolitan? (This is not to condemn the joys of the Kama Sutra or the pleasure that this magazine believes is our sexual birthright, merely to say that, as Western, privileged women, we hold a tenuous grasp upon out own sexual freedom if so many other female bodies are being enslaved.) When will the liberal media devote more than a few inches of space, every few months, to the ongoing misery inflicted on our bodies? When will it write long stories about the children fathered by UN Peacekeepers on prostituted bodies? (No peace for the ravaged.) Or notice the masses of Amerasian street children recycled into the prostitution their mothers had to undertake, to eat? When will it seek out and listen to the stories of the refugee girls that were “conscripted” and sold for $2 a lay in tent brothels across Vietnam because the soldier at war “must have his fuck,” as one vet said so eloquently said to me."
Snippets
"Iraq is like Vietnam in this respect. Silenced women suffering sexual brutalization. During that war, gang rape in the villages and the forcing of half a million hungry girls into prostitution to service our men was the picture, and we never heard about it. A tacit conspiracy on the part of the media to keep all this "dirt" from impinging on the attention of the "decent," privileged girls back home. (Sources for Vietnam material: Historian Arlene Eisen and my own conversations with Vietnam vets over a period of thirty years.)"
-snip-
I would like to know if vulnerable Iraqi women and girls are being trafficked/prostituted/brothelized for our soldiers. I would also like to know if girls are being brought in from countries with histories of exporting their women’s bodies for sex-- like Thailand. If so, I would like to believe that our men are trying to help these sexually brutalized women, rather than adding to their misery. But I’m not too optimistic. Since the end of WWII, American soldiers have been among the largest consumers of exploited women and girls. Korean Comfort Women, sexually imprisoned by the Japanese, were not the only victims of the Second World War. In Tokyo, as soon as our men landed in August l945, destitute, homeless, and unprotected girls were rounded up and forced into “Comfort Stations” by both the Japanese and American authorities. Most of these “Occupation Comfort Women” were teenage girls, and most were virgins. They were forced to service anywhere from 15 to 60 American soldiers a day. One dispassionate official’s report describes a girl that 50 soldiers lined up to use as “busy,” as if she were baking a cake or doing her homework.

When the girls tired to escape, they were pushed back into the brothels by our Military Police. Even when they cried and showed how terrified they were, the American boys still used them. Some were raped into unconsciousness. The conditions were so unbearable that some girls committed suicide. (Sources for Occupation Comfort Girl material: Historians John Dower, George Hicks, and Yuki Tanaka.)

-snip-
Hilary Clinton should take a world-wide trip with the specific purpose of visiting the brothelized, the trafficked, the sexually enslaved. She could call enormous attention to their plight. Would that I had her power to make the world notice the soft and the ravaged. As a former prostitute, I know that we are scorned as “filth” and considered “disposable.” If high-profile women would accord us some importance and humanity, consider our lives worthy of notice, maybe others would not be so quick to despise us. I know that once you are in the camp of the brutalized and sexually mistreated, escape is practically impossible. World-wide, there is too much cultural barbed wire keeping you in that prison, blaming you for your own rape/prostitution. A recent Frontline show on “Sex Slaves” said that trafficked girls who manage to escape, return home, are shamed by their experience, turned into village whores
-snip-
I wish that some of the news accounts of Darfur would point out that Sudanese women are subjected to Female Genital Mutilation and that this makes rape all the more devastating. These poor women can barely handle any kind of 'normal' intercourse, given this 'cultural' damage to their organs, let along the violence of rape. When will this be in the forefront of women’s concerns--rather than the latest Kama Sutra position in Cosmopolitan? (This is not to condemn the joys of the Kama Sutra or the pleasure that this magazine believes is our sexual birthright, merely to say that, as Western, privileged women, we hold a tenuous grasp upon out own sexual freedom if so many other female bodies are being enslaved.) When will the liberal media devote more than a few inches of space, every few months, to the ongoing misery inflicted on our bodies? When will it write long stories about the children fathered by UN Peacekeepers on prostituted bodies? (No peace for the ravaged.) Or notice the masses of Amerasian street children recycled into the prostitution their mothers had to undertake, to eat? When will it seek out and listen to the stories of the refugee girls that were “conscripted” and sold for $2 a lay in tent brothels across Vietnam because the soldier at war “must have his fuck,” as one vet said so eloquently said to me."

very interesting.

The aspect about exploited women in a theater of war is worth a separate post in GD all by itself. Like you, I also disagree with her on whether combat stress can excuse the acts of Green et al. But that doesn't seem to be the point of her article. She's calling for information on whether the U.S. is exploiting young Iraqi women for its war, or importing women from other countries. She calling for an end to the exploitation of women by invading armies. She's calling for the national awareness of what U.S. soldiers did in Japan and in Vietnam to generations of young women. She's a former prostitute herself, as she admits, so I guess she has a very special perspective on this.

That's just the way it is. Innocent people die not just from random shelling or gunfire. They are also raped and murdered just as what happened here.

War also takes a toll on the individuals doing the fighting. It has the ability to change the best of men to the worst. These men were walking a hellish journey well before the they got to that house. It's one that can explain how they got there and why they performed such horrific acts, but it in no way should excuse them or justify their actions.

If these men are guilty, they should pay the price for it. There's no getting around that, but I don't believe we should forget or ignore the fact that war is hell and that this is another in a long list of reasons why war should be abolished by the inhabitants of this planet.

Clinton gets a blowjob and there's no justification for that. He needs to be impeached and go down in infamy.

Soldiers rape a child and kill her and her family and it's "understandable" because they're "under stress".


Give me a freaking break.

:eyes:

:puke:

that stated the guy has 'personality disorder' which is a nice way of saying he is a psychopath. That is why he was discharged in the first place. Go back and read the news articles.

Do you know?

Don

It is a personality disorder, NOT a mental illness.

When people get "stressed" by their bosses, co-workers, other drivers, rude clerks, their children, their spouses, and kill them, we call them murderers.

Just sayin'.

Seems like an apologist talking point.

Maybe, we should consider reducing the stress by not deploying them time after time,
shutting down the back-door-draft and bringing them home.

What say?