More charges against US troops...

[CptSternn]

Once again we see US troops going on trial for horrific crimes against unarmed women and children. This time, troops ***** and killed children and their families, for fun. This comes after dozens have been charged for torture, another dozen charged for killing unarmed civilians, and even more being held with charges pending for crimes the government hasn't named as they don't want the public to yet know.

At the same time bush tries to have Bin Ladens limo driver charged with war crimes for driving Bin Ladens limo almost a decade ago.

Anyone else bothered by the obvious blind eye bush turns to his own problems as he tries to project his crimes on others?

Anyone else think the troops can no longer be viewed as a peaceful group of resucers coming to help the Iraqi people?

Anyone wonder why every day more and more 'insurgents' join the ranks of those attacking the 'liberators'?

Ex-GI charged in **** of Iraqi, killings

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - When U.S. military officials found the bodies of four Iraqis inside a burned house near Mahmoudiya in March, they at first blamed insurgents. Three of the bodies had gunshot wounds, and the body of a woman was burned. Authorities believe she was ***** before being shot in the head.

But on Monday, federal prosecutors revealed the outcome of a joint military and FBI investigation: the culprits, they now believe, are U.S. soldiers who manned a checkpoint a short distance from the home.

Officials have charged one of them, Steven D. Green, a skinny, 21-year-old former private who was honorably discharged this spring by the Army because of a "personality disorder." He was accused Monday of **** and four counts of murder during an appearence in a federal courtroom in Charlotte.

Wearing baggy shorts, flip-flops and a Johnny Cash T-shirt, Green spoke only to confirm his identity and stared as a federal magistrate ordered him held without bond on murder and **** charges that carry a possible death penalty.

Green became the first person identified in the latest case of alleged killings of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops.

According to a federal affidavit, Green and three other soldiers from the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division had talked about ****** the young woman, whom they first saw while working at a traffic checkpoint near her home.

On the day of the attack, the document said, Green and other soldiers drank alcohol and changed out of their uniforms to avoid detection before going to the woman's house, with Green using a brown T-shirt to cover his face.

Once there, the affidavit said, Green took three members of the family — an adult male and female, and a girl estimated to be 5 years old — into a bedroom. Shots were heard.

"Green came to the bedroom door and told everyone, 'I just killed them. All are dead,'" the affidavit said.

The affidavit is based on FBI and military investigators' interviews with three unidentified soldiers assigned to Green's platoon. Two of the soldiers said they witnessed another soldier and Green **** the woman.

"After the ****, (the soldier) witnessed Green shoot the woman in the head two to three times," the affidavit said.

One of the three soldiers interviewed said he was left behind to mind the radio at the traffic checkpoint. That soldier said Green and three others returned from the woman's house "with blood on their clothes, which they burned. Immediately after this, they each told (the soldier) that this is never to be discussed again."

An official familiar with details of the investigation in Iraq told The Associated Press that a flammable liquid was used to burn the **** victim's body in an attempted cover-up.

The affidavit noted that prosecutors have photos taken by Army investigators in Iraq of all four bodies found inside a burned house and a photo of a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."

The age of the young woman was unclear. FBI documents estimated her age at 25, but a neighbor of the family said the **** victim was 14 and her sister was 10.

The Washington Post reported the **** victim was 15 and that her mother worried her daughter had attracted the attention of U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint. The mother asked a neighbor if the girl could sleep at his house.

The neighbor agreed but the girl and her family were attacked the next day, according to the Post.

Green, who was arrested Friday in the town of Marion northwest of Charlotte, is being prosecuted in federal, rather than military court because he is no longer in the Army. According to the affidavit, his 11-month-stint ended "before this incident came to light."

The soldiers accused in the **** and killings are from the same platoon as two soldiers whose mutilated bodies were found June 19, three days after they were abducted by insurgents near Youssifiyah, southwest of Baghdad. Military officials say they believe guilt over the mutilations may have spurred a confession by one of the soldiers during a combat-stress debriefing late last month.

No other soldier has been charged in the case, said Maj. Joseph Breasseale, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. However, military officials have said four Army soldiers have had their weapons taken away and were being confined to their base near Mahmoudiya.

The mayor of Mahmoudiya, Mouayad Fadhil, said Monday that Iraqi authorities had started their own investigation. He said U.S. Army officers were also seeking permission to exhume one of the bodies; the U.S. military declined to comment on the report because the investigation is ongoing.

According to the affidavit, Green was arrested while traveling back to Fort Campbell after attending a funeral for one of the mutilated soldiers in Arlington, Va.

Court officials said Green will have a preliminary hearing and a detention hearing on July 10 in Charlotte, and will then be brought to Louisville to stand trial.

He was quoted in December by the Fort Campbell Courier about a search for insurgents and expressed surprise at the ease of the mission.

"I was surprised by how many people weren't home, but the ones who were there were submissive and let us look through their things," he said.

http://news.**********/s/ap/20060704...kxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[CptSternn]

U.S. accused of kidnappings in Iraq

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20.../index_np.html

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has until 5 p.m. Friday to hand over a raft of documents to Congress that might shed new light on detainee abuse in Iraq. The documents could substantiate little-known allegations that U.S. forces have tried to break terror suspects by kidnapping and mistreating their family members.

It now appears that kidnapping, scarcely covered by the media, and absent in the major military investigations of detainee abuse, may have been systematically employed by U.S. troops. Salon has obtained Army documents that show several cases where U.S. forces abducted terror suspects’ families. After he was thrown in prison, Cpl. Charles Graner, the alleged ringleader at Abu Ghraib, told investigators the military routinely kidnapped family members to force suspects to turn themselves in.

A House subcommittee led by Connecticut Republican Christopher Shays took the unusual step last month of issuing Rumsfeld a subpoena for the documents after months of stonewalling by the Pentagon. Shays had requested the documents in a March 7 letter. "There was no response" to the letter, a frustrated Shays told Salon. "We are not going to back off this."

*snip*

[CptSternn]

Iraqi detainee abuse widespread

http://news.**********/s/nm/20060723...ltBHNlYwM3MTY-

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraqi detainees were routinely subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions and other forms of abuse by U.S. interrogators, according to a Human Rights Watch report released on Sunday that offers first-hand accounts from three former soldiers.

The U.S.-based watchdog group said its report discredits government arguments casting mistreatment of detainees as the aberrant and unauthorized work of a few personnel.

It included accounts by former soldiers who said detainees were regularly subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation and stress positions -- practices that started to come to light two years ago when pictures of physical abuse and sexual humiliation at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison surfaced.

"These accounts rebut U.S. government claims that torture and abuse in Iraq was unauthorized and exceptional -- on the contrary, it was condoned and commonly used," said John Sifton, author of the report and the group's senior researcher on terrorism and counter-terrorism.

A Defense Department spokesman, however, said 12 reviews have been conducted and none found the Pentagon promulgated a policy that condoned, directed or encouraged abuse.

"The standard of treatment is and always has been humane treatment of detainees in DoD's custody," said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a Pentagon spokesman.

Human Rights Watch said it could only document instances of abuse from soldiers stationed in Iraq up to April 2004.

The United States has faced international criticism for the indefinite detention of detainees at a naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and for physical abuse and sexual humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

The Bush administration, however, says it treats prisoners humanely. The Pentagon acknowledged earlier this month that all detainees held by the U.S. military are covered by an article of the Geneva Conventions that bars inhumane treatment.

But Human Rights Watch said the U.S. government's insistence that abusive practices were not authorized or routine and the military's failure to put any blame on leadership have hindered probes into detainee treatment.

The group's report offered accounts of abuse at three facilities in Iraq.

Former Army interrogator Tony Lagouranis said, in one account, that abusive techniques were commonplace at a Mosul facility, where he was based from February to April 2004.

Lagouranis, then a specialist in rank, said he was given interrogation rules on a card that Human Rights Watch said "authorized" the use of dogs, exposure to hot and cold temperatures, sleep deprivation and forced exercise, among other means of coercion.

[CptSternn]

And from MSNBC today - troops apparently given orders directly from their superiors to kill all males of 'fighting age'. Where have I read that before? Oh yeah, didn't the Romans try that?

Is 'helping' the Iraqi's now 'kill all males of fighting age'? Aahh, the new american way.

Accused troops: We were under orders to kill
Soldiers say officers commanded them to ‘kill all military age males’ in Iraq

EL PASO, Texas - Four U.S. soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to “kill all military age males,” according to sworn statements obtained by The Associated Press.

The soldiers first took some of the men into custody because they were using two women and a toddler as human shields. They shot three of the men after the women and child were safe and say the men attacked them.

“The ROE (rule of engagement) was to kill all military age males on Objective Murray,” Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard told investigators, referring to the target by its code name.

*snip*

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13974639

[CptSternn]

Sergeant Tells of Plot to Kill Iraqi Detainees

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/wo...=1&oref=slogin

For more than a month after the killings, Sgt. Lemuel Lemus stuck to his story.

“Proper escalation of force was used,” he told an investigator, describing how members of his unit shot and killed three Iraqi prisoners who had lashed out at their captors and tried to escape after a raid northwest of Baghdad on May 9.

Then, on June 15, Sergeant Lemus offered a new and much darker account.

In a lengthy sworn statement, he said he had witnessed a deliberate plot by his fellow soldiers to kill the three handcuffed Iraqis and a cover-up in which one soldier cut another to bolster their story. The squad leader threatened to kill anyone who talked. Later, one guilt-stricken soldier complained of nightmares and “couldn’t stop talking” about what happened, Sergeant Lemus said.

As with similar cases being investigated in Iraq, Sergeant Lemus’s narrative has raised questions about the rules under which American troops operate and the possible culpability of commanders. Four soldiers have been charged with premeditated murder in the case. Lawyers for two of them, who dispute Sergeant Lemus’s account, say the soldiers were given an order by a decorated colonel on the day in question to “kill all military-age men” they encountered.

*snip*

Followed by the best so far...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072701908.html

Detainee Abuse Charges Feared
Shield Sought From '96 War Crimes Act


By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 28, 2006; Page A01

An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.

Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment.

*snip*

Who would have thought illegally detaining and tourturing people to death would be a 'war-crime'? Now they try to put in legislation that ALLOWS this and makes it LEGAL.

Ahhh...america. Home of nationwide wiretaps, censored speech, sneak-n-peek home invasions, detentions without legal representation, and death by torture.

The 'NEW' american way.

[Crying_Crimson_Tears]

This is horrific. Our troops are supposed to be over there fighting and protecting our country. Not commiting crimes. This is depressing.

[CptSternn]

Six US Marines charged in Iraq assault case

http://news.**********/s/nm/20060804...ltBHNlYwM3MTY-

CAMP PENDLETON, California (Reuters) - Six U.S. Marines were charged with assault late on Thursday in connection with suspected assaults on several Iraqi civilians in Hamdania, days before the alleged kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi civilian there.

Three of the Marines charged with assault Thursday, Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, Cpl. Trent Thomas and Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate Jr., have already been charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in the April 26 killing of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad.

They are being held in the brig awaiting hearings in that killing, according to Capt. Amy Malugani, a Camp Pendleton spokeswoman.

Three others, Lance Cpl. Saul Lopezromo, Pfc. Derek Lewis and Lance Cpl. Henry Lever, were each charged with one count of assault.

The alleged assaults on April 10 came to light during the murder investigation, according to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Hutchins is charged with assaults on three Iraqi civilians, while the other Marines are charged with assaulting one civilian each. Details of the alleged assaults will be made public on Friday, Malugani said.

Attorneys for Hutchins, Thomas and Shumate could not be reached late Thursday.

The six Marines were assigned to 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division before they were sent back to Camp Pendleton.

The Hamdania murder case is just one of many in which U.S. servicemen are suspected of killing Iraqi civilians. A total of eight men have been charged with premeditated murder and other crimes in that killing.

Other Marines at Camp Pendleton have been accused in a separate case of killing 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. None, however, have been charged.

[CptSternn]

Court told US troops gang-***** Iraqi girl

http://news.**********/s/nm/20060807...ltBHNlYwM3MTY-

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. military court in Baghdad heard graphic testimony on Monday of how three U.S. soldiers took turns ****** a 14-year-old Iraqi girl before murdering her and her family.

At the hearing into whether four U.S. soldiers should be court-martialled for **** and murder, a special agent described what took place in Mahmudiya in March, based on an interview he had with one of the men, Specialist James Barker.

The case, the fifth involving serious crimes being investigated by the U.S. military in Iraq, has outraged Iraqis and led Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to call for a review of foreign troops' immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law.

Special Agent Benjamin Bierce recalled that Barker described to him how they put a couple and their six-year-old daughter into a bedroom of their home, but kept the teenage girl in the living room, where Barker held her hands while Sergeant Paul Cortez ***** her or tried to **** her.

Barker then switched positions with Cortez and attempted to **** the girl but said he was not sure if he had done so, Bierce told the hearing.

Barker also told the special agent he heard shots from the bedroom and shortly afterwards Private Steven Green emerged from the room, put down an AK-47 assault rifle and ***** the girl while Cortez held her down.

SHOT HER SEVERAL TIMES

Barker told Bierce that Green then picked up the weapon and shot her once, paused, and shot her several more times.

Military prosecutors are expected to set out their case against Private First Class Jesse Spielman, 21, Barker, 23, Cortez, 23 and Private First Class Bryan Howard, 19, who face charges of **** and murder among others.

If court-martialled after the Article 32 hearing -- the military's equivalent of a U.S. grand jury -- and found guilty, they could face the death penalty. The hearing began on Sunday and is expected to last several days.

Green, 21, faces the same charges in a U.S. federal court in Kentucky, home of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, his former unit. Green, who has pleaded not guilty, was discharged from the army for a "personality disorder."

A fifth soldier, Sergeant Anthony Yribe, is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false statement and will also appear at the hearing at a U.S. base in Baghdad.

Defense Attorney Captain Jimmie Culp was blowing chewing gum bubbles while Yribe, sitting to his left, began sucking on a red lollipop during the testimony.

An Iraqi army medic told the hearing on Sunday he entered the house and found the body of 14-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi naked and burned from the waist up, with a single bullet wound beneath her left eye.

Special Agent Gary Griesmyer recounted Cortez' account of the day. "While they were playing cards and drinking Iraqi whiskey, the idea came to go out to an Iraqi house, **** a woman and murder her family," he testified.

Cortez said Barker told the young girl to "shut up" after she was *****, Griesmyer said.

Bierce said Barker told him he poured kerosene from a lamp on to the girl. It was not clear who set her on fire.

Barker later signed a sworn statement based on the interview, in which he said that on the day of the attack he, Cortez, Spielman and Green had been playing cards and drinking whisky mixed with an energy drink. They then went to the rear of the checkpoint where they were based to hit golf balls.

Green said he wanted to go to a house and kill some Iraqis, Barker wrote in his sworn statement.

After the **** and murders, he wrote that he began to grill chicken wings.

The hearing continues.