There’s a ruckus being stirred up in the blogosphere regarding media reports about the latest rape and murder allegations against our troops in Iraq.  I’m speaking of those emanating from Mahmoudiya, a town south of Baghdad.

The details of the story are still not entirely clear, but we know enough to suspect our troops raped a 14-year-old girl, killed her and two members of her family, and then burned down their house to obfuscate the crime.  I already asked the question leaping to the forefront of your mind: What the hell is going on?

The investigation is ongoing.  The evidence appears on the surface to be damning.  As yet, we don’t know for certain.  But it looks very bad, as did those atrocities that came before it (Haditha, Abu Ghraib, Abu Sifa [Isahaqi], others?).  For now, we must wait and see what happens.

“So”, you ponder, “what is the problem?  Why the new (or renewed) outrage?”

I am appalled at what appears to be a growing tendency within the established news media to refer to the teenage girl as a woman, as in “Allegations that soldiers raped a woman and killed both her and her family to cover up the crime”.  There is a significant difference in saying that as opposed to saying “Allegations that soldiers raped a teenage girl and killed both her and her family to cover up the crime”.  Do not for a moment believe the two statements are equivalent.

Ah, but is that because women are less important than girls, that perhaps the former is less offensive than the latter?  On the contrary, it’s because the latter is more offensive than the former.

Why do you think those going to prison for crimes against children have cripplingly lower chances of survival than the general population?  It is because there truly is honor even among thieves (and murderers and rapists and so on).  Unfathomable barely scratches the surface of our offense when a child is abused in any way.  Our sense of universal justice is violated by this apparent disregard for a certain innocence we all inherently want to protect in non-adults.  It is the same feeling we have toward those adults who are mentally incapacitated in some way and rendered equivalent to a child.  That is simply a line you do not cross.

Again, one might wonder how it is more severe than had it been an adult female.  It just is, and if you can not see it, bestial inhumanity is your crime, for even rodents protect their young.  If a cold-hearted reptile like an alligator will endanger its own life to ensure the safety of its offspring, how then can any human not properly identify the extra heinousness of a crime when perpetrated against one or more children?

Do not for a moment think such an assumedly trivial semantic aberration can be overlooked.  It can not, for it engenders a rage significantly removed from that which would otherwise be borne from that trivial difference.

Think about it: You have just been informed a family member was raped.  It is your 24-year-old sister.  How do you feel?  Now, modify that to be your 14-year-old sister still living at home with the family.  How do you feel?  Is it the same?  And when the authorities called, would your response have been different had they said “a woman in your family has been raped” as opposed to “a young girl in your family has been raped”?  I think so.

One can not always put a finger on intentional misrepresentations in the media, blatant maneuvers intended to mislead the public and sway its collective opinion.  This is a case where you can identify it as such, especially when organizations like the Associated Press have already been informed of the outrage yet continue in this deceptive relabeling.

Remember the next time you hear something about this story, especially when the word “woman” is used, that we’re talking about a 14-year-old girl who was living at home with her family.  Remember, there is a difference, and only those who would prey on children think otherwise.

Perhaps that says it best.

[and don’t misinterpret this post to conclude it somehow changes my stance on abortion; we’re not going there; a very real difference exists between nonviable, biogenic material and a walking, talking, clothes-wearing, independent physical being 14 years removed from the womb; the two are not even in the same ballpark]