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Evil.

Jill

U.S. soldiers admit to torturing and abusing prisoners, and repeatedly raping a 15-year-old girl until she finally killed herself. I can’t bring myself to watch the video “confession,”* but the transcript is enough. The army is apparently investigating, and if anything comes of it, I suspect that it will be framed as another “bad apple” incident, not something that is institutionally backed and reflective of the military culture at places like Abu Ghraib.

Thanks to Una for the link.

*I use the term “confession” loosely, since there don’t seem to be any feelings of guilt or culpability involved.

50 thoughts on Evil.

  2. I can’t even put into words how sick I feel thinking about what that poor girl had to go through. If nothing else, at least she finally found some peace, something I hope none of the monsters who drove her to suicide ever get to enjoy again as long as they live.

  5. If you click through the links it has not been confirmed yet who the speaker in the video is or if this even happened.

    It is sickening but it may just be one man’s disgusting fantasy instead of several people’s horrible reality and one girl’s terrible death.

  7. 1. Who is the man in the video? If we can’t confirm his identity then we don’t know anything. He could be some jerkoff with a supply job who likes to tell stories to his jerkoff friends because he thinks shit like that is funny/cool. Hell, he might not even be a soldier.

    2. You know, even with the pictures that came out of Abu Ghraib, I have a very difficult time believing any officer would do nothing except give a wink and say “no more fucking cameras” in reaction to habitual sexual assault of female Iraqis. It’s so monstrous that it seems almost too monstrous, like some cartoonish stereotype about bloodthirsty, amoral killbots.

    3. I love the comments at AlterNet. They want this to be true so badly because it confirms the opinions they’ve always held.

    4. Assuming for the sake of argument that it is true, what would you have the military do about it besides investigate and punish the offending personnel? We have a job to do, and we have to do it whether we have problems or not. How you you propose to change the military culture so we don’t have anyone ever commit crimes?

  9. 4. Assuming for the sake of argument that it is true, what would you have the military do about it besides investigate and punish the offending personnel? We have a job to do, and we have to do it whether we have problems or not. How you you propose to change the military culture so we don’t have anyone ever commit crimes?

    “We have a job to do, and if we rape and kill some 15 year olds in the process–well, we have to do our jobs, whether we have problems or not. That’s just what happens sometimes and it has nothing to do with the culture in our military. We can only punish, not prevent. Besides, we have a job do. Stop criticizing us.”

    Btw, I do agree that the video’s sourcing is highly suspect. So, it’s quite possibly a hoax–but we don’t know either way at this point.

  10. I hope to God it’s a hoax.

    If it is, whoever had the mind to even think this up is one sick motherfucker. If it isn’t, then I give up.

  11. “We have a job to do, and if we rape and kill some 15 year olds in the process–well, we have to do our jobs, whether we have problems or not. That’s just what happens sometimes and it has nothing to do with the culture in our military. We can only punish, not prevent. Besides, we have a job do. Stop criticizing us.”

    Well aside from the fact that I’m fine with criticism, yes, pretty much that. It’s not a feasible option to abandon the mission because of a story like this, tragic and horrific as it would be if true.

    The offenses that are alleged are so awful that they require a complete breakdown in every single principle of leadership and lawful conduct. There’s no way to prevent that from occurring aside from what we already do. If a commanding officer goes rogue in such a way all that can be done is that he and his subordinates are cut away like a cancer.

    This guy in the video? At the very least he deserves a good beating. If what he says is true, him and his chain of command up to his unit commander deserve to be shot.

  13. I understand that nothing about this has been verified, but, in case you’ve forgotten, a 14 year-old girl was gang raped and killed, along with her parents and little sister not that long ago. That incident was true, and the soldiers responsible are, as far as I know, on trial now. It would not be a stretch of the imagination to believe that the incidents described in the video happened at Abu Ghraib. After all, Iraqi detainees were tortured there (including children), and some even died from their injuries. There were also numerous sexual assaults photographed.

    That said, I await more information on the video we’re discussing here. If it is true, I want to see justice done.

  14. I didn’t watch the video, or read the whole transcript. I read that little chunk on Alternet and started to cry.

    I’d like to believe this is a hoax, but honestly, this is what American soldiers are known for in many parts of the world. Whether or not it’s exaggeration, it’s the reputation they have.

  15. How do these soldiers who have committed these acts live with themselves? What sort of brainwashing does one have to go through to think that gang-raping a young girl until she kills herself is OK?

    The source of this video is subject to verification, but we know this stuff is going on over there. In order for someone to kill someone else, they have to be trained that the person they’re killing is below them. And once you train these soldiers that these people are not humans anymore but just enemies, anything can happen.

    I’m scared for the future.

  17. Degradation and rape is part of what makes war itself immoral it is not unique to the American military in any sense.

  19. why should we be surprised that this is happening in iraq?

    pick up any major newspaper and read about the sick, twisted crap that is happening to women in our own country.

    boys will be boys

  20. Real or hoax this psychopath needs to be found and castrated. If it’s real, for the crimes he’s committed and if it’s a hoax, before he can “act out” his sick fantasies.

  21. yeah, Henry, making it unacceptable for soldiers to rape and torture totally means we have to abandon the mission.

    It doesn’t matter if this particular video is a hoax or not. As evidenced by the events at Abu Ghraib, the rape of the Iraqi teenager and murder of her and her family, the murder of the Iraqi civilian and subsequent arrangement of his body to look like he was planting an IED, and numerous other events, acceptability of psychopathic behavior in the military is clearly ingrained to the extent that even commenters on left wing, feminist blogs (looking at you, Henry) are apologists for it.

    Man, I have a job to do. I think I’ll go rape and torture someone b/c I cannot abandon my spreadsheet.
    (sarcasm, dudes, I don’t plan to rape or torture anyone.)

  22. It’s a hoax.

    Firstly, the thing is edited all to hell — there’s a cut every few seconds. I don’t know if the folks at AlterNet did that before they posted the video, but if not, someone edited this thing who’s editted videos before.

    Secondly, the guy who tells the story: what’s more likely? Watching his gleeful descriptions of these heinous things he’s describing, I realised that he is either: A) a complete sociopath, B) a complete moron or C) a fairly decent actor. What other type of person details the crimes and atrocities he witnessed to a camera?

    Thirdly, the conversation just seems very staged and scripted to me. This guy goes on an extended monologue about his experiences and opinions, and his friends only intergect to ask very pointed or leading questions that seem designed to get him to expand on his story. That’s not how real conversations work. That is how dialogue works.

  23. I agree with Mary Beth (#22): the questions seem staged. I’m not saying that something like what they detailed couldn’t happen, just that I don’t think this guy is even enlisted.

    Also, what’s with the witness protection lighting? Who films their friends in half darkness?

  26. It may be a hoax, but either way, the psychology of war is that when one side is losing, their rate of atrocities go up. It happened in Nam, and it’s happening here. The left gets demonized now for dissing the soldiers when they came home from Nam (as though everyone who expressed that sentiment did so with a copy of Das Capital in one hand), but part of the reason for that was sex crimes against civilians in that war had become out of whack even with the standards of war. We are losing in Iraq now, and the weak minded and sociopathic will turn on the innocents when they can’t defeat the “enemy”. Like in Nam, it’s no longer clear what “enemy” or “defeat” or “win’ even means. Have we won if we get peace by helping one side wipe out the other? I think now we better understand, without condoning the conduct, the forces that were at work on the soldiers in the field back in southeast Asia. Given that understanding, we should be rushing to pull these soldiers out of a situation that is SET UP to enable rapists, and create a culture where even good people can’t or won’t stick up for the victims because now everyone brown is the “enemy”. Shorter version: when you have to make a parking lot out of Hanoi and the entire country to “win” there is no way to “win”; you have lost and should go home.

  27. I certainly hope MaryBeth, Kim, and MartinG are right. Still, even if they are, it isn’t much of a comfort. The guys who put their sick little fantasies in that video are still out there, and we know that things just as bad as those described in the video have happened.

    4. Assuming for the sake of argument that it is true, what would you have the military do about it besides investigate and punish the offending personnel? We have a job to do, and we have to do it whether we have problems or not. How you you propose to change the military culture so we don’t have anyone ever commit crimes?

    As long as there are human beings involved, there will always be crimes.

    However, the point we’re making is that, while war has always been Hell, the Bush Administration’s insistence that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to this conflict, that we need to use any means necessary (but we don’t torture if we do it, then it’s not torture), etc., has created a situation where things like this – like Abu Ghraib – almost have to happen. That is, if they actually haven’t been ordered to – the CIA torture facilities certainly were.

    In short, we’re all for investigating and punishing the offending personnel. It’s just that we believe that those personnel are at the top of the Chain of Command as well as the bottom.

  28. What sort of brainwashing does one have to go through to think that gang-raping a young girl until she kills herself is OK?

    Well, when you grow up in a culture that tells you that women are products for your consumption; when you read the newspaper telling you that, as a man, you have a right to have a woman marry you in order to cook and clean for you and meet your sexual needs, because that’s your birthright for having a penis; and that no matter what a woman does, it’s the wrong thing and you need to punish her for it – I don’t see it being that difficult to treat a woman from another culture like an object for your gratification. I mean, you can’t hear her say “no” if she doesn’t speak any English, right?

    It’s patriarchy, in other words.

  29. We have a job to do, and we have to do it whether we have problems or not.

    not a feasible option to abandon the mission

    The job will not get done.

    Abandoning the mission is the

    only

    feasible option. The mission was doomed before the first American soldier set foot in Iraq: it was understaffed, underfunded, and the strategy was based on wishful thinking and willful denial of reality instead of solid information that was available.

    If we abandon the mission, Iraq will collapse into civil war, causing untold suffering of innocents; Iran’s power in the area will increase; and the USA will suffer a serious international loss of face.

    Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do to avoid that now. Maybe we could have prevented it early on, before the Insurgency got started, but now the situation is too far gone. We can admit that now, or we can admit that later after a few thousand more soldiers have been killed, and a few tens of thousands more maimed.

    We bleeding-heart liberal defeatists – whose predictions have been right pretty much every step of the way, incidentally – want to bring as many soldiers home safe as we can.

  31. Whether this particular tape is merely some sick twist’s description of his fantasy or whether he is actually describing events he witnessed, we know that such events occur during war. Rape and such atrocities are, and have long been, weapons during war. When the rules of civilization have been broken such that killing people is the desired outcome, how confusing is it to a raw 18-yr. old that other (presumably) less horrid things are forbidden?

    I write this not to justify such events, but to stress how incredibly stupid and cruel it was to start this voluntary war. A country’s leaders could not do a worse thing than to start an unjustified war like this.

    Because we, the American people, have allowed this to occur, we will reap the whirlwind.

  32. In number of ways the video does not pass the sniff test too well, and seems like a hoax. Then again the claim originally for Abu Ghraib, Mahmudiya, and Haditha was a hoax and/or a small number of people were just blowing off steam. There is a lot of shitty things that happen in war, both on the battlefield and off and this man’s interview cannot be dismissed out of hand thinking its so terrible that their command would have acted before now. If one were this guy’s commanding officer, I’m doubtful most would rush to punish him and everyone else knowing since they were under their own command, said officer be responsible as well. Just look at the Stanford Experiments to see something like that playing into this event and those mentioned above “disappearing.”

    The thing that got to me as much as the talk of the rape, was the speakers conception of the war/world events as well as other human beings. His soliloquy before the camera is something that is heard many times over by many others and is largely a variation the large-scale ignorance and bigotry floating around this planet. Even if he is making such events up, all too readily this tale was strung together and has since caught on, because quite frankly it’s is not beyond the pale for someone commit such acts. Excluding the talk of rape, one just cleans up his language a bit and tweak his phrasing and you could find him talking over the radio with any one from Glenn Beck to Ahmadinejad about the “enemy” and getting along just fine.

    In some ways I am stunned, not for what is discussed on the tape, but that such actions and talk refuse to die, and frequently mutate in ways that allow for such to find new ground.

  33. This is a hoax and propaganda as well. I am a little disappointed that it was posted here, I would have thought feminists would be the first and foremost people to always take in media and messages with a grain of salt.

  34. “What sort of brainwashing does one have to go through to think that gang-raping a young girl until she kills herself is OK?”

    Um… that stuff happens in civilian US fairly routinely. Why is it a leap to imagine that soldiers abroad would do that to representatives of their enemies? Uncles, dads, brothers and assorted other relatives do it here all the time. What I find startling is that the atrocities of war still surprise us. If killing is justified, why would anything else be less so?

  35. It’s pretty easy to say it’s a hoax, but apparently the Army is taking it seriously enough to investigate, and that sort of suggests that there may be something to it.

  36. …that sort of suggests that there may be something to it.

    It suggests that if Army brass said “look at it, it’s clearly a fake, no need to investigate,” they’d be roasted alive in the press.

  37. It suggests that if Army brass said “look at it, it’s clearly a fake, no need to investigate,” they’d be roasted alive in the press.

    And deservedly so. As Dr. William Dyer pointed out, things have happened in this war that seemed too horrible to be true, but turned out to be anyway.

  38. First off, it’s likely a hoax.

    Second, Why on God’s green earth would you think this sort of macabre event *would* be sanctioned institutionally? Of course they want to minimize it – it’s disgusting, embarrasing, and destructive to their efforts. Yes, ugly things happen in war. They should be brought to light and punished accordingly.

    But for the love of Mike it doesn’t mean they condone it, let alone enjoy it. Try not to paint our boys & girls in harm’s way with TOO broad a brush, regardless of your hate for Chimpy the Cowpoke Emperor.

  39. Thank you for recognizing rape as a natural consequence of military culture and the military system of thought. So often it is the systemic things which we fail not only to recognize but even to see.

  40. He could be some jerkoff with a supply job who likes to tell stories to his jerkoff friends because he thinks shit like that is funny/cool. Hell, he might not even be a soldier.

    Could probably be. As many have said here, that anyone could find audience for such speech is no great surprise. The fact is that many exist who feel that rape is cool and such stories, whether false or not, find a ready and eager audience. That in and of itself is sickening enough.

    It’s so monstrous that it seems almost too monstrous, like some cartoonish stereotype about bloodthirsty, amoral killbots.

    Occupying a country on a false pretense of threat, when none existed is monstrous. Killing, maiming, burning and otherwise destroying the life and homes of a people is monstrous at any time, in any part of the world, by anyone.

    History tells that combat soldiering, as it requires one to shut off one’s conscience, to enable and embolden an individual to commit violence and death will lead to violence and death with no conscience. As warring is the pinnacle of manhood in the patriarchy, so then a female caught in the middle of the conquest at hand, becomes the object of the domination and violence they have been set out to commit.

    What is amazing to me is that people still hold onto the ideal of the gentlemen American soldier. Nothing could be further from the truth, nor more a contradiction of terms. A gentlemen soldier in combat is indeed no soldier at all.

    We have a job to do, and we have to do it whether we have problems or not. How you you propose to change the military culture so we don’t have anyone ever commit crimes?

    I propose that if we wish to call ourselves civilized, first worlders, advanced and enlightened, then we should abandon our funding of the giant welfare state of the military and focus our energies on bringing up this utopia we keep wanting to believe we are.

  41. Unfortunately, things like this happen in war and in society.

    The military is a society unto itself. With over a million soldiers, you will have good guys and bad guys. We simply need to realize that there are bad ones and hold them accountable.

  42. Um, I’m female and I served in Iraq, and I met some guys like this. Hell, I’m in the hospital now and I”m still dealing with guys like this. I really don’t give a shit if it’s a joke because it’s not fucking funny. Henry evidently thinks it’s no big deal that t his asshole is fantasizing about raping a fifteen-year-old to death.

    And Shaun? Enough with the rationalizations. Our soldiers come from our society and reflect it. Everybody who’s trying to minize this guy and his joking attitude toward violating a girl is making it possible for him to think that it’s okay, and that it’s okay not to take this seriously.

  43. Oh, yeah, and things like this ‘don’t happen.’ They’re not weather. They’re acts men commit against women while other men try and minimize them and find an excuse to separate these men from themselves. These guys come from your town, your neighborhood. Ever had a buddy who liked to make sexist jokes? Ever tell a joke about how feminists have no sense of humor? Congratulations, you’re part of a rape culture.

  44. Whether it’s “real” or not ..Just being able to THINK this way is a symptom of serious horror in our society. If that was my daughter and I got my hands on this guy he would die a very slow and painful death.

    And if men do not stand up to these sick fucks I am ashamed. There is nothing remotely humourous about this kind of thinking or actions. It is NOT acceptable, anywhere, any way, anytime to ANYBODY, under ant circumstances.

  45. Henry evidently thinks it’s no big deal that t his asshole is fantasizing about raping a fifteen-year-old to death.

    Where did you get that from?

    This guy in the video? At the very least he deserves a good beating

    Was that it?

  46. There is no “mission” in IRaq that the soldiers should be there doing. The US invaded a country that was no threat to it for no good reason and should never have gone in and every day the soldiers stay there is compounding the original error.

    Thanks Ginmar for speaking up, the whole tone of this thread “shit happens, support the troops!” was really making me wonder if this was Feministe or if I was hallucinating.

  47. There is no “mission” in IRaq that the soldiers should be there doing. The US invaded a country that was no threat to it for no good reason and should never have gone in and every day the soldiers stay there is compounding the original error.

    Thanks Ginmar for speaking up, the whole tone of this thread “shit happens, support the troops!” was really making me wonder if this was Feministe or if I was hallucinating.

    That’s likely my fault, and due to the fact that I disagree with the entirety of your above statement. Of course, I’m somewhat of an interloper. Sorry about that.

  48. You know, even with the pictures that came out of Abu Ghraib, I have a very difficult time believing any officer would do nothing except give a wink and say “no more fucking cameras” in reaction to habitual sexual assault of female Iraqis. It’s so monstrous that it seems almost too monstrous, like some cartoonish stereotype about bloodthirsty, amoral killbots.

    Uh, teh officers would wink and cover it up because A) they’ve got orders from people with orders and those confessions are good after the fact justifications for the war and a way to show to superiors that htey’re “getting results” – it’s why we use torture, and why the inquisition used tortured also, it routinely and effectively gets “confessions” which justify the use of torture and the operations which lead to the use of torture ot the people back home (or back at the vatican respectively), and serial rape is the oldest form of physical and psychological torture there is (even Hienlein’s friday had a rape-cum-torture section, even if Friday herself was too professional and well trained to really be phased by it) – and B) more importantly because resources are so stretched that they can’t really afford to have soldier continuously on trial for war crimes – unit cohesion is important, as is not losing more people than you are already in an enviroment where eveyrone is already seriously undermanned.

    Not to mention because their higher ups might not wish to “disgrace” the unit by having it made public, and so covers it up neatly and gives any potential whistle blower a shit load of grief to diswade anyone from going public, and as many people are in the military to pay bills backhome, or to pay off college or to get an education, there’s a lot of leverage that can be put on them.

    Also, you’ve got to remember that those “sand niggers”, the “Hajjis” aren’t quite human in some people’s eyes (remember the videos of the Mercenaries hunting iraqis for sport? or the ones where troops played a game involving small children chasing a jeep because of a promise of water? It ain’t just dick cheney anymore who’s thinking of people Over There as not quite human, not by a long shot), why indeed would the old SS camp guards indulge in such charictures of Evil behavior as they did? Untermenschen ain’t human, and don’t deserve quite the same level of respect or empathy as actual people do.

    remember that, it’s not just hte misogyny that’s at work, it’s the racism as well, bouncing off each other to create this sort of laser-esque type of horribleness.

    And anyone who really wants to suggest that in this war, out of all the other wars when our brave boy were racists who did horribly racist things to the local fuzzywuzzies, none of our brave boys are racists doing horribly racist things to the local fuzzywuzzies can just write the words “Meh, I take it you were dropped on your head a lot as an infant then?” and attribute them to me to save me the bother, because such a position is, at the very least, pathetically ignorant, and at worst clinically psychotic.

    Where ever an invading imperialist army goes, rape camps are created.

    I just want to know why all the rapists are into filming their activities these days, from OC to Iraq, is there some great plan to start a program called “America’s Most Raperriffic Home Movies” at some point or something? Is this the logical end point of the Reality TV craze? Can we, in short, blame MTV’s The Real World, at least in part, for this, just on principle?

    P.S. I’m not giving the US Army the benefit of the doubt because I think the world’s most powerful military should be able to defend itself without my help.

  49. Dude, if you had found this guy’s statements horrific you would have said so. Instead you focused on intellectual exercises. Telling, indeed. And giving the guy a good beating? That’s just so much hot air when some guys talk about rapists: “I”d like to beat them. I’d like to tear them limb from limb.” Yeah, how about something that you can realistically do, like speaking out when your male buddies start saying sexist shit? Oh, wait, that would require effort, and not only t hat, you wouldn’t be popular either. Better to put forth some never-to-happen fantasy about what ‘should’ happen to this guy.

  50. Dude, if you had found this guy’s statements horrific you would have said so. Instead you focused on intellectual exercises. Telling, indeed.

    Honestly, does it really need to be said that the statements in question were horrific? It’s a baseline assumption, a given. Who is it exactly that you think I am?

    And when I said “he deserves a good beating” I wasn’t talking about a rapist, I was talking about a juvenile asshole who thinks telling made up stories like that is funny. As repugnant as it is, you can’t shoot a guy for being an asshole. Again, if he actually did the things he claims he did, he should be shot, whether he was “under orders” or not.

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