Ex-Soldier Steven Green Faces Possible Death Penalty

Steven Green was convicted of the murders of the Al-Janabi family in Iraq and rape of the eldest daughter. He faces life in prison indefinitely and the death penalty is not an out of the question sentence. Green was a soldier in Iraq and had plotted this attack with three or four other soldier who knew about it and were involved in it. I find this absolutely horrifying. These are the people out there defending our country? Representing our country? Fighting for our country and the very idea of America? The article actually refers to the assault as a war atrocity, which I find extremely fitting in our war unit that just ended. This situation immediately reminded me of so many of the artifacts we read over the course of the unit. The fact that war makes things "foggy" and morality pretty much goes out the window. There is no longer a line between right and wrong because of the shock and all the awful things occuring on a regular basis. I don't think this justifies anything. Morality cannot be brushed to the side. Rape and murder is far from fighting for your country and killing in battle. This atrocity had nothing to do with the war. He deserves the harshest sentence possible. The fact that there were multiple soldiers involved also makes me uneasy. What has this war come to? Just because a person is "used to" killing soldiers, which i do not think is possible but hypothetically, that still doesn't have anything to do with rape. That has nothing to do with killing innocent civilians who did nothing wrong. Nothing justifies that. What does this say about the war? What is provoking this? What makes these soldiers think that this is justified? And that goes back to a central question in the unit: what sort of killing really is justified?