Cry "HAVOC!" and let slip the dogs of war

This week the trial of a former US soldier began for the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl and her family. Speacialist soldier Stephen D Green faces death for his part in the crime, which three other soldiers have already been given life sentences for. The incident which took place sometime in March of 2006, which was thought up while the soldiers were drinking whiskey and playing cards at a checkpoint in Mahmudiyah. Mr Green said to his friends that he "wanted to go and kill some Iraqis". The soldiers dressed up as insurgents so not to be noticed and followed the 14 year old girl to her house. Her name was Abeer Kassem Hamza al-Janabi, an innocent 14 year old child. Victim of American liberation.

Sergeant Paul Cortez testified that he raped the child while a Mr Barker held the "sobbing child to the floor". While Green took the girls father to another room and shot him dead. When Green was finished raping the young child he shot her . The soldiers then covered the girls body with a blanket covered in a flammable liquid and burned the whole house to the ground. They then returned to their checkpoint some 200 metres away and ate dinner.

The whole crime came to light after an army councelors talked to a group after two soldiers were kidnapped from a checkpoint and brutally murdered. This could possibly have been a retaliation attack.

This is one account of what some Iraqis have to face at the hands of their liberators/occupiers. How many more stories like this haven't been told ? How many more Abeer Kassem Hamza al-Janabis are there out there that we will never find out about ? This is a ruthless story that would sicken anybody. For the US to have what it calls diplomatic relations with the leadership of Iraq is to say exactly that. How do the Iraqi people feel about this ? It seems that the relations between the US and Iraqi leadership is more important than the Iraqi leaderships relations with the Iraqi people. Who will listen to the peoples horror stories and do something about them ? Building walls between rival factions will only work for so long. Look at Baghdad over the previous weeks. Fighting in the city has caused the American forces to take all the weapons and ammunition from massive parts of the city. A bomb on Monday killed up to 40 people.

Over the last 100 years Iraq has been occupied for nearlly 55 of them. With Obama included the last six American presidents have bombed Iraq. Why ? After Irans very successful revolution, in the coming years when Saddans army invaded Iran, the US couldn't give him enough support. But when he invaded Kuwait, it was the wrong invasion wasn't it ? So hense forth the first Gulf war. And "Operation Desert Storm." which destroyed most of Saddams army. Including is chemical and biological weapons that was sold to him by the British and the US. The same weapons the 2003 invasion was based on.

Iraq used to be the cradle of civilisation. The first word, the hanging gardens of Babylon, the Baghdad battery, The city of Ur. All relics of a country broken and crying on it's knees, blinded by the sands of a never ending "desert storm".