I found this story off of
Americablog. At first I found it somewhat cynically humorous, but then decided to look into the original source of the story. Now I realize that this is beyond sickening. The source is from
Yahoo News, titled
Court told US troops gang-raped Iraqi girl:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. military court in Baghdad heard graphic testimony on Monday of how three U.S. soldiers took turns raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl before murdering her and her family.
At the hearing into whether four U.S. soldiers should be court-martialled for rape and murder, a special agent described what took place in Mahmudiya in March, based on an interview he had with one of the men, Specialist James Barker.
The story then goes into some gruesome events that took place within the rape / murder of this Iraqi girl and her family. I won't go into the details here--suffice to say that they delve into their own realm of sickening disgust. This posting isn't about the trial itself, but rather what happened during the hearings. Continuing with the Yahoo story:
Special Agent Benjamin Bierce recalled that Barker described to him how they put a couple and their six-year-old daughter into a bedroom of their home, but kept the teenage girl in the living room, where Barker held her hands while Sergeant Paul Cortez raped her or tried to rape her.
Barker then switched positions with Cortez and attempted to rape the girl but said he was not sure if he had done so, Bierce told the hearing.
Military prosecutors are expected to set out their case against Private First Class Jesse Spielman, 21, Barker, 23, Cortez, 23 and Private First Class Bryan Howard, 19, who face charges of rape and murder among others.
A fifth soldier, Sergeant Anthony Yribe, is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false statement and will also appear at the hearing at a U.S. base in Baghdad.
Barker later signed a sworn statement based on the interview, in which he said that on the day of the attack he, Cortez, Spielman and Green had been playing cards and drinking whisky mixed with an energy drink. They then went to the rear of the checkpoint where they were based to hit golf balls.
Green said he wanted to go to a house and kill some Iraqis, Barker wrote in his sworn statement.
After the rape and murders, he [Barker] wrote that he began to grill chicken wings.
Now let's look over at the defense side of this hearing:
Defense Attorney Captain Jimmie Culp was blowing chewing gum bubbles while Yribe, sitting to his left, began sucking on a red lollipop during the testimony.
It boggles my mind that a U.S. military defense attorney would be blowing chewing gum bubbles during this hearing. I would expect high school kids to be blowing bubbles while sitting in class, but to have an office of the U.S. military--and a lawyer--to be blowing bubbles during a murder trial is atrocious. Would you have expected such behavior to take place in any court here in the US--either civilian or military? But I would guess that the standards for courtroom etiquette are a little loose in the US-occupied Baghdad.
And as for the defendant Yribe sucking on a red lollipop during the trial? Well, if he's convicted, then he's going to be sucking on more than lollipops while sitting in a military prison.
As disgusting as it seems, I can understand Barker wanting to grill chicken wings after his raping and murdering--hey, raping and murdering is hard work! Need to regain your strength. But to have a military defense lawyer blowing chewing gum bubbles while in a courtroom really degrades our judicial institution. This hearing was being held in a U.S. military court in Baghdad. The rules of judicial etiquette and respect should apply to all court trials and hearings--no matter where they are being held at.
Interestingly enough, the mainstream news outlets appear to be taking out this chewing gum / lollipop information out from the story. Both ABC News and CNN do not make any references to Culp's bubble-blowing within their own stories. MSNBC has pretty much the same story, but the bubble-blowing and lollipops have been taken out--in fact, there are two MSNBC stories on this hearing, and both do not have these references. In fact, looking at a number of other mainstream outlet, these references are ignored either in the originally-written stories, or in stories from the Associated Press. And yet, all the mainstream news outlets have included Barker's chicken wing reference in their stories. The one mainstream news organization that has this reference of Culp's bubble-blowing and Yribe's lollipop sucking is The Washington Post. Both Yahoo News and The Washington Post pulled this story off the Reuters newswire.
It is just incredible.
Another little update here: The Yahoo New site where I found this story, which was originally from Reuters, has been replaced by an Associated Press story that does not include this chewing gum and lollipop reference.
Here is the original Yahoo story from the Reuters newswire, which contains the bubble gum blowing and lollipop reference:
Court told US troops gang-raped Iraqi girl.
Now here is the new Yahoo news story that came from the Associated Press--which does not have this bubble gum or lollipop reference:
Hearing continues in Iraq rape-slaying.
From looking at the other mainstream news sites, only The Washington Post still has the Reuters story published on their web site. The other mainstream news sites either have their own stories published, which do not contain the chewing gum or lollipop references, or they have placed the AP story on their own sites.
It certainly tells us something about our corporate-owned mainstream media....