British Troops Rape Teenager

[Elfdart]

Independent

British soldiers accused of sickening sex assault on Iraqi boy, 14

Just days after the MoD has to pay out millions to the father of a man UK soldiers beat to death, fresh claims of abuse emerge

By Andrew Johnson
Sunday, 13 July 2008
The IoS has pixellated this image of the boy making the complaint because he is consumed by shame, and lives in fear of retribution from former friends

The IoS has pixellated this image of the boy making the complaint because he is consumed by shame, and lives in fear of retribution from former friends

British soldiers forced a boy of 14 to carry out an act of oral sex on a fellow male prisoner in Iraq, according to shocking new allegations made about the behaviour of British troops.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed yesterday that the Royal Military Police (RMP) have launched an investigation. If the allegations are proved, it would mark a sordid low in the behaviour of British troops in Iraq, and damage further the reputation of Britain in the Middle East.

The victim, now 19, whom The Independent on Sunday has agreed to identify only as Hassan, says he was rounded up with a friend while trying to steal milk cartons from a food distribution centre. He was whipped, beaten and forced to strip naked.

"They made us sit on each other's laps," he said. "They were enjoying humiliating and abusing us, I wished I was dead at this moment. Then they made me sit with Tariq... where I was forced to put Tariq's penis in my mouth. The other two were made to do the same."l

LINK

MoD inquiry into Iraqi boy's sex abuse claim

Monday, 14 July 2008

*Royal Military Police officers are investigating claims that an Iraqi boy of 14 was sexually abused by soldiers who made him perform a sex act on another prisoner, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday.

The allegations, highlighted in The Independent on Sunday, relate to the detention of suspected looters held by British forces in May 2003 at a base in southern Iraq called Camp Breadbasket.

Four British servicemen have already been jailed over photographs taken at the camp which showed troops beating prisoners who were tied up and forcing others to pose in sexually humiliating positions.

Mazin Younis, from the pressure group, the Iraqi League, told the BBC about the boy's claims. He said: "They were surrounded by British troops ... They were beaten, very harshly, using vehicle aerials. And they were guided inside the compound, where they were subjected to some horrific types of abuse. And there was continuous beating. But the worst of it was the sexual humiliation, which is something new, very new, to Iraqis."

Last week it emerged that the family of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi receptionist who died while being detained by UK troops in 2003, and nine other men who were allegedly mistreated will share £2.83m in compensation from the Ministry of Defence.

Still "standing shoulder-to-shoulder" with the Crawford Caligula, I see.

[Darth Wong]

You know, there are some very fine people serving with the militaries of Canada, the US, and the UK. But the reality which no one in our militaristic societies will accept is that the military also draws a lot of cruel, violent scumbags, and guess what: the training doesn't change their basic nature. It doesn't turn them into good people.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You know, there are some very fine people serving with the militaries of Canada, the US, and the UK. But the reality which no one in our militaristic societies will accept is that the military also draws a lot of cruel, violent scumbags, and guess what: the training doesn't change their basic nature. It doesn't turn them into good people.

I would go further than that. The very nature of military life can increase the frequency of abusive behavior, even in those that otherwise would not engage in it.

In order to get people to kill, to an extent you have to dehumanize your enemy, taking advantage of everyone's inborn tribalistic tendencies. That will increase incidence of abuse.

You put people into a somewhat insular, tight knit group that will protect their own from allegations (no one wants to rat out their best friend for rape... and risk possible retribution from others in the group. It happens with cops, it also happens with marines) This decreases the risk of being caught, which increases the frequency of abuse.

The people in an occupied country are themselves relatively powerless and have no means of recourse. This increases the incidence of abuse.

It is really really easy to put otherwise good people in a situation where they will do horrible horrible things. Hell you can get a man to torture another person to death with rather minimal encouragement, and considering the pressure, sexual frustration, and a certain sort of group-reinforced power-trip that those 19 year olds are under (on top of the otherwise high frequency of rape and other abuses in the civillian population) one really should expect this sort of bullshit to crop up rather often.

[Thanas]

At least the british acknowledge the problem, punish those involved and pay decent amounts of money, unlike the US. Anyone remember Haditha?

[Kamakazie Sith]

You know, there are some very fine people serving with the militaries of Canada, the US, and the UK. But the reality which no one in our militaristic societies will accept is that the military also draws a lot of cruel, violent scumbags, and guess what: the training doesn't change their basic nature. It doesn't turn them into good people.

True, and it's completely our fault for allowing them in.

An example of how short sited our policy makers can be - The FBI found that US gangs have been putting their members through the military so they can bring those skills back to the gangs when they either get out or go AWOL.

This problem has been brought on due to the lowering of entrance scores so the branches can meet their target numbers.

[Gil Hamilton]

At least the british acknowledge the problem, punish those involved and pay decent amounts of money, unlike the US. Anyone remember Haditha?

When Abu Ghirab broke, I remember people saying that it shouldn't be prosecuted and quietly forgotten, not because the party involved wasn't guilty, but because they prosecuting them would necessarily be public and it would make the military look bad and piss off the locals more.

Alot of places are also notoriously light handed on dealing with assholes in the service. A friend of mine who was in the Air Force talked about being stationed in Okinawa and how ashamed he was every time he saw a group of Marines out of base, because they treat the Okinawan locals like absolute dirt (and the Okinawans, who never got over that whole rape thing in the 90s, hate them right back).

[Alyrium Denryle]

At least the british acknowledge the problem, punish those involved and pay decent amounts of money, unlike the US. Anyone remember Haditha?

When Abu Ghirab broke, I remember people saying that it shouldn't be prosecuted and quietly forgotten, not because the party involved wasn't guilty, but because they prosecuting them would necessarily be public and it would make the military look bad and piss off the locals more.

Alot of places are also notoriously light handed on dealing with assholes in the service. A friend of mine who was in the Air Force talked about being stationed in Okinawa and how ashamed he was every time he saw a group of Marines out of base, because they treat the Okinawan locals like absolute dirt (and the Okinawans, who never got over that whole rape thing in the 90s, hate them right back).

Case in point. In third world militaries for example, there is no power structure with which to punish things like rape, torture, etc. In first world militaries, political bullshit sweeps crimes under the run... And the frequency climbs.

It does not matter who, or where, every time there is a military involved the frequency of rape skyrockets except perhaps in their home-bases against local civilians...

[Thanas]

Case in point. In third world militaries for example, there is no power structure with which to punish things like rape, torture, etc. In first world militaries, political bullshit sweeps crimes under the run... And the frequency climbs.

I would hesitate to use the US as an indicator for every first world military out there. I would rather argue that the US is the exception instead of the rule, since I cannot think of any European country that has a similar habit of military wanking.

[Eulogy]

Way to annihilate terrorism and spread democracy, felching monsters!

What a way to ensure that insurgencies continue and wars keep on happening. What a strategy to keep people bombing your troops and embassies.

Doing these kinds of inexcusable actions also dehumanizes not only the monsters that did them (as if they were human in the first place!) but also anyone who associates with said monsters.

You know what? There should be some way to secretly psychoanalyze troops, then send all of the scumbags to their well0deserved deaths handling the really dangerous (as in combat-heavy) missions. Al least then if they die there will be less monsters in the world. And from the sounds of it, whistleblowers aren't anonymous or well-protected enough from retribution. That needs to change too.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Case in point. In third world militaries for example, there is no power structure with which to punish things like rape, torture, etc. In first world militaries, political bullshit sweeps crimes under the run... And the frequency climbs.

I would hesitate to use the US as an indicator for every first world military out there. I would rather argue that the US is the exception instead of the rule, since I cannot think of any European country that has a similar habit of military wanking.

Not wanking. Political bullshit. The two are entirely different things.

[Thanas]

^Well, there are the wankers (aka the flag-waving republitard followers) and then there are the bullshitters (aka the GOP officials/politicians). They have quite a symbiotic relationship.

[Edi]

Case in point. In third world militaries for example, there is no power structure with which to punish things like rape, torture, etc. In first world militaries, political bullshit sweeps crimes under the run... And the frequency climbs.

I would hesitate to use the US as an indicator for every first world military out there. I would rather argue that the US is the exception instead of the rule, since I cannot think of any European country that has a similar habit of military wanking.

Not wanking. Political bullshit. The two are entirely different things.

The political bullshit surrounding the US military is a direct result of the military wanking that permeates your society. Soldiers can do no wrong and even when they do, they simply cannot be punished since they are our brave boys and girls in uniform yadda yadda yadda has been the refrain from the moron hordes for decades and the politicians know they can't get elected if they offend the moron hordes.

The thing that grates the most with me is how the higher echelons of command go along with that bullshit. With regard to internal discipline, enforcing the UCMJ and simply grinding these criminal fucks underfoot like cockroaches, the chain of command and the JAG office have a LOT of latitude to do as they see fit. If from company command upward they went medieval on people who commit crimes against civilians like that, it'd filter down right soon and if some interfering politician tried to sweep it all under the carpet or try to get the fucks off, they could simply point to the law and tell the asshat to fuck off. Right now the chain of command in the US military is an enabler of these crimes instead of the checkrein that is supposed to keep the troops in line.

We have a conscript military with a professional officer corps here and both in the news media and in my own experiences in the army, there was no hesitation whatsoever on cracking down on hazing, never mind worse shit. And they didn't much pull the punches. My platoon commander during basic training got removed and transferred to another unit after he fucked up and it was a close thing they didn't bust the conscript NCOs back down to privates at the same time. I think the only thing that prevented that was that the unit was isolated from the rest of the garrison, had some unhealthy practices, the officers were corrupt and incompetent and we were still too fresh and easily intimidated and/or persuaded at that time. If it had been three months later, they'd have all been utterly fucked.

When we moved to a different garrison for the next six months and then some, we had competent officers, a good atmosphere and there was no tolerance for the kind of bullfuckery that had gone on and the few incidents we had were severely cracked down on. Half a dozen guys in my platoon got a single warning for hazing (I was the target, ironically enough) and after that, the gloves came off. One guy happened to make a chance remark to his buddy about someone else (whether me or someone else, I have no idea, as I wasn't present) within earshot of the platoon commander that was in line with similar shit that the warnings had been about and got his ass beaten like a drum with administrative punishments and a nice one on one interview with the company commander. The whole platoon got a strict talking to.

If somebody in the company had committed any serious crimes while in uniform and if somebody else had helped them do so or covered for them and it had come out, the amount of shit that would have come down first from company and later from battalion and regiment level would have been truly spectacular.

[Surlethe]

You know, there are some very fine people serving with the militaries of Canada, the US, and the UK. But the reality which no one in our militaristic societies will accept is that the military also draws a lot of cruel, violent scumbags, and guess what: the training doesn't change their basic nature. It doesn't turn them into good people.

True, and it's completely our fault for allowing them in.

An example of how short sited our policy makers can be - The FBI found that US gangs have been putting their members through the military so they can bring those skills back to the gangs when they either get out or go AWOL.

This problem has been brought on due to the lowering of entrance scores so the branches can meet their target numbers.

The problem does not entirely lie in the armed forces reducing entrance scores so they can meet quotas; it also lies in the strategic goals and commitments which the US maintains. Those goals require a standing military which is larger than our current military, and because the military are having difficulty recruiting more troops, they have been forced to turn to criminals.

So there are several ways to deal with this recruitment problem: offer more financial incentives, like more paid collage, higher wages/joining bonuses, etc.; institute a draft; or change the commitments (read: withdraw from Iraq).

[Sidewinder]

Way to make your own nation look bad, you "patriots."

You know what? There should be some way to secretly psychoanalyze troops, then send all of the scumbags to their well-deserved deaths handling the really dangerous (as in combat-heavy) missions. Al least then if they die there will be less monsters in the world. And from the sounds of it, whistleblowers aren't anonymous or well-protected enough from retribution. That needs to change too.

The problem is that a lot of decent people WILL volunteer to handle the really dangerous missions (in Roy P. Benavidez's case, he received the Medal of Honor for jumping into a firefight in an attempt to save a friend), while a lot of scumbags WILL find a way to weasel out of these missions, e.g., by malingering. Such a policy can easily do more harm than good.

[Sidewinder]

And from the sounds of it, whistleblowers aren't anonymous or well-protected enough from retribution. That needs to change too.

IIRC, whistleblowers ARE supposed to be anonymous and well-protected from retribution, but asshole officers have a tendency to name the whistleblowers anyways, because they don't want their dirty laundry to be aired. (Anyone remember the whistleblower who Rumsfeld named IN PUBLIC, and who received death threats afterwards?)