More rape, murder and conspiracy (UPDATE)

Joseph Cannon, Cannonfire

In the comments section for my first piece on this atrocity (scroll down), dr. elsewhere and I have been debating the merits of my thesis that the soldiers who killed a poor Iraqi family after raping the 15 year-old-daughter did so as part of a psychological operation. In my view, the evidence suggests that the soldiers did what they did as part of a deliberate attempt to blame an act of barbarism on the insurgents. Whether you agree with that theory or not, you must find something odd in the coverage of the story. Take, for example, this bit from the Washington Post: U.S. soldiers at the scene initially ascribed the killings to Sunni Arab insurgents active in the area, the U.S. military and local residents said. That puzzled villagers, who knew that the family was Sunni, Janabi said. Other residents assumed the killings were sectarian, with Shiite Muslim militiamen as the likely culprit. Janabi is the name of the key witness -- a neighbor who came across the scene shortly after the crime occurred. Compare the WP paraphrase of what Janabi said with this direct quote. "After three hours the [American] occupation troops surrounded the house and told the people of the area that the family had been killed by terrorists because they were Shi'ah. Nobody in town believed that story because Abu 'Abir was known as one of the best people of the city, one of the noblest, and no Shi'i, but a Sunni monotheist. Everyone doubted their story and so after the sunset prayers the occupation troops took the four bodies away to the American base. Then the next day they handed them over to the al-Mahmudiyah government hospital and told the hospital administration that terrorists had killed the family...

continua / continued