I don't understand this concept of eligibility for parole. Why bother sentencing someone for 90 years if you know ahead of time he'll be out in 20, effectively making the sentence 20 years?

Why not say that the guy is sentenced for "20 years, and then we'll see." Too short, you say? Sounds a lot different when you put it that way, huh?

I guess this apply to jail sentences in general and is not particular to this case.

So glad he cleared that up for us. It explains everything. I hope he never gets parole, ever.

Did he go to Iraq for opportunities to commit rape and murder? If not, why hasn't he killed himself?

The United States Army is not supposed to be raping and killing civilians, and I am ashamed and disgusted that the chain of command responsible for this is still in place; combat soldiers have no business sitting around playing cards and drinking; there are some sergeants and some commissioned officers in Iraq who have warped ideas about their mission and the tactics that are permissible.

The United States armed forces are rapidly becoming unfit for human society. If this is what our soldiers do, then we have no right to criticize the behavior of any nation, sect, or group - let alone invade nations and lay them waste in pursuit of "military solutions".

I remember that when this horrific story was first reported, the 14-year-old child who was so brutally raped and murdered was repeatedly referred to as a woman, not a girl or child; and despite the repeated insistence of the girl's own relatives and neighbors that she was an adolescent, many media outlets continued to report that she was a woman in her twenties. I don't mean to imply that the crime would be any less brutal if she had been a grown woman, but there is an additional level of horror here that these soldiers chose to sexually torture a young girl. Even now, news stories on the subject avoid any focus on the fact that the soldiers targeted and raped a *child*.

And while we now see stories in which "anger at the Iraq people" is held to be the motivation for the crime, what is left unsaid is that this is also a hate crime against the female gender. This reminds me of the reporting of the recent murders in the Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylania, which were framed by the media simply as the random crime of a deranged individual, rather than, again, a hate crime specifically targeted at very young girls. Salon, please give us an in-depth story on this aspect of media coverage. I'd be interested to know just how widespread it is.

I would have never known from the one trillion, two hundred billion, fifty million, seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand, four hundred and seven point five pages that have been written about this case, NONE OF WHICH HAVE STATED THIS LIVING, BREATHING, HUMAN BEING with her hopes and dreams and fears and skills and ability to feel compassion and pain's FUCKING NAME.

She's been reduced to a footnote, along with her MOTHER, her FATHER, and her BABY BROTHER.

Fucking American fuckin administration. I hate you all with a passion that burns so bright and so blue that it will nevereverevereverever

fadeor

die.

that it was that time of the momth, estrogen surge or something, he might get the same break women get in court.

then again, maybe not.

I know it's kind of your role to be the nutjob around here, but what was the point of that comment?

This man, along with his friends, brutally raped and murered a child and her family and you're belittling the situation with pointless comments about women using their periods as an excuse for ultra-violent behaviour? Please, show me some examples that match up with this in terms of horrifying and inexcusable violence where a woman got off because she said her cramps were really really bad.

i know it's hard to be a guy and all now that women have totally overthrown the patriarchy and taken over the world, it can make a dude crazyI'm sure, but could you at least try to be crazy without being a total asshole? Maybe just a little?

Let me just preface what I'm about to say with Barker's comments as quoted in the Washington Post:

"I want the people of Iraq to know that I did not go there to do the terrible things that I did. I do not ask anyone to forgive me today."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601685.html

Barker and the others are very guilty and very wrong and committed horrific acts of premeditated brutality.

But whenever a soldier becomes a murderer I always wonder, "What role did we play in this?"

In the military we train teenagers to dehumanize the enemy (to a certain degree) so that they can kill (if necessary). Do we share in the blame when they take these skills outside of legitimate war activities?

Please, show me some examples that match up with this in terms of horrifying and inexcusable violence where a woman got off because she said her cramps were really really bad.

Two words:

Andrea

Yates

Ever since I first read about this crime, I've had the creepy sense that this moronic kid and his friends did this for entertainment -- kind of an ultra-violent videogame come to life. There's something just so dismally casual, so stunningly stupid, about the sitting around drinking beer, playing cards and planning it out scenario, that it truly strikes me as an "evening out" for them. I don't think "angry and mean" had anything to do with it -- which would at least be more humanizing of this bunch than the boredom I feel was really at the bottom of it. brrrrrrr.

Brightstar dear,

Post-partum psychosis has nothing to do with "that time of the month" and go read more about Yates' case before you make a jugement like that.

This is a sad, heartbreaking story.

Post-partum psychosis has nothing to do with "that time of the month" and go read more about Yates' case before you make a jugement like that.

Flavor-of-the-Week shell game. Point is women are granted benefits of doubt all the time where men are not.

Or do you dispute this?