American soldier accused of raping and murdering girl told reporter that killing Iraqis was like "squashing an ant".

A former US soldier accused of raping and murdering an Iraqi girl compared killing people in
Iraq to "squashing an ant," in an interview with a reporter about a month before the attack.

Steven Green, 21, a former private with the 101st Airborne Division, is under arrest in Kentucky and could face the death penalty if convicted of the March 12 murders of the Iraqi girl and three of her relatives.

Writing in Sunday's editions of The Washington Post, Andrew Tilghman, a former correspondent for the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes, said he interviewed Green several times in February at his unit south of Baghdad.

"I came over here because I wanted to kill people," he quoted Green as saying. "The truth is, it wasn't all I thought it was cracked up to be.

"I mean, I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience," Green was quoted as saying. "And then I did it, and I was like, 'All right, whatever.'

"I shot a guy who wouldn't stop when we were out at a traffic checkpoint and it was like nothing," Green was quoted as saying. "Over here, killing people is like squashing an ant.

"I mean, you kill somebody and it's like, 'All right, let's go get some pizza.'"

One can only hope that this loathesome human being gets the death penalty, then he can see how he feels about death when he is the "ant" about to get squashed.

We keep describing our fighting forces as the best in the world, but it is becoming ever more evident that there are many in uniform who fall far below the definition of "best". Many of these guys are losers who entered the military for reasons that had little or nothing to do with patriotism or honor. Is it any wonder that they are doing such a poor job of representing us on the battlefield. That plus the fact that the mission is a criminal one means that we should keep our expectations low.

The longer they stay the worse it will be.