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.
Sorry Grendel, it's not my plea for her release. It's Lonsberry's. I only post 'em.
Really not very difficult in a combat zone on the night shift.
"Exactly right"? It's not as if she just missed "exactly right" by a hair!
I think she was told to enjoy herself so that it would be humiliating to the prisoners they were trying to break down. I may be in the minority but I don't have any problem with the techniques used by our military to get information from terrorists. These techniques should not be exposed for scrutiny by the ignorant, general public.
"Ve ver chust following oaduhs...."
1. Sensitivity
2. Nude Mud Wrestling.
3. Diversity.
4. Safe Sex. OOps nevermind.
5. Evening wear.
6. Bathing suit.
7. Congeniality.
8. Exhibitionism.
You can also blame the media for making a mountain oout of a mole hill to try to topple Bush and Rummy. Nobody would have cared, but they couldn't let it go. She's my employee to and she's fired.
I'm not saying that England and her "buddies" should get off Scot free. I am saying that officers and higher ups should be held to account as well. Either that, or let's just frankly admit that the entire thing was government policy, vetted and approved at the highest levels, and let all of the soldiers go free. I still don't see anything wrong with using humiliation as an interrogation technique against terrorists.
I'm sure he also had the Vietnam Service Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, and in all proability, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm.
Roger that. As I see it, the brass has decided to go for the whitewash option and swing a few folks on the bottom rungs while the culpable higher-ups take a walk. Nothing new in that.
It's sickening what we are doing to our soldiers, in the name of PC. This gal will spend more time in jail than OJ Simpson. A ten-year sentence for what she did? Feh!
The Generals really don't know about this stuff ~ that's why Lynndie ended up pleading guilty to so many charges.
Bullseye!
Good analysis, SW.
I was merely pointing out that your own comment was essentially providing the same excuse. If there is absurdity to be found, I suggest you begin looking at home.
Have any officers received comparable punishment yet?
If we had the former policy in place these people would have been ferreted out and removed from the military long before any deployment to Iraq.
If General Janet Karpinski was court-martialed for allowing this, then yes, go ahead and gig the mouthbreathers. But she's not, she's getting a golden parachute.
And remember Gen Barbara Whatsername, the dimwit in charge of releasing unfairly held prisoners? She released not one, she gets another soft landing.
And how about all the intermediate officers and noncoms who saw all this going on? They were transferred to put them out of the reach of the lazy presstitutes.
Lots of injustice here. At most, a BCD that's overturned after a couple of years (yes, that's done all the time). Maybe a month in the brig as a reminder to keep her nose clean.
She needed to be prosecuted, as did the others.
I beat that. I only got the good humor medal (good conduct medal) in six years of nav duty on subs. They called us the silent service!
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