It has been reported that four GIs have been accused and one arrested, but not yet charged, of raping an Iraqi woman in her home, and then killing her and the rest of her family (one a child) in an attempt to cover up the atrocities.

The alleged rape and killings took place March 12 in the vicinity of the volatile market town of Mahmudiya, an insurgent stronghold about 20 miles south of Baghdad. The killing of the family was originally reported by the military as due to "insurgent activity," American officials said.

A senior police official in Mahmudiya said in a telephone interview that he received a report of the killings in March. The victims were a woman, her child, her husband and the husband's brother, he said. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said a sheik from the family's tribe immediately reported the episode to the police.

The Times article says this is the FOURTH incident of GIs deliberately murdering Iraqi civilians that is being investigated by the military.

A senior American official confirmed several details first reported by The Associated Press on Friday, including that the soldiers were accused of raping the woman, before killing her and three other family members and possibly burning her body. An Army official in Washington also confirmed that the inquiry was focused on soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, adding, "The allegation is one of rape and murder."

The 502d has a long proud history of combat, tough, hard, but not murderers of women and children. I was proud to wear the “crying crow” on my left shoulder. If I had to be there, I was thankful that I was with a unit that had some pride in its history, an esprit de corps. And later I proudly wore it on my right shoulder. I felt sick when I first hear about this story and now, knowing the 502d is involved, I just feel dirty.

The alleged rape and killings came to light after a soldier felt compelled to talk about it in a "counseling-type session," after the discovery of the bodies of his kidnapped colleagues, The Associated Press reported. The soldier who originally disclosed the alleged killings had heard about them but had not taken part in them, The A.P. said.

One soldier has admitted his role and has been arrested; others have had their weapons taken away and are confined to their base in Mahmudiya, American officials said. The soldiers under investigation are apparently from the same platoon as the three killed in Yusufiya.

Why? Why did this happen? Fear? Anger? That dangerous contempt too many Americans seem to have for those with darker skins? The right wing noise machine has been loud enough here in the States about the dangers of the Iraqis in general. Scum like Robert Novak, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and the notorious transsexual Ann Coulter have been loud and abusive about people in Iraq who seem to resent being attacked and brutally occupied by a nation they did no wrong to.

We’ve killed untold thousands on innocent Iraqis, men, women and children who wanted nothing more but to live out their lives and die, safe and surrounded by loved ones, in their beds at home.

Earlier this month, two soldiers from the same unit were abducted while guarding a traffic control point in the town of Yusufiya and killed by insurgents, and their mutilated bodies were later found along a road booby-trapped with hidden explosives. A third soldier was killed in Yusufiya at the time of the ambush.

As Steve Gilliard has pointed out, we may now know why those bodies were desecrated:

This is Iraq. Revenge is part of the cultural construct. It's going to come out that those boys were killed in revenge. The Iraqis waited until everyone forgot and made those kids pay for what other people did.

To rape someone in Iraq is to dishonor their family. Women often commit suicide to protect the family honor. If Americans raped and killed a woman and murdered her family, Americans would pay. And those two young men were tortured in ways best left to Medieval history books.

The idiots on the right wanted to use it to justify the war, to call for even harsher methods. Now, it seems that it was retaliation for an unspeakable act. Of course, the amen choir on the right will smear and deny what was inevitable: the collapse of the US Army in the field.

Honor revenge, eh? Quite possibly.

In Iraq, a nation is dying, torn apart by civil war. In Iraq, an Army is dying.

The death of a thousand cuts.