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Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
Lynndie England Misses Prison

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battleaxonista...is a humorless bitch
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
These kids (and that's what they were) were trained and raised in a culture, with superiors, who may have done the same, and maybe worse, during their own time in combat. I fail to understand how we expect young kids to have more morality than their far older superiors who gave the fucking order. She deserves and education and a goddamn job with the opportunity to do better with her life.
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TheExperience
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
There are millions of women in this country who have completed drug rehabilitation, jail time, or have had their children removed from their care, and are having a hard time finding employement because of those stigmas. Don't forget those men and women in the service who can't find jobs upon returning to the states either.

Lynndie England can get on line with all of them. She doesn't get my sympathy, and not because of what she was involved in, but because finding stable employement is damn near impossible for a hell of a lot of people right now. And those folks don't have media coverage projecting their sad stories.
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onehotmess
06/29/09

@TheExperience: You got hearted fot that. I think that was exactly what I wanted to say but couldnt get the right words together.
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J.D.Regent
06/29/09

@TheExperience: def.
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sandie75
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
I feel bad that she was made a scapegoat (not the only one, her cohorts did time as well), but being judged by others for your crimes is the consequence of comitting a crime. And what she did was a crime, and she knew that. It's why they hid the pictures, lied, etc.

And I'm all for giving her or anyone a second chance, but she falls into a specific class of criminals that are very hard to hire. She is very recognizable, so any business will have a problem with their customers if they hire her (she could improve her chances by simply changing her name). Also, the specific crime she comitted, as well as her failure to EVER show any type of remorse for the victims, causes many (including me) to judge her as heartless and ignorant. Honestly, I wouldn't want to work with her. I feel fairly confident she's a lousy human being.

Had she ever come out and explained that she understands the wrongness of her action and taken responsibility for her role in this crime (however limited), I might feel differently, but right now, it's hard to work up much sympathy for her.

I also work with employers for a living, and I notice a lot of them hire felons, but it depends on what the crime was. Employer will overlook drug convictions, immigration violations, etc. Violent crimes, such as this one, are harder to overlook.
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Tart of Darkness
06/29/09

@sandie75: Very well put.
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CubeRootOfPi
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
Opinions on Lynndie England notwithstanding, I feel bad for her SON (and any other future children she may have). His opportunities are likely to be limited (esp. at childhood) by the fact that she's his mother.
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onehotmess
06/29/09

@CubeRootOfPi: Agreed. Im surprised no one has said that yet.
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vintagegoddess
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
let alone with her now infamous face

Do that many people point her out. If I walked into a WalMart and she was my cashier I would have no idea who she was.

What I do know is that everyone, no matter what they have done in the past, should be able to move on and earn a living once they have paid their "debt to society".

Would we rather the taxpayers support her for the rest of her life?

I wonder why the conservatives out there who think torture is awesome are not stepping up to help this woman.

It is too bad that Lindie was not more media savvy and able to write a book that talks about how she is sorry and how God has changed her life and how she is now knows that sex before marriage is a bad idea and how she is glad she choose life and how...oh wait I lost my train of though....

Anyway, what i ment was it is too bad she is unable to get on that Evangelical/Neo Conservative gravy train the Carrie Prejean, Kate minus Jon, Oliver North ect have been able to hook into.
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J.D.Regent
06/29/09

@vintagegoddess: yeah but she is living in the small WVA town she grew up in. Definitely the problem with Lynndie England is that she is not more savvy, generally. A lot of people who end up locked up suffer from this affliction.
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whynotshesaid
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
My company actually has a "second chances" policy in place that deals with this. They tell you straight up that a felony conviction doesn't mean your application will automatically be thrown away, and that depending on the circumstances and a few other factors like character references and such, a convicted felon could very well be hired to work as a phone tech or something like that.

(I work for a big corporation, which is surprisingly also the most progressive place I've worked, with aggressive affirmative action hiring, generous maternity/paternity leave and sweet health benefits. I would have never have guessed.)

A policy like this, that take people on a case by case basis rather than categorically denying all convicts, is helpful when it comes to reintegrating people into society. Which should be the ultimate goal, should it not? Otherwise we might as well just send every felon off to work in a gulag for the rest of their lives, for all the good the justice system does them.
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kaiwhakamarie
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I don't feel that she should be without work the rest of her life because of something she did (and served time for) when she was much younger. Especially if that lack of work results in her taking advantage of the welfare system. The fact that she doesn't want to be on welfare and DOES want to work should count for something, IMO.

But at the same time, I can't say I fault these businesses for refusing to hire her. If I owned a busienss and she walked in wanting a job, I probably wouldn't hire her either. Not just due to my own personal convictions but because her very precense, being associated with something so horrific and ugly, might offend my customers/clientele and negatively affect business.

We can argue that people are going to buy cheeseburgers from Mickey Ds regardless of whether or not the person putting on the pickles is a felon - that's true, BUT - if these places make an exception for Lynddie England it opens a whole can of worms about why they would hire certain felons and not others.
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onehotmess
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
I want to feel sorry for her but I just cant. What she (& others) did is disgusting.
THey knew what they were doing when they took those pictures. Its no ones fault but her own that her life has fallen apart. I understand that it is hard for convicted felons to get housing, jobs, etc. and of course everyone deserves a second chance, but no one should be forced to hire criminals. Of course you hope that she could turn her life around & move past that incident but thats not the case for everyone. Thats just life.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about her.
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SharonTaint
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
Anyone who doesn't have half a mind to say "You know what? This isn't OK, and I'm not taking part in it" really is a lost cause, but on the other hand I wouldn't want my tax money going to support her so I guess someone should hire her.
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cocktail bun
06/29/09

@SharonTaint: Think how easy she'd be to manage!
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DexterHaven
06/29/09

@cocktail bun: That cracked my shit up, very inappropriately.
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J.D.Regent
06/29/09

@SharonTaint: pretty much.
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taxbaby
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
I admire the connection being made here, but I don't think that the stigmatization of Lynndie England has much to do with recidivism at all. Recidivism rates are usually calculated by the offense involved, on the theory that people guilty of, say, sexual assault might be more or less likely to do it again than those convicted of shoplifting. In this case, the risk of recidivism is pretty clearly low: the chances that England will ever be in a position to abuse prisoners again are low.

The reason that she can't get a job, more than her mere conviction, is that she's infamous, that she's the face of a scandal, and that she has a dishonorable discharge on her record. Of course neither of these things should prevent a person from ever being able to work again, any more than a felony conviction should.

The bottom line, of course, is that this one woman is bearing the weight of an entire program that she didn't create. John Yoo should be the one unable to find a job; Donald Rumsfeld, Jay Buybee, Dick Cheney, should be the ones applying for welfare, not that they would ever have to. Not one foolish kid who's done her time, but the adults who, with full knowledge that they were circumventing domestic and international law, created and promulgated the policy. To say otherwise is to ignore the nature of the problem entirely.
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whynotshesaid
06/29/09

@taxbaby: Word. It's bullshit that the girl who comes from a poor background and might possibly have a serious learning disability is the one bearing the brunt of the punishment, while the people who actually put everything in place are still holding their positions as federal judges and professors and defense consultants.

I'm not saying she shouldn't be punished. What I am saying is that EVERYONE involved should be punished. And that is not happening.
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taxbaby
06/29/09

@whynotshesaid: DOUBLE WORD. Well, and she's already BEEN punished, and by some critical theories her punishment continues. Remorseful or no, she's done her time, and that one series of bad choices shouldn't prevent her from being able to support herself and her child for the rest of her life.
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J.D.Regent
06/29/09

@taxbaby: and like, what judge and jury get to decide if someone is properly remorseful? do you want strangers who have never grown up in a trailer park in wva labeled "slow," sent to war, ordered to torture, been manipulated by sadistic authority figures, to decide how fucked up people should continue to treat you based on a 20 minute tv interview when you obviously have layers of untreated PTSD and were given a narrative by your lawyers to save yourself when the entire US government decided to throw your little body under the train, to judge you? "Remorsefulness" is just not a democratic concept by which to evaluate people's rights-worthiness. Or if it is, it should be evaluated by some sort of professional or panel and not by mobs of people who vote for torture and then call Lynndie England a monster.
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cocktail bun
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
"the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were the direct result of Administration policies that 'conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.'"

Seems to me like her biggest crime was not questioning her superiors, which one would think would be an asset at most menial jobs.

(It's like raaaaiiin... on your wedding day...)
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DexterHaven
06/29/09

@cocktail bun: Chain of command. Shit rolls downhill.
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Our Lady of the Massacre
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
She doesn't deserve anything. She's a horrible person. Just read that other Guardian interview. She only relates to other living creatures in terms of being able to torture and kill them. She's a sociopath, and sociopaths are incurable. End of story. If she has any sense, she'll give her son up for adoption and give him a fair shot at a better life.
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Sunflowercat
06/29/09

@Our Lady of the Massacre: @meg9: I couldn't agree more. At a certain point, "doing what you're told" and being a generally stupid person fail to be legitimate excuses. She did terrible things. She did things a small child could tell you were wrong. She did them over and over, and smiled the whole time. I wouldn't hire her to mow my lawn, and it's sickening that she only served half her sentence. I'm a huge fan of TAF, but they're not going to change my mind on this one -- a stupid sociopath is a sociopath nonetheless.
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bluewine
06/29/09

@Our Lady of the Massacre: Exactly. She hasn't been rehabilitated--she feels no remorse and really sees nothing wrong with what she did. In the other Guardian article, she laughed about the whole situation.
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Penny_Esq
06/29/09

@Our Lady of the Massacre: @bluewine: The most chilling part of that article to me was when her lawyer said some soldier was transferred out of Abu Ghraib for contact with a female prisoner, and Lynndie laughed and was all, "Yeah, contact with his dick." I mean, REALLY? Oh, and also when she totally blithely nonchalantly said, "Well, I mean, some people say we just could've killed them all and then we never would have had this problem." (That's a paraphrase, btw). Yes. Because mass murder is a great solution.

Point being, these people remain completely dehumanized to her. That, to me, indicates unsuitability to work for or with anyone, whether she has contact with the public or not. She comes off as a sociopath.
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bluewine
06/29/09

@Penny_Esq has a new job!: Yes! Here's part of her quote:

Thinking back ... I don't want to say I matured more, but I realised that I was so naive and trusting. But what happens in war, happens. It just happened to be photographed and come out. Of course, a lot of people said if you guys had just shut up or killed them, there wouldn't have been any trouble. I could think of it like that, but ... I mean, I don't even know how to describe it. They were the enemy. I don't want to say they deserved what they got, but they ... um." There is a long pause. "They ... This is my problem. I can't think of words."

So, essentially, she thinks the only real problem is the fact that she was photographed, and the closest she comes to remorse is saying that the prisoners didn't necessarily deserve what they got.
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blueberrypancake
06/29/09

@bluewine: It's sad to think she's right in a way. The only reason she and the other soldiers got in trouble was because of the pictures. If they didn't take pictures, none of them would have been brought to "justice", if you can even call it that. There have been numerous detainees who have died in US custody and there hasn't been any "trouble" for those responsible for killing them.
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bluewine
06/29/09

@blueberrypancake: Yeah, she's right that, unfortunately, the only reason they were brought to 'justice' is the photographic evidence. However, her quote reads like she's saying "I'm sorry there are pictures of what we did", which is like the torture equivalent of the bullshit non-apology "I'm sorry what I said offended you".
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DexterHaven
06/29/09

@bluewine: But wouldn't it be better all round if she were helped to be rehabilitated so that she could be a useful member of society and a decent mother and role model for her son? Otherwise the child is likely to grow up as fucked up as the mother.
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Red-headed bookworm
06/30/09

@Penny_Esq has a new job!: I can't remember where I heard it, maybe NPR, but that's what soldiers have to think. They are taught and told and believe the people they are fighting against aren't really humans or are less than they are, otherwise they could never fight them. Does it make it right? No, but plenty of others in the military and the government think they same way and aren't being punished.
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Cerridwen
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
I think England's situation is a little different, since she is so recognizable as a participant in an incident that was nationally reviled. She's not your run-of-the-mill unrecognizable ex-con, for that reason. That said, I really do feel like it would make more sense in the long term to provide programs and support for felons to reintegrate, especially because (as someone else noted upthread) the state is already paying bigtime for social assistance.
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SunburnedCounsel
06/29/09

@Cerridwen: But if "run-of-the-mill unrecognizable ex-con" can't get a job or a place to stay, what chance does she have? Why is punishment for life part of our system, once people are no longer incarcerated?
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Cerridwen
06/29/09

@SunburnedCounsel: Don't get me wrong, I don't believe "punishment for life" should be part of the system, which is what I was trying to communicate in the second part of my comment. I wasn't trying to indicate that England should just be shit out of luck. I just think using her specific situation as a jumping-off point to make a commentary on recidivism and extra-judiciary punishment is a little skewed because of how infamous she is and the crime she was specifically involved with. That's all.
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Alohamaid
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
Is it really fair though to group Lynndie England in with all former convicts? Her crimes were broadcast on a world stage and are far more personally offensive to most people than say a woman who got arrested in her earl 20s for I dunno stealing a car. I see the point you're making but I think England is in a very particular situation. And what bothers me is that so much of the hate being directed at her would be better directed at the administration that allowed and encouraged this.
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Cerridwen
06/29/09

@Alohamaid *needs two more followers for a star*: I just posted something similar. And I agree with your points.
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sybann
06/29/09

In reply to Should Lynndie England Permanently Serve As America's Scapegoat?
I feel sorry for her - I can't say I'd ever like her but I do feel sorry for her situation. She was scapegoated. That poor child.
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