Early Warning?

Was it just a simple twist of fate that Steven Green was featured in this Army News Service photo back on December 9th of last year in the town of Mullah Fayed — or was it also a telegraph?

Green is the former soldier who was arrested this week for the rape and murder of a 15 year old Iraqi girl, and the killing of her family on March 12 near Mahmudiya.  If you’ve been following the story, there is now speculation that the kidnapping and killing of two American soldiers last month may have been retribution for Green’s actions.

Although this photo has been removed from the Army News Service site, the article it accompanied is still there.  Ironically, the piece is titled: "Coalition forces keep streets of Iraq safe."  The caption said Green was preparing "to blast a lock off the gate of an abandoned home during a search of homes."   Quite a few blogs have run this pic, but with reference only to title and caption.

I was interested in the difference in fact and tone between article and photo.

The Army News article says that the goal of these home raids were to reassure citizens while scaring the insurgents.  But the write-up highlights the use of dogs to search homes, which BAGreaders have mentioned numerous times represents an insult to the average Iraqi.

The article also stresses the respect for personal and property rights.  And yet, here we have a soldier taking a gun to a lock.  Do I understand that the military needs to shoot these things off in the middle of what the article describes as a "quiet residential neighborhood?"  At my gym, they have a pair of metal cutters that will easily do the same job.

Maybe this photo illustrates standard operating procedure.  At the same time, could it have possibly been an early-warning concerning a soldier about to be kicked out of the service for an Antisocial Personality disorder before his insane crimes were committed?

(image: Army News Service.)