Maybe an official connection after all

On Saturday I noted that the two soldiers who were captured, tortured, and beheaded on June 16 were from the same platoon as Steven Green, the soldier currently charged with the rape and killing of a girl and three family members in March.

At the time, the official statement from the military was that there was no connection whatsoever between the events, but the LATimes has been asking questions around the investigation.

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military is investigating whether the kidnapping, killing and mutilation of two American soldiers was carried out in retaliation for an alleged rape and murder of an Iraqi woman by another member of the same unit three months earlier, a military official said Tuesday.....

"We are trying to find out if this hit on these three soldiers was a retribution for the rape and murder," said the official. "I cannot fathom the audacity it would take to do such a complex attack. What sort of rage exists in the populace? Are they saying, 'We aren't going to take this from people who do this to our women?' "

That's what struck me about a possible connection between these events; it would take significant tactical and intelligence sophistication on the part of the insurgents to track and target the specific platoon, lure the main body of soldiers away, and isolate and capture Pfc's Menchaca and Tucker.

If the connection is there and the slayings were a response to the rape, this was not the act of a few isolated "dead enders." This was a massive technical operation involving the coordination of several dozen fighters just outside Baghdad.