Steven Green, the former soldier sentenced to five life terms for raping and killing a 14 year-old Iraqi girl and killing her family spoke to a reporter for the Daily Mail newspaper:
An Iraq War veteran serving five life terms for raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her parents and sister says he didn’t think of Iraqi civilians as humans after being exposed to extreme warzone violence.
Steven Green, a former 101st Airborne soldier, in his first interview since the 2006 killings, claimed that his crimes were fuelled in part by experiences in Iraq’s violent ‘Triangle of Death’ where two of his sergeants were gunned down.
The story is as horrifying and shocking as the first time I read about it:
At the Iraqi home, Barker and Cortez pulled Abeer into one room, while Green held the mother, father and youngest daughter in another.
Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, stood guard in the hall. As Barker and Cortez raped the teen, Green shot the three family members, killing them.
He then went into the next room and raped Abeer, before shooting her in the head. The soldiers lit her remains on fire before leaving. Another soldier stood watch a few miles away at the checkpoint.
Mission accomplished? Who is ultimately responsible for war crimes of this nature? The persons who pull the trigger of the gun? Or the ones who pull the trigger on the troops sent into war?
