On May 7, former Army Private Steven Dale Green was convicted of the rape and murder of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and the massacre of three of the girl’s family members. In March 2006, Green and five other U.S. soldiers committed the crime in Madmuhiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad.
In the U.S. District Court in Paducah, Ky., Green was found guilty of 17 counts, including four counts of premeditated murder. Green could face the death penalty.
Many in Madmuhiya were angry at the fact that the ex-soldier would be tried in the United States and not in Iraq. This fact, compounded with years of criminal occupation, has led most to doubt that Green will receive a just punishment.
Three other soldiers were convicted for their involvement in the depraved crime and each received sentences averaging 100 years. One other soldier was sentenced to 27 months. The last soldier involved had all of the charges dropped after giving testimony and being discharged from service.
The military had discharged Green only a couple months before he was charged for what they claimed to be psychological reasons. The military refuses to give details about Green’s discharge, saying that the reasons are private and unconnected to the case.
The U.S. military is attempting to distance itself from what is a systemic policy of dehumanization, torture and violence against the people of Iraq. The corporate media is complicit in framing the actions of these soldiers as isolated incidents.
The U.S. occupiers violate human rights and commit genocidal actions against the people of Iraq throughout the country. The U.S. colonial occupation of Iraq has cost the lives of over a million men, women and children. There is no indication from the Obama administration, or any of the capitalist ruling class, that the United States will be leaving any time soon.
The exposure of particularly brutal examples of these violations should not be divorced from a larger understanding of the violence Iraqi people experience every day. It is the continued colonial occupation that is responsible for the conditions that led to the rape and murder of the young girl and her family, and all violence in Iraq under occupation. The United States must immediately withdraw all troops from Iraq.
