Rape, murder–it’s just a shot away…

Five U.S. Army soldiers are being investigated for allegedly raping a young woman, then killing her and three members of her family in Iraq, a U.S. military official told The Associated Press on Friday… The killings appeared to have been a “crime of opportunity,” the official said. The soldiers had not been attacked by insurgents but had noticed the woman on previous patrols.

U.S. Troops Accused of Killing Iraq Family
A brief look at the 3rd Brigade, 502nd Infantry Unit, 101st Airborne…
formerly 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment – 101st Airborne Division
see also AP Embed Gets Scoop on Latest Alleged U.S. Atrocity in Iraq

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 30 2006 21:25 utc | 3

says a lot a case reaches the sc to argue whether the president should follow the rule of law and 3 (4 no doubt) justices say “no.”

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 30 2006 22:25 utc | 5

i think he first and foremost writes for himself. by qualifying his personal distain for terrorists he sets up his argument w/more credence. a decent piece of writing captures the history of our times, should stand up in 10 years, 100 years. billmon has never waivered from his belief al Q/ bin laden perpetrated 9/11. the prisoners @gitmo were captured in afghanistan, an invasion supported by a majority of americans. while i don’t agree w/his pov on the segment of his post you quote it is consistent w/his writing. i don’t think billmon thinks about joe6pk, he sets his own standards based on his morals.
The more important lesson, purchased at such great cost, is the essentially conservative lesson (conservative in the good old fashioned Burkean sense) is that no government can be trusted with the powers the Cheney gang asserted, not even when fighting an enemy like Al Qaeda – or especially not then.
what i hear is that no amount of revenge/retribution/ towards terrorists is worth jeopardizing the supreme law of the land . therefore the harder he comes down on the ‘real criminals’ the more balanced his pov/post.

Posted by: annie | Jun 30 2006 23:18 utc | 7

while everyone else was agreeing with CP some went off and spewed out reams corrected it and missed the boat but here’s the tail end:
I was going to expend energy discrediting ‘the not everyone whom circumstance lures into the USAF is an asshole, whereas al-Quaeda is nothing but assholes’, angle on this. However most MoA habitues can comprehend that adolescent Arab males can be led along the wrong path in exactly the same way as adolescent Amerikan males and females.
In fact I almost hope it was a last lingering shred of exceptionalist thinking that had Billmon distorting an otherwise measured piece on the SCOTUS decision. (there are other elements of his article that one could take issue with but they are not anything like the ‘shoot al quaeda mob’ rant and should be debated entirely separately)
For me the alternative to exceptionalism is worse and that is Billmon sought to sweeten the medicine in the hope that the amerikan public would be more likely to swallow it.
It is exactly that appeasement ploy by even the most ‘liberal’ of demopublican ‘spokespeople’, that perpetuates exceptionalism. There are times when the medicine must be taken undiluted if a cure is to be effected. And this issue is definitely one of them.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 1 2006 0:48 utc | 9

shiiiit… the bold was only supposed to be ‘thank god’ ohh whatever, that’s what i get for being emotional amoungst the sane

Posted by: annie | Jul 1 2006 2:45 utc | 11

–>
I think that medicine (your talkin about) has been deemed “to expensive” by the HMO at large — not withstanding that archetype exceptionalism is a river that runs wide and deep, and the afore mentioned purveyor, like many (digby, clemons, kos, etc) others also on occasion will give in / take advantage of the current for a little free ride — and hold on to that vestage like like a life preserver.

Posted by: anna missed | Jul 1 2006 6:30 utc | 13

Monolycus I don’t disagree that there is a possibility that what you say could conceivably come to pass but it does seem that even the non-existant Joe Lunchboxes are past the point of being able to be resold the dummy.
9-11 is simply too long ago now. How many people out there still stay up to date on the ‘alert status colour’ or whatever it is?
When blaster caster Zacarias Moussaoui copped living hell instead of death one felt re-assured that the world was indeed through the worst of the ‘terrarists are waiting around the corner ready to destroy our way of life amerika’ and generally, when a passion of whatever cast has finally ‘shot it’s wad’, so to speak, that passion cannot be rekindled at the flick of a switch.
Yep there is the possibility of an october surprise to be overcome. Still you’d have to think in the current post ‘no WMD’, please no more Gitmo stories mood that trick would be a really risky strategy.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 1 2006 7:35 utc | 15

Billmon, more important than still believing, still thinks. Among those who do not, this leads to charges he is a thin skinned panderer catering to an audience of readers he does not have to protect a good will in a going business he has shown zero interest and complete disdain for.
What the fuck is a matter with you people? You are no better than the other sheep. Just making up just so stories so you never have to face the nonsense of your own certainties.
And what was the devious scheme behind violating the Law of the Alphabet and putting the locator of stalinist fruit cake nuts at the top of the blog roll? Surely the sheep here have some ad hominem explanation that indicts him for the heresy of not reconfirming their favored nonsense back to themselves.

Posted by: razor | Jul 1 2006 14:23 utc | 17

i for one woke up this morning w/the distasteful thought of rummy lining up teenage ‘terrorists’ against a wall and blowing their brains out.
i can’t help it , i wish the image were not there because although i am willing to believe some of those prisoners are real bad guys if lind is any example they are probably pawns in a game rounded up for the benefit of providing fodder for the masters of war in their propaganda efforts at the beginning of this fiasco , some show of might we can capture us some enemies by way of our alligiences in undeground trafficing via some warlord of something. hell, i have no idea. it could be part of a grand sceme to test the sere torture program , to observe over time the effects years of study in psycological torture.
sorry. i guess that lands me in the total fruitcake crowd.
the good news is , it doesn’t matter who they are or what i believe. you can’t just strip away laws by defining an enemy as a terrorist. waging war on an idea and then exempting those who defend that idea from international laws of war is a neat trick. it just didn’t work.
i wish billmon had told the story w/out conjering the neocon image of terrorist. the supreme law of the land does not become enhanced by countering it with a supreme enemy that may or may not exist. especially when we already have an enemy within that does exist and perfectly represents the kind of enemy our forefathers were trying to protect us from .

Posted by: annie | Jul 1 2006 15:53 utc | 19

@B:
I knew it was something deep and mysterious.
You folks have a good weekend.

Posted by: Dr. Moriarty | Jul 1 2006 16:52 utc | 21

A war crimes trial may not be in the cards – although you never know, I’m sure Pinochet thought the same thing – but the entire jury-rigged legal structure of the Cheney gang’s miniature Gulag Archipelago has just been condemned, leaving them with a politically excruciating choice: Bulldoze it, and concede their policies were illegal all along, or defy the Supreme Court and bring on a full-blown Constitutional crisis
well, now that we have completely torn to shreds the section of the post we rejected i for one would like to address the bulk of the text. and along with it
my membership in Truth, Justice and the American Way (especially the American Way). i can’t help it. yeah i’m ready to throw in the towel, i’m deeply cynical, but i still believe in the bedrock we were built on, and i still believe the leverage of that rock, the strength of that rock still stands structurally. or something. billmon made this point well and clear. this standard we hold him to? and i included myself here, after all , he’s just a man.
and i really really like getting presents, and not just the blog roll present, the post was a present too. his honesty, honestly as if he doesn’t know his worst critics are here.it’s not everyone who can say his worst critics are also his biggest fans. whether we admit it or not.

Posted by: annie | Jul 1 2006 17:45 utc | 23

LA Times

the real blockbuster in the Hamdan decision is the court’s holding that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to the conflict with Al Qaeda — a holding that makes high-ranking Bush administration officials potentially subject to prosecution under the federal War Crimes Act.
The Hamdan decision may change a few minds within the administration. Although the decision’s practical effect on the military tribunals is unclear — the administration may be able to gain explicit congressional authorization for the tribunals, or it may be able to modify them to comply with the laws of war — the court’s declaration that Common Article 3 applies to the war on terror is of enormous significance. Ultimately, it could pave the way for war crimes prosecutions of those responsible for abusing detainees.
Common Article 3 forbids “cruel treatment and torture [and] outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” The provision’s language is sweeping enough to prohibit many of the interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration. That’s why the administration had argued that Common Article 3 did not apply to the war on terror, even though legal experts have long concluded that it was intended to provide minimum rights guarantees for all conflicts not otherwise covered by the Geneva Convention.
But here’s where the rubber really hits the road. Under federal criminal law, anyone who “commits a war crime … shall be fined … or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.” And a war crime is defined as “any conduct … which constitutes a violation of Common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva.” In other words, with the Hamdan decision, U.S. officials found to be responsible for subjecting war on terror detainees to torture, cruel treatment or other “outrages upon personal dignity” could face prison or even the death penalty.
Don’t expect that to happen anytime soon, of course. For prosecutions to occur, some federal prosecutor would have to issue an indictment. And in the Justice Department of Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales — who famously called the Geneva Convention “quaint” — a genuine investigation into administration violations of the War Crimes Act just ain’t gonna happen.
But as Yale law professor Jack Balkin concludes, it’s starting to look as if the Geneva Convention “is not so quaint after all.”

Posted by: annie | Jul 1 2006 18:33 utc | 25

am I in the minority here in thinking that “al queda” –whatever it is– is an actual threat? I do not subscribe to the idea that 9-11 was totally manufactured, and do not think there is evidence to support this point of view (tho the lack of an honest investigation will seemingly forever obscure many things) and therefore think that the invasion of Afghanistan was a sad foregone conclusion, considering the U.S. govt had empowerd the Talibans by its support during Russia’s war and by arming the mujahadeen. this history was wrong, but what does anyone here think any govt would do if attacked by someone, whether a former ally or not?
I suppose I, too, “still believe.”
How is that any more ridiculous than those who claim that 9-11 was not carried out as a terrorist attack? Where is the actual expert opinion on terrorism over the past decade that can claim that it was not a terrorist attack? –from various western and middle eastern and eastern sources. Was the initial ’93 attack also a hoax? Or the Cole bombing? Or the attack on the embassy? –at the same time, I think the threat is manipulated and exaggerated whenever it serves political purposes.
what are my options to checks and balances as the goal? —stale “stalinist fruitcake?” (this is not a personal reference, btw).
fwiw, when constructing a rhetorical argument, I thought it was necessary to state opposing povs and then answer them in order to constrast your own view and to acknowledge that you know of and yet still disagree with another’s. ymmv.
whatever. tho he might disagree, I think I tend to share billmon’s cynical pov toward both ends of a spectrum of debate on terror and find no comfortable place to exist within these. I think it is a grave mistake to believe that U.S. threats are entirely internal, however, and do not find that those who hold this view represent my view, either.
at the same time, the hyperbole of the Rummy remark sounds like anger and who hasn’t had those moments of revenge fantasies that one would never actually support if the opportunity were there?
whatever.
I’m not an apologist for billmon and don’t want to be, while and I’m also not a “true believer” that 9-11 was the equivalent of the “moon landing” in Nevada.
I just chimed in here because the “moon landing in Nevada” pov is the majority statement on this thread, it seems. Is there no alternative to Bush’s abrogation of the law to deal with question of national security? If someone thinks national security is a non-issue, then there is nothing to talk about, other than to dismiss one another, I suppose.
Ultimately, rule of law provides protections for the innocent more than the guilty — over the years reading billmon, I have a hard time bothering to focus on one remark to the exclusion of all others which support rule of law. that said, I also recognize that “rule of law” is an ideal, not real –but it’s an ideal to which I subscribe b/c I have no other viable options to serve as a template in the “reality-based” world.
it is, tho, the ultimate in irony to me to defend a govt. that I think does not represent me, but since I am not in a position to emigrate, I’m stuck with trying to create something here that I can tolerate.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 1 2006 18:54 utc | 27

Good lord, I hope I don’t have to preface everything I say with “my colleague is a god, but…”
I have the utmost respect for Billmon. I do, occasionally, have quibbles with what he says. Every difference of opinion I have with him is not a call for him to resign from blogging or some display of contempt for what he does.
And I am sorry, Fauxreal, but I do not view Al Qaeda as the same threat that you do. I view a rogue government with a military, economic and logistic apparatus at its disposal, and one who has demonstrated an extreme and demonstrable disregard and apathy to the welfare of not only humanity at large but to its own constituency (viz. New Orleans and US soldiers), as an extreme threat. My philosophy had always been that a government should have some measure of concern for (and accountability to) the governed. I’m just funny that way.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jul 1 2006 20:06 utc | 29

@fauxreal – like you I think 9/11 was essentially a non-US operation.
What is called Al-Qaeda may have been involved, though I didn´t see much prove of that yet. But since then, there was no Al-Qaeda action. Madrid and London were unrelated folks who took 9/11 as an example and did their thing. The fighting in Afghanistan was and is Taliban, a local movement quite distinguished from a Saudi radical wahabit Bin Laden.
Zarqawi and his follow up “whoever” in Iraq have been/are U.S. psy ops figures.
So I don´t see any danger form “Al Qaeda” as I don´t think there is such an organisation anymore. There are some folks who would, without any hope of achieveing that, would like to change our believe systemes. They will continue to randomly kill some people for that, maybe, by a very, very, very small chance, you and/or me too.
Driving a mile in car is more dangerous. So lets stop to use that boogieman and look at the real problems some of which you have named.

Posted by: b | Jul 1 2006 20:48 utc | 31

The reason I haven’t gotten too involved in the other issues that Billmon raised is very simple. Apart from the LA Times article posted above I haven’t yet had time to get my head around the legal points that Billmon makes from any other perspective.
This is more deliberate than I first suspected. Over the last couple of years I have been spending a lot less time trying to predict amerikan govt actions based upon the law than I have upon some type of “my ethos Vs their lack of morality”.
The reason is obvious,. I can detect no indication of the ‘rule of law’ in anything the amerikan govt. does.
Haven’t been able to for yonks. The first reaction to the attacks on 9-11 that I can discern was to abolish the rule of law within the US and then go to a great deal of time and expense trying to force other nations to do the same. That this last bit has met with only varying degrees of success is one of the few things one has been able to take heart from in the last 5 years.
Maybe the fact that Billmon isn’t a lawyer he is a journalist should persuade me to adopt his line of thinking without even trying to discover whether it meets a consistent line of law based thinking. Because that is how I, and most others as well I suspect, have done this in the past.
One looks at the body of law and how it has been interpreted previously, then looks to any changes in the law that may have been made; then one applies the set of circumstances one is considering, to that amended book of rules, and by doing so, should have a fair chance of getting a reasonable handle on what comes next.
Not anymore one doesn’t. To do so would be a time wasting exercise, not unlike attempting to predict what Israel is likely to do by applying the usual pragmatic self interested nationalism tinged with a sufficient light dusting of ethics to provide ‘cover’. This is the technique that most nations operate by.
In the case of Israel and the amerikan govt neither process is likely to give an accurate picture of what comes next.
Instead one needs to consider the most self indulgent, destructive, and inhumane option then acknowledge that is going to be the closest guess as to which way these govts will jump.
If Islamic nationalism is considered a threat it is really only a threat to those who would repress it for their own selfish ends.
As for al quaeda; well since that was little more than a money supply with a few ideas, now it has been isolated from the handful of Islamic nationalists who still followed it’s leaders, it is difficult to see how al quaeda can still be a threat.
The Taleban was there before al quaeda, and although their ideas may have co-incided their methods did not. Afghani Taleban leadership was far more interested in what happened inside Afghanistan, than world wide islamic revolution. Al-quaeda really only returned to Afghanistan as a last resort after making themselves unwelcome everywhere else.
I strongly suspect a schism in the A-Q organisation. OBL on the one hand releasing video’s which entertain his public by patting the moronic sock puppet Zarquawi on the back; and al _Zwahiri hunkering his mob down for some serious revolution. Both have a ‘strong brand’ but neither have the investment nor other resources to back up their brand.
Therefore like so many other corporate executives in that position they are reduced to issuing press releases.
As for the current afghani insurgency, the USuk mob calling it a Taleban insurgency is just that. Name calling. The Afghanis have fought foreign interference long before the Taleban appeared and will do so long after they are gone. In fact the Taleban only came into the frame when there wasn’t any real foreign threat. When that happened the population lost the uniting power of a common enemy and began fighting among them selves.
Message there, . . .Ya think?
It is not difficult to demonstrate that the US Air Force pose a far greater threat to the average human being on this planet than al quaeda do. That includes human beings in the US; both directly by way of such crimes as chemical warfare attacks on citizens’ crops, or using the billions of dollars amerikans have been forced to give them by spying on those same amerikans, and indirectly, eg when USAF foreign adventures in slaughtering innocents comes home to roost, generally by way of organisations such as al queada.
LIne up the statistics of the number of people killed each year by USAF air attacks (bombing runs and strafing) and compare it to those killed by al quaeda attacks, the result is a foregone conclusion. Maybe a-q inched ahead in ’01 but that situation changed quickly.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 1 2006 20:56 utc | 33

“American interests” undeconstructed????????? Yeah yeah. Keep on believing.

Posted by: razor | Jul 1 2006 20:59 utc | 35

How is that any more ridiculous than those who claim that 9-11 was not carried out as a terrorist attack?
even if it was a total inside job, or allowed to take place, i don’t see how one would not make the argument that these events were terrorism. derrick jensen has a reasonable definition of terrorism which is

…any act motivated by a desire to inspire terror or extreme fear in another in an attempt to change this other’s (or a third person’s) behavior. An act of terrorism is then an attempt to send a message. It is primarily a symbolic act.

too often in this society we use the definitions & assumptions of those in power to shape our perceptions. if you identify yourself with a government that is organized around extracting & stealing resources from wherever they can – which is one of the primary functions of governments, outside of protecting the economic elite – then terrorists are only those who challenge their interests (usually limited to a small cabal of non-state actors). and it’s hard to get outside of this mindset, as it’s reinforced over & over & over in what passes for news & discourse & conventional cultural wisdom in this national security state. people prefer not to think things through, if they decide to think at all. try explaining to the (statistically) average jane/joe that what “we” – the u.s. collectively, as represented by the decisions of our unitary executive – are doing in this war on terror qualifies as terrorism (shock & awe, anyone?) and the usual response is immediate dismissal, if not outright hostility. so look at the effect that the events of that september day had on the masses in this country. plenty of “extreme fear” and “terror” to go around, which was thoroughly amplified/exploited, quite deliberately, by the govt & the capitalist media. these were undeniably symbolic attacks. of course it was an act of terrorism and it wouldn’t make it any greater a terrorist attack were it orchestrated & delivered entirely by foreigners sharing a different religious background and possessing more pigmentation than if it was pulled off by the resident crazies or a species of reptilian humanoids living under dulce, new mexico. terrorism is terrorism, and those who commit such are, by definition, terrorists. IOW, “terrorists” should not be a label applied only to those who aim their symbolic messages from the bottom up, but also for those whose acts of terrorism originate from the top of the heirarchy downward which, in terms of damage overall, are far more ubiquitous, w/ mortality figures far exceeding those of non-state actors.
Was the initial ’93 attack also a hoax?
has anyone seen any strong arguments against or conclusive debunking of the evidence of fbi complicity in that bombing, specifically wrt emad salem?
I think it is a grave mistake to believe that U.S. threats are entirely internal
they’re not, but until something happens to prevent the PTB from killing other peoples kids, “leveling” the playing fields across the globe, and destroying the infrastructure of other countries to enable the theft of resources, the external threats are going to get exponentially more serious. by far, the most grave threat to this country is internal. it is self-inflicted. the actions of the united states right now are doing nothing to deal w/ the real causes of animosity toward this country. nothing. in fact, what they are doing is entirely the opposite. they know they’re stirring up hornet’s nests & burning bridges, but to them the price is worth it. they do not see that they have an alternative b/c they are (1) addicted to an unsustainable way of living centered on fossil fuels, and (2) insane. furthermore, if we want to be serious about threats to ourselves, we need to look beyond this phony war on terror and start doing everything we can to provide as soft a landing as possible as this country starts collapsing. collapsing from the inevitable diminishing supplies of worldwide oil supplies (which will change the way we understand our society and future), from the catastrophic conditions we’ve created in our environment (poisoning & sterilizing our landbases, heating up our atmosphere, destroying diversity & committing ecocide), and the crash of this fantasy economic system as absurd speculative abstractions get trumped by cold, hard reality. the federal govt will not be there when catastrophe strikes. ask the people who can’t return to new orleans.
Ultimately, rule of law provides protections for the innocent more than the guilty
if only this were true. law is there to protect the people that make the laws. time & again we have seen that whenever the means are found to use those laws against the PTB, the laws are changed. ain’t that right, arlen?
It is not difficult to demonstrate that the US Air Force pose a far greater threat to the average human being on this planet than al quaeda do
here’s the perspective of an ex-army guy that jensen interviews in his latest book

The purpose of the U.S. military is to fuck up the infrastructure of the countries where the United States want to steal resources or maintain a military presence to use as a staging area to steal somebody else’s resources. That’s what they taught us how to do.

it’s also said that the u.s. military serves as the global enforcer of free-market capitalism, which hardly supports the illusion of there being anything “free” about it. given that the u.s. military is facilitating the theft of resources & overthrow of governments that aren’t willing to accept american economic domination, which is predicated on an unsustainable way of living & which have contributed significantly to the destruction of the natural biosphere, they are indeed a substantial threat to every human being on the planet, themselves included.

Posted by: b real | Jul 2 2006 6:47 utc | 37