US soldier’s rape sentence cut due to Iraq stress

March 8th, 2006 at 20:15 Björn Hallberg

Apparently having been on tour in Iraq is now “extenuating circumstances.” Apparently it had “made him less sensitive to the suffering of others.” The sentence was thus reduced from eight years to five years and eight months.

[James Michael] Brown beat and handcuffed the woman, a Nigerian resident in the town of Vicenza. He raped her vaginally and anally and left her to wander the streets naked in search of help.

In fact, because U.S. personnel enjoy special privileges under the legal arrangements negotiated between the U.S. and host countries, Brown may in fact be whisked away to the U.S. while an appeal is in progress and never serve his sentence. As is standard practise in these matters. But even so, the focus on Brown’s “psychological stress” and talk of “guerrilla war against an invisible enemy” is a slap in the face to those real victims out there, the woman in question and countless other women, in Iraq and elsewhere, who have been violated in the same manner. This legal defence is extremely offensive and displays a dramatic lack of remorse and acceptance, something that I am quite sure would not be treated quite so leniently in a U.S. court.

It is not all legal smokescreens though. At the same time, it also speaks plenty on the real cost of war, which isn’t always limited to the battle field. Perhaps this is also another indication of the sorry state of the U.S. military, which is despite what many insist, a cruel and perverted organization that chooses to be exactly that and thrives on fear and sadism. To be fair though, this is endemic to all such structures, not just in America. But the more actively one uses the armed forces, the more one is compelled to rely on and accept such deviations from civil society and in fact to catalyze that very same development.

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