Posted on 05/03/2005 5:43:15 AM PDT by shortstop
She shouldn’t spend a day in jail.
Pfc. Lynndie England.
Somebody should give her a stern talking to, dock her a couple of week’s pay and kick her out of the Army.
And then she should go back to her trailer in West Virginia and disappear into the woodwork.
But no way should she go to jail.
You know who she is. She’s the ugly female soldier holding the leash, the idiot with the cigarette pointing to the family jewels of some naked Iraqis.
They had her in court yesterday and had her plead guilty to seven counts of nonsense. Two counts of conspiring to mistreat prisoners, four counts of actually mistreating a prisoner and one count of committing an indecent act.
And for this she’s on the line for as many as 11 years in Fort Leavenworth.
Which isn’t right.
Sure, she’s an idiot. No doubt she’s poor white trash. Probably doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together.
But she’s nothing more than a scapegoat, some low-ranking nobody offered up as a blood sacrifice to appease the media gods. They want somebody to pay and, dammit, somebody’s going to pay.
Guilty or not.
But this chick’s not guilty of anything but being dumb. Which is not something you go to prison for.
First of all, let’s remember what was done and who it was done to.
In the pictures involving Private First Class England, there are some naked Iraqis, some of whom seem to be making a human pyramid, others of whom are standing against a wall, one or two of whom are wearing leashes.
Which is pretty scandalous.
But a hell of a lot better than getting your head cut off.
And I will remind you that the men pictured with this woman were all suspected terrorists, jihad boys intent on killing Americans by the busload.
I will also remind you that virtually all of those suspected terrorists are free now. They’ve been released. They fought against the United States and they get to walk free. The soldiers who teased them are going to spend a decade in prison.
Which is pretty screwed.
My mother told me: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”
Same goes for posing naked like the UCLA glee club.
Ditto for the leash.
It’s not a whole bunch of fun, but it doesn’t make you bleed, bruise or die. You get up the next morning with nothing injured but your pride.
And I don’t think Americans should have to go to prison for injuring Muslim pride.
Anyway, there’s no way this lowly private deserves prison time. That prison was run by a one-star general who seems to have been completely incompetent to command. Supervision was non-existent and good order and discipline were unknown.
To me, it is inconceivable that a specialist and a few privates would be in charge of Abu Ghraib prison at night. I just cannot imagine how somebody could mess with all those prisoners and there not be a single sergeant or officer aware of it. I simply do not believe that some ill-trained backwater Reservists of such meager rank could do what they did unsupervised.
But the only ones in trouble are some nobodies.
It’s not right.
Especially for this England chick.
She was 20 at the time, beaucoup thousand miles away from home, under the direction of a far-older soldier who outranked her. If you’re an E-3 and an E-4 hands you a leash – especially if he’s a prison guard in the civilian world – and he tells you to hold onto it, you hold onto it.
That’s just how it is.
It’s not the brightest thing in the world, it’s the wrong thing, but it is what it is – and nothing more. Nobody got hurt, nobody got killed, nobody got anything more than inconvenienced.
So you chew her out, and give her an Article 15. And if you are really ticked off, you discharge her.
But you don’t send her to prison.
And I’d like to point out one more reason why not.
It’s her chest.
No, not her build. Her ribbons.
If you see some more video of her today, look at the service ribbons on, as you look at her, the right side of her chest. There are, by my count, eight of them. Two rows of three and one row of two.
That’s pretty good for a young soldier.
That’s pretty good for any soldier.
That means she did her duty, and apparently did a pretty good job at it.
And that ought to count for something.
It ought to count for something that she was overseas on combat duty while the rest of us were back home watching on TV. While all the media types and the angry senators and the so-called experts were safe on their fat behinds stateside, this 20-year-old girl was answering her nation’s call and doing her duty.
She left her life behind, she put on the uniform and she went to a war zone, where she was put in a prison to watch over men who wanted more than anything to kill an American.
And we’re going to lynch her because she didn’t do it exactly right.
I say that’s nuts.
She doesn’t deserve to go to prison.
And I hope the military court agrees.
I hope the military court doesn’t make her a scapegoat.
Thanks, that means a lot.
The people she was having her fun with were NOT up for interrogation. They were low-level prisoners.
She did it because she wanted to and because she COULD.
I don't disagree with using some 'humiliation' techniques to break prisoners for interrogation. But I do NOT want American soldiers complicit in rape or other sexual abuse. This was way out of line.
Well said.
Agreed. Sting her good.....but it MUST be explained publicly in a manner akin to your post above.
It is better as a political gesture that is all. Politicians are involved in this outcome NOT the military I suspect.
The guy with camera should be taken out and.....
Read post 145...if soldiers died or were put in harm's way by her actions, why is a DD justice?
Roger that.
If not for the Abu Ghraib clicque, that young man would have been in Port Byron riding in a squad car by day and line dancing by night. That's the facts, so suck it up.
Even if he hadn't had the accident, abu Ghraib was getting mortared with a frequency somewhere between hardly ever and never before the 333rd rotated in, and then they started taking fire every day when the photos came out. Her criminal actions led to soldiers being in harms way who would not have been otherwise. If that's not a serious deal, what is?
The fact that there IS a whole crew of these morons should tell you that her behavior wasn't some sort of lone anomaly but part of a culture of behavior that existed among the guards of the prison.
Not necessarily, see the Stanford Experiment. One bad rule-set or stupid leader can screw a lot of things up in a prison situation. All the more reason the punishments should be harsh, so that when some sergeant walks into some prison and says, "Let's get out the leashes, underwear and cameras," the PFC's will say, "No, we're going to run that by somebody above your pay grade."
Like I said, she disobeyed lawful orders, obeyed unlawful ones, and put other troops in danger, all because she wanted too and could. The hammer needs to come down hard.
As I understand it, she would have gotten only two years if her plea deal had stuck. Eleven years is not on the table.
Lyndie England was wrong, but if she gets more than 2 years, then she has the NYTimes and the WashPost to thank for that.
It would be purely satisfying the media gods and have nothing at all to do with justice.
The best part about leaving Rochester was NO MORE LONSBERRY, and then you post him. :o(
I agree 1000% percent all along. I further question her being in a combat zone in the first place.
dont know.
but Sgt. Akbar sure does deserve punishment.
Roger that.
"England isn’t on trial because she put some terrorist scumbag on a leash, or took some photos, she’s on trial because she disobeyed lawful orders (everything about prisoners in the field manual for starters) and obeyed unlawful ones. She came to a spot she shouldn’t have been in to do a job she wasn’t trained for (she was a freakin' admin clerk!) at the behest of a sergeant who wasn’t in her chain of command. Add to that the sexual misconduct she was involved in, and my question is, if Lynndie England doesn’t deserve to be punished, what soldier does deserve it?"
Well put.
Thing is, England volunteered for the National Guard. She didn't have to go; but she volunteered to obey legitimate orders (and, incidentally, to make sure that she knew what orders were and weren't legit).
Thank you and roger that!
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