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Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib

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Pizza!Pizza!Pizza!
01/05/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
'How about I find you a hood and some wires?'

Ahh, Brit humor...

She's right, though. If only she'd been able to rape and kill a few civilians, sans camera, or raid some houses harboring suspected terrorists, she'd have gotten off scot free.
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Hooplehead
01/05/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
Every interview I've seen with this woman, her "pity me" attitude and utter cluelessness about the depth of her offense just strikes me. She just has no idea how hateful her actions were. What kind of environment did she grow up in where what was happening could possibly be considered acceptable? And the fact that she could see what was happening, not be utterly revolted, and go along, smiling....the mind just boggles. She deserves all of the hate she gets and more.
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artsygirl
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
I have to take issue with the idea of her "a place where people didn't know better" -- I'm from West Virginia,and that idea only furthers the crappy stereotypes West Virginians have to deal with.
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Tart of Darkness
01/04/09

@artsygirl: I don't think most of us automatically assume that everyone in West Virginia is an inbred idiot. Now...Wasilla Alaska, maybe, but not West Virgina.
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AnielaMarburger
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
So many of you are misguided in your judgment of Lynndie. Please look up and READ the report on the detainee abuse by the bi-partisan Senate armed forces committee that was chaired by John McCain and Carl Levine (and Hillary Clinton was on the committee as well). Here is the last statement in the report:

Conclusion 19: The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own. Interrogation techniques such as stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions, and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody. What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.

I just can't believe how obvious it is that many of you have read no further than this blog which is an INTERPRETATION of Emma Brocks original article in the Guardian. Lynndie's "laughter" is a nervous laughter from one who can go nowhere without folks like you who believe anything that is fed to you by the Bush White House. Why aren't you demanding that Cheney and Rumsfeld by put on trial? No, you would rather put down a sister and engage in a libelous cat fight....
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clevernamehere
01/03/09

@AnielaMarburger: You really should read comments and the general tone of a blog before posting. This is hardly a site where people "believe anything that is fed to you by the Bush White House" or "would rather put down a sister."
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Tart of Darkness
01/04/09

@AnielaMarburger: Roy? Is that you?

That Lyndie she like those authority figures, doesn't she? First her baby daddy that made her pose in all those pictures that she would never have done if he hadn't insisted and then hanging out with her attorney.

So who was it that made fun of the Wolf lady? Oh. Lyndie. Ooops.

And she IS NOT MY sister.
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sybann
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
This young woman is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and probably doesn't even see the men she took part in abusing as wholly human (like most bigots). Can we try to have some compassion? I know I sure don't sound like that's what I'm asking for her, but the rest of her life is probably going to suck, at best.
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clevernamehere
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
Lynndie England isn't just learning disabled, she was oxygen deprived at birth. [www.msnbc.msn.com]

It really sounds like she has some brain damage and didn't belong in the Army to begin with.
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Everything MidnightBikeRide does is a balloon.
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
I don't feel sorry for her, but it makes me angry that she's gotten dragged out more often than anyone else on this. She probably accounts for some of the few images of female soldiers that the public is likly to see. And not just to be seen as a soldier that tortured, but also as a mentally deficient, whorish follower, seems particularly cruel. Does anybody else think maybe the military is pushing this version of the story? I mean, there were lots and lots of other instances of torture. Dick Cheney himself says he approves of it. It seems reasonable, if not obvious, that she was acting in part with an entire system of cruelty, starting at the very top. So why single her out?
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aubonpam
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
She's disgusting in every possible way, and oblivious to it all.
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SharonTaint
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
I'm not excusing her actions; I think Lynndie England is a piece of walking shit.

But am I the only one who isn't surprised by the fact that people who've been trained to kill other people are capable of brutality?
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Cerridwen
01/03/09

@SharonTaint: Nope, you're not alone. I keep remembering this saying I heard once: "War is not healthy for children and other living things." It is brutal, violent and destructive and that is the reality, which is why I am a pacifist at heart. Lynndie England was a part of a whole system of brutality and while I think that she is obviously morally/mentally deficient and disturbingly lacking in remorse, she's not exceptional when it comes to wartime behaviour.

Which makes me even more sad than just contemplating the moral bankruptcy of a handful of individuals.
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Aesop's Foibles. YES.
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
Eeee. She sounds so...empty. Like she really doesn't have any concept of what she's actually done. Maybe her mental/emotional limitations are such that she's unable to discern right from wrong. Of course, WE know that difference, and vilify her and her superiors for allowing what happened to happen. Her "issues", IMO, aren't anything that anti-depressants are going to remedy. She genuinely frightens me and puts me in mind of an older boy from my neighborhood growing up. He'd be fine and then all of a sudden, just sort of switch off and get really violent. When that happened, his face would go totally blank and it was really scary to watch. Afterwards he'd laugh. I wonder if maybe she's clinically mentally disabled and not just "slow". And what about her kid? Jesus, I hate to think about what kind of life he/she has and what kind of future will exist for him/her. This story, and of course the accompanying photos, never fail to make me shudder. And as someone else pointed out, not everyone serving in war has had the same problems, and I don't know that "stress" is any kind of excuse for abusing helpless humans, even when they're the enemy.
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wildfun
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
Her story is such a perfect example of "the banality of evil" to me. To her, she was just doing her job and I don't think she will ever really understand the weight of her actions. Whether she is actually capable of any meaningful introspection or not isn't what is so scary to me... It's thinking about all the atrocities that happened that we didn't see, because someone thought they were simply "following orders".

*shudder*
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MR
01/03/09

@wildfun: This makes me think of the demonization (in movies and media) of Nazi soldiers... we never cut them any slack for "just following orders"

(Not that I think they should be cut slack, just that I think England shouldn't either.)
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Tart of Darkness
01/04/09

@MR: That is in fact central to the book, "The Reader" and I'm hoping the movie, too.
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victoriasauce
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
I'm not saying what she did was right, but weren't the prisoners there for a reason? It's not like we're talking about innocent people being mistreated for random fun. Anyway.

Someone compared her statement of "what happen in war, happens" to "what happens in vegas, stays in vegas" as if it's anything whatsoever similar. Umm, no. Iraq is a place where people blow themselves up to kill you. Where a drive down the street can end with an RPG to the face.

While I am not excusing war crimes, because some of the shit happening is absolutely terrible, I feel like, in some way, I can understand how this sort of thing could happen when your mind is totally plagued by the crap happening around you.
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Maritsa
01/03/09

@torieandrahmsittinginatree: We don't know whether these people were innocent or not, though - not that I think it makes a difference at all. All we know is they were captured in Iraq - as far as I know, they weren't put on trial or convicted of anything. For all we know many of them WERE innocent. For example, there were reports that the son of an Iraqi general was sodomized and tortured just to make his father talk.

But as I said I don't think it matters whether they were guilty or innocent. For one thing torture is specifically banned by the Geneva Convention (which even the Bush Admin agreed applies in Iraq) and the UN Convention on Torture, both of which the US is bound by. It's not like this was a grey area. For another, it's morally wrong. Finally, not that it matters, but torture is not regarded as being useful for eliciting reliable information.
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funnyface
01/03/09

@torieandrahmsittinginatree: You need to do some research about the number of innocent people in places like Abu Gharab and Guantanomo Bay. Hell, even if they were just in a regular prison, or even if they had already been convicted, they still deserve basic human rights.
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drinkwater
01/03/09

@Maritsa: @funnyface: Many of the people at Abu Ghraib were arrested during a general street sweep, which means that they took trucks and loaded every male over the age of 18 into them. It had nothing to do with any particular crime, it was a general deterrent for terrorism.
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Maritsa
01/03/09

@drinkwater: I suspected as much, thanks for pointing that out.
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Gretchen is a new kitten mom!
01/03/09

@torieandrahmsittinginatree: Many people held at Abu Ghraib were never proven guilty. They weren't being tried at all... that was the issue in the news for months. Innocent people were being mistreated for fun.

Innocence aside, torture of any prisoners or detainees is in violation of the Geneva Convention, an international agreement which the USA had championed. It is a violation of international law to torture. Period. This administration is guilty as hell and almost daring anyone to call them out on it. Rumsfeld, Rove, Cheney et al are flippin' the bird to the rest of the world.
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Breamworthy
01/03/09

@torieandrahmsittinginatree: A lot of them were there for the "reason" that their fellow citizens could get a $10,000 reward for turning someone in for terrorist activities. No evidence or testimony required - just pick up a phone and say "Hi, my neighbour is a terrorist. Here's his address. He's home right now." Then sit back and wait for your cheque. That neighbour who makes too much noise? Your annoying father-in-law? Someone you owe money? What are you waiting for? Let the Americans take care of your problems for you, and you'll be laughing all the way to the bank.
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Eeva
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
Also, with Bush's bizarrely one-sided speech about the Gaza situation today (Palestinian civilian deaths are "regrettable", but they're Hamas's fault? Not a word about the proportionality of Israel's response?) I feel more and more as though nothing about war makes any sense at all, and perhaps we're wasting our time being outraged about photographs of prisoners when - to get even more emotive for a moment - Iraqi children are dying in bomb blasts and being shot at roadblocks and god knows what else?

And yet I do still think the Abu Ghraib abuses were horrific and deserving of outrage, it's just...I don't know. Does it say something about our need for visuals?
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dcdulce
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
i don't know if the interview is strange...it is disturbing..I remember reading a previous interview in an English newspaper (was it the Guardian?) done before she went to jail. I think the tone and attitude from her hasn't changed...I feel no pity for her. she is not a victim of the war on terror...she is part of the coalition of the willing...
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AnnoyingFemaleLeadVoiceover
01/03/09

In reply to Lynndie England: Life After Abu Ghraib
So as much as you can put aside the surrounding context for her actions (mental capacity, inability to recognize the extent of her behavior, the boyfriend, etc...), what punishment would fit the crime? Because I have cousins who are serving longer sentences for marijuana possession.
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bluebears
01/03/09

@AnnoyingFemaleLeadVoiceover: don't even get me started on the "drug war", i have things I need to get done today.
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AnnoyingFemaleLeadVoiceover
01/03/09

@bluebears: I know. I didn't even want to bring it up, but because it has effected my extended maternal and paternal families (particularly the young men and women with no opportunities), I can't help but feel some rage at the fact that people can do more time for drugs than torturing human beings.

In a better world, I would allow for England's personal history and context to "lighten" her sentence (in comparison to say her superiors), but never to a paltry 521 days.
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bluebears
01/03/09

@AnnoyingFemaleLeadVoiceover: people do more time for drugs then they do for (among other things) rape, assault, manslaughter and even sometimes murder. its completely ass-backward.
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Tart of Darkness
01/04/09

@bluebears: you and me both! It's the one subject that I bring no perspective to...I just start harranguing.
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