Posted on 05/06/2004 8:13:05 AM PDT by dead
Edited on 05/06/2004 8:34:29 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Lynndie England loved a good storm. During tornado warnings her mother would have to drag her back inside the house. Her teachers say she wanted a career as a storm-chaser.
Now, the perfect storm has found her.
The petite 21-year-old army reservist from the quiet crossroads town of Fort Ashby in West Virginia is the most visible character in the controversy over the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. She is the thumbs-up girl, the pixie-ish, T-shirted soldier, smiling, pointing and posing for the camera with naked and humiliated inmates.
Soon after the release of the photographs, Terrie England was on the telephone with her daughter while watching television.
Another old addage: Anyone who can bleed for a week and not die is not someone to mess with.
Yes, she is. In fact I'm susprised they allowed her to deal directly with terrorist suspects, all of whom are bigger than her.
Consider Puller's comment, "generals are a dime a dozen, but a good shotgun is hard to find." The thinking should focus on your duty and the commander's intent of objectives. Marine leadership teaches Marines what is important to focus on, gives them knowledge and promotes the developement of wisdom within them to enable them to produce results that fulfill the commander's intent.
This soldier was a private under the guidance of older, senior noncoms and officers. She was following their lead. Unless she is more knowledgeable and wise than they are, it is unlikelikely she would ever know in the short term what she was actually doing. Now she will be told that what she's done was wrong and why it was.
They were not torturing and killing prisoners. It is doubtful she could have told the rest of the bunch that they were doing it all wrong and they should do what she suggests.
Btw, how are things in Japan, Im in Texas for a few weeks before heading back to Malaysia.
Just had a beautiful steak last night grilled over Mesquite.
I think you are right.
It is clear we are totally over-reacting now in the media. Some prisoners were bad, and some idiot officer somewhere decided that this kind of humiliation was appropriate. It wasnt, it was abhorrent. But it was an exception not a rule, and now we have huge amounts of handwringing, with no sense of balance nor context. No sense of balance that this humiliation is far less serious than the brutal tortures that are regular in saddam's Iraq or even in other Arab countries today. (eg practices like throwing people to lions, forcing gasoline in them and then shooting them and watching them explode, the 'grenade in the mouth' trick, the acid pourings on flesh, the burning tortures, horrible beatings, etc.
Meanwhile 98% of what the US is doing is extremely careful. Often the enemy is using 'human shields' and there are many cases where US troops have decided not to fire at an enemy combatant in a crowd to avoid civilian casualties. The enemy knows this, so they deliberately fire mortars from residential areas, use mosques/schools, etc. and fire from crowds.
One story I read mentioned how a soldier had to watch as his buddy was killed and then burned in a vehicle. This was in an area where the soldiers had previously helped build the schools and helped bring water supplies up to par and other works. And some Iraqis nearby were cheering this grisly scene. Did the young soldier, manning a machine gun at the time, kill those Iraqis cheering the death of his friend? No, he held back.
Every day our soldiers are holding back from being even more harsh. Every day, our soldiers die from an enemy that is cruel and cowardly; just today another car bomb that killed Iraqi civilians that dared to go near the US 'green zone'. Every day on FR, we hear calls from the "MOAB" crowd to be more, not less, harsh and damn the civilians and collateral casualties.
we are not, should not, and cannot approach the level of barbarity of our enemy. Not even with this pictures.
Just Google her and she is on PAGE AFTER PAGE AFTER PAGE of websites around the world. Name, age, hometown, high school, photo. Sample such as this, from a German site:
"...Die Gefreite Lynndie England, mit ihrer Zigarette im Mundwinkel vor den Genitalien eines Iraker posierend, diese Frau hat mit einer Aufnahme vergleichsweise..."
If you replaced the female in these pictures with a male and the males with females, you would have this case already over with and the guy locked up in Leavenworth. The very reason the case seems to have been bottled necked and is dragging on is because of a reluctance to prosecute some of those responsible who happen to be women: England and Karpinski.
Very well said. Thank you.
Bravo Sierra. If we were no different, we wouldn't be humiliating them, we'd be lopping bits of them off with a dull machette. Those wires in the one photo would actually be hooked to a car battery instead of nothing. We'd be feeding people alive into plastic shredders and wood chippers.
Is what happened right? No. Neither was it anywhere NEAR the same kind or level of barbarism the Iraq's themselves have perpetrated. Another differnce? The perps here will be found, tried, and punished.
No different? That is what the liberals want you to believe.
Off-topic I wanted to reach through the radio yesterday and slap Hannity across the chops as he was trying to make excuses for these people.
Somehow he seems to have missed the point that this stuff has made our position in Iraq much more difficult, and it is likely that American soldiers will die as a result of the publicity that has followed.
That's right, HUMILIATED, not tortured.
Where's the pictures of the acid burns on 100% of the guy's body? Where's the pictures of the high-voltage leads on the guy's genitals? Where's the pictures of the severed hands?
These prisoners are the ones who are indiscriminate bombers and killers. They have information that would be helpful in ending the carnage over there. More power to these guards.
The thing that makes this war the most difficult is the 5th-column democRATs we have back home who are constantly back-biting the effort.
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