The Killing Machine
Three months before he allegedly killed an Iraqi family after raping a young girl, Private Stephen Green was diagnosed by army mental-health experts as being a "homicidal threat". Did they immediately remove him from duty and prepare a comprehensive treatment program? Nope, they shipped him off to Anbar with some pills and told him to get some sleep:
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -- An Army private charged with the slaughter of an Iraqi family was diagnosed as a homicidal threat by a military mental health team three months before the attack.Pfc. Steven D. Green was found to have "homicidal ideations" after seeking help from an Army Combat Stress Team in Iraq on Dec. 21, 2005. Green said he was angry about the war, desperate to avenge the death of comrades and driven to kill Iraqi citizens, according to an investigation by The Associated Press.
The treatment was several small doses of Seroquel - a drug to regulate his mood - and a directive to get some sleep, according to medical records obtained by the AP. The next day, he returned to duty in the particularly violent stretch of desert in the southern Baghdad suburbs known as the "Triangle of Death."
No follow-up exams or further treatments were scheduled, records indicate. But Green had a conversation with his battalion commander one month after the examination in which he expressed hatred for all Iraqis.
The rest of the long article deals with the sorry state of how the military treats it's soldiers who suffer from mental problems and a bio of how Green got to where he is. A chilling quote comes at the end, however:
Lt. Col. Richard Anderson, the military judge hearing that case, asked Barker why he agreed to participate."I hated Iraqis, your honor," Barker replied. "They can smile at you then shoot you in your face without even thinking about it."
Now that people are going to be trapped in the shitmire for more than two years at a time, with a population that hates their guts, how many of these feelings will manifest themselves? God only knows.