First, the issue:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — American soldiers took turns raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and one of them put a bullet through her head after killing her parents and 5-year-old sister, an Army investigator testified Monday.

The attack followed a session of whiskey drinking and card-playing during which five soldiers plotted the March 12 assault, criminal investigator Benjamin Bierce said.

He cited details from a sworn statement by Spc. James P. Barker in which the soldier told how he and his comrades practiced hitting golf balls before heading to the Iraqi teen’s home 250 yards from their post at a traffic checkpoint.

After the slayings, the soldiers returned to their post, where Barker grilled chicken wings, Bierce testified.

I don’t know if it’s possible to demonstrate a colder, more calloused inhumanity than what was clearly exercised in this case.  And I don’t know how we expect others to see us as morally just and evenhanded when this is the level of security we bring to Iraq.

Now, the solution as spelled out in America’s own Uniform Code of Military Justice:

Subchapter X: Punitive Articles
Section 920 – Article 120 – Rape and Carnal Knowledge
(a) Any person subject to this chapter who commits an act of sexual intercourse with a female not his wife, by force and without consent, is guilty of rape and shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.

That only covers the rape part of the equation.  We also have several murders to consider, two of which are of children.

Subchapter X: Punitive Articles
Section 918 – Article 118 – Murder
Any person subject to this chapter whom without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when he- –
(1) has a premeditated design to kill;
(2) intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm;
(3) is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to others and evinces a wanton disregard of human life; or
(4) is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of burglary, sodomy, rape, robbery, or aggravated arson;
is guilty of murder, and shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial may direct, except that if found guilty under clause (1) or (4), he shall suffer death or imprisonment for life as a court-martial may direct.

We already know they are guilty under clause (4) given the rape.  What about clause (1)?

In his June 30 statement, Barker described playing cards and drinking Iraqi whiskey mixed with an energy drink as the defendants plotted the attack.

Sounds like premeditation to me.

While I do not support the death penalty in any case no matter how horrendous the crime, there is sufficient cause in this case to warrant the permanent incarceration of all those involved.  I mean permanent incarceration with no hope of reprieve or parole.  Let these young men sit and rot for the next 60-80 years of their lives.  Let them mix with the general population in whatever prison they find themselves so the criminal justice machine can inflict a little harm of its own.  I am not advocating their murders by any stretch of the imagination, but perhaps wanton violence directed at them before they are isolated for their own safety is just what they need to better appreciate the horror they have committed.

In the meantime, the president should also be held responsible for this crime (along with all the others that are similar, not to mention war crimes) as it is his administration that has supported this sudden degradation of our military’s moral fiber, an act strengthened by the support of torture, the destruction of basic human rights, and the violation of general liberties.  While “I was just following orders” has never cut it as a valid excuse, neither should it be disregarded since it indicates a top-to-bottom command structure intent on reducing all humans to “piece of meat” status deserving of no consideration.

This, poppets, is what Bush has turned our country into, what he has made our military become.  Do not think for a moment that the world does not see these heinous events and in them find reason to believe America has lost its soul in a quest for power and domination.  We no longer have a moral high ground upon which to stand.  The only question is how much longer Americans will tolerate this downslide into evil before realizing we are becoming all that we claim to abhor.