I don't want you to read most of this diary.
It was hard for me to write it. I imagine reading the whole diary, if you choose to, will be hard.
I do ask you to this favor, however: Participate in a wikipedia discussion about the subject of this diary.
This is why:
This article may not meet the notability guideline for biographies. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged or deleted. (May 2009)
The above message is posted above the wikipedia article about Abeer al-Janabi: here. We have to convince the Wikipedia community that she deserves her own article.
The word "Abeer" gets 820 hits on Google News.
<< If you are familiar with her story, or don't have a strong stomach. Skip to the end.>>
The name Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi is one of the most recognizable innocent victims of our war against Iraq. Her name is known to every Iraqi (evidence from an Iraqi-American kossack here).
Abeer was a normal fourteen year old girl. She was born after the first gulf war -- i.e. she only knew war and sanctions all her life. A loser from Midland Texas decided to wage a second war against her country to help his powerful family and friends who were in the oil business.
Her parents were afraid to let her out of their sight. So much so that they didn't let her go to school. They felt the security situation wasn't perfect in Iraq. They probably felt secure knowing that there was a checkpoint manned by six US soldiers just 1000 feet away that would prevent crime or terrorism from happening near their house.
However a second creep from Midland, Texas had a thing for fourteen year old Abeer.
And on one such occasion PFC Steven Dale Green ran his index finger down Abeer's cheek, which had terrified the 14 year old girl.
Link via wikiipedia from Time
Eventually he and his drinking buddies decided to go rape Abeer, in broad daylight:
It was March 12, 2006. The boys Muhammed and Ahmed [her pre-teen brothers] came home from school to find white smoke billowing from their house, blood and brains on the walls. In the front room, Abeer was half nude and had been shot in the head. In the bedroom, bullet holes and red splatters peppered a corner. The right side of Qassim's[her father] head had been blown out by a shotgun, and he lay in a thick pool of blood. The body of Fakhriya[mother] looked broken. Little Hadeel[6 y/o sister] had been killed, still clutching the stems of flowers from the garden, with a bullet through her right cheek. The boys stood outside the smoking building, holding hands and crying...
Link to HuffPost article
"The poor girl, she was so beautiful she lay there, one leg was stretched and the other was bended and her dress was lifted to her neck.
Guardian via wikipedia
"
Steven Green was honorably discharged. He was finally convicted, nearly three years after committing this atrocity on May 7th. He was found:
• Guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit sexual assault.
• Guilty of sexual assault and the aggravated (by another felony) sexual assault of Abeer Qassim Hamza, 14.
• Guilty of premeditated, felony murder with a weapon in the death of Fakhriya Taha Muhasen, 34. That is a capital crime; Guilty of premeditated, felony murder with a weapon in the death of Qassim Hamza Raheem, 45, a capital crime. Guilty of premeditated, felony murder with a weapon in the death of Abeer Qassim Hamza, 14, a capital crime, and Guilty of premeditated, felony murder with a weapon in the death of Hadeel Qassim Hamza, 6, a capital crime.
• Guilty of arson.
• Guilty of obstruction of justice--hiding evidence.
On May 21st, a western Kentucky jury couldn't agree on the death penalty for him.
I somehow doubt if a man of color would have met with such compassion anywhere in Kentucky, if convicted of similar crimes.
After the juror's indecision was read out, representatives of the Iraqi family openly wept in court, and Green smiled slightly.
Google/AFP Link
So what happened to his partners-in-atrocity?
Cortez and Barker--who were sentenced to 110,100 and 90 years respectively--secure a reduced sentence where they would be released after seven years, putting them on the U.S. streets by 2013.
Link to HuffPo
<< Please resume reading>>
The story of Abeer has been followed by many Iraqis, and non-Iraqis (like myself & my wife). It illustrates the brutality and wrong-ness of this war like this picture(you've seen it, it's a naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm fire) did for Vietnam.
We, as Americans, cannot forget what we have done. Abeer deserves her own page on the primary information resource on the World Wide Web.
Please, contact wikipedia, make a comment within the "Discussion" tab of her article: WE CANNOT FORGET ABEER!!!
