Please note that THREE of seven soldiers being investigated are female.

While I believe any allusion to gender-based propensities for atrocious conduct is ignorant and sexist, I cannot ignore the sexist dynamics of the troops' behavior themselves.

From the New Yorker article we read:

Six suspects—Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits—are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant.

Is the military sexist? Does a bear shit in the woods? Do guys show off to gain the approval of "sex objects"?
:shrug:

I just love passive voice. It's as though there's nothing transitive (no active voice) in "becoming pregnant."

Families of the 372nd tormented by stories of POW abuses in Iraq


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal
-te.md.soldier30apr30,0,160127.story?coll=bal-home-headlines






At most, the 372nd's alleged abuses of prisoners were "stupid, kid things - pranks," Terrie
England said, her voice growing bitter. "And what the do to our men and women are just?
The rules of the Geneva Convention, does that apply to everybody or just us?"

Everyone had been proud of Lynndie England. A Wal-Mart in nearby LaVale displays her photo
on its Wall of Honor. The Mineral County courthouse in Keyser, W.Va., posts her photograph
and those of other local soldiers under a banner that says: "We're hometown proud."

Lynndie England had found purpose, and love, in the Army. She got engaged last year to a fellow
member of the 372nd, Charles Graner, who appears with his arm around her in the newspaper photo.

THE FIANCÉE WAR CRIMINALS




Now, Lynndie England is detained on a U.S. base - her family declined to say where - and is
barred from leaving for anything besides her job. She has been demoted from the rank of specialist
to private first class. And when she calls home, she says frustratingly little.

On Edit: The Mother of this creature is exhibiting an anti-social pattern of minimizing and
criminal thinking. I'd love to see a DSM diagnosis of both mother and daughter

does anyone not see WHY AUSCHWITZ was tolerated

are going to make one great married couple, aren't they! Can you imagine what they'd to do their kids? Sterilize them both!

Their picture should be used in ads promoting birth control.

... to give birth? That would be interesting.

when she asks if the rules of the Geneva Convention apply only to us? That there is something "wrong" or "unfair" in the rules? Does she think that it is some game where if the neighbor kid doesn't follow the rules, you don't have to either? Doesn't she realize that Geneva is a standard of decency everyone should follow? How would she feel if her daughter was a prisoner and was treated this way?

Having Part of her brain removed a couple of years ago helps too.

No wonder Wall Mart is so proud! :puke:

but the photos of the grinning female soldiers made me ill. I am ashamed of America, and ashamed of those of my gender who would do this sort of thing.

both men and women can be abusive.

will be the end for this regime. It illustrates how far the US has fallen and the importance of not allowing the government to control the press.

left and right. what percent of soldiers over there are women? what percent of MPs? i do not believe it is a coincidence we keep seeing them catch women. martha stewart, that female air force general was caught last week in contractor scandal, this female MP general, those female soldiers, fastow's wife, etc.

it is as much coincidence as all the corporate bad guys being dem supporters, or at least NOT bush supporters. same reason they can't catch ken lay, or scooter libby, or karl rove for that matter.

:eyes:

Women and men are equal in both depravity and virtue.

If you take 150,000 people and put them into war zones, you are inevitably going to have some atrocities. It doesn't mean we should accept atrocities -- it means we shouldn't accept war.

Defensive wars are at least partly understandable; this one is abominable by any standard.

--bkl

The women jailers of Bergen Belsen



IRMA GRESE center HERTA BOTHE w/smirk on right

After the war survivors provided extensive details of murders, tortures, cruelties and sexual excesses
engaged in by Irma Grese during her years at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. They testified to her
acts of pure sadism, beatings and arbitrary shooting of prisoners, savaging of prisoners by her
trained and half starved dogs, to her selecting prisoners for the gas chambers.
She habitually wore heavy boots and carried a whip and a pistol. She used both physical and emotional
methods to torture the camp's inmates and enjoyed shooting prisoners in cold blood. She beat some of
the women to death and whipped others mercilessly using a plaited whip.
After the Kommandant of Bergen-Belsen, Josef Kramer, Irma Grese was the most notorious
defendant in the Belsen Trial, held between September 17 and November 17, 1945. Grese was
convicted and sentenced to be hanged. She was executed on December 13, 1945.

The notorious Herta Bothe became a camp guard and soon acquired a reputation as
a sadist who beat prisoners without mercy. She had a good time shooting at weak
female prisoners carrying food containers from the kitchen to the block with her pistol.
And she often beat sick girls with a wooden stick. After the war Herta Bothe was
charged with having committed war crimes. At the Bergen-Belsen Trial she got
imprisonment for 10 years.

Women can be every bit as savage as men.

But it's still not gender-specific.

The beneficial effect will be that savagery in women will be better recognized. It's a shame, though, that acts of savagery had to happen at all.

--bkl

Anti-social criminal thinking is present in many human beings

of seeing a woman engaged in such atrocity is shocking to most. As a woman, I seem to feel an additional shame. Yet, war inevitably brings out the beast in some people. Gender apparently has no bearing on that sad fact.

Betcha the 'love birds' are anti-abortion cuz we all know how "sacred" life is.

This whole matter has me reeling between utter disgust and overwhelming sadness. And then the anger sets in.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

From the linked New Yorker article:

Last June, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve brigadier general, was named commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and put in charge of military prisons in Iraq. General Karpinski, the only female commander in the war zone, was an experienced operations and intelligence officer who had served with the Special Forces and in the 1991 Gulf War, but she had never run a prison system.

Army Reserve Col. Janis L. Karpinski has been nominated for
appointment to the rank of brigadier general. Karpinski is currently
serving as the chief of staff, 81st Regional Support Command,
Birmingham, Ala.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2003/b03122003_bt112-03.html


The highest-ranking officer to be suspended was Army Reserve Brig.
Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police
Brigade, based in Uniondale, N.Y., to which the 372nd Military Police
Company was temporarily attached. Karpinski was responsible for all
U.S. military detention facilities inside Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54540-2004Apr29.html

she ran 3 prisons in Iraq.

And it's a subject that few want to discuss but guys do show off to gain approval of "sex objects"...I think that is part of the dynamic involved.

... and "bird-brains." (About a lek.)

On edit: Perhaps I should be a bit more candid. My first two years in college were spent at the United States Coast Guard Academy as a cadet. (Think West Point or Annapolis without appointments - competitive examination only.) At the time, there were no female cadets. It was the sexist sixties. (Think Sandra Dee.) Female contact was limited to weekends, often at social events. In later college years, I participated in ROTC. Later in my life (1968-69), I was drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam. Thus, I have some significant insight to the methods of military indoctrination, the authoritarian culture, and some insight to the behavior of guys in such hierarchies in the presence of women.

Some guys regarded their power to harrass as a penile extension. Some didn't. The latter were in the minority.

Some women were impressed - an aphrodisiac. Some weren't. The latter were in the minority.

Women can be extremely cruel.

Just like men. I've never bought into the idea that having a woman POTUS, for example, would bring about more peace and harmony.

by accident?

Women are equally as capable as men of evil, but it was NO accident that women were placed in these specific positions in order to aid in this atrocity due to the cultural aspects.

I don't think this is a gender issue at all and that that aspect merely clouds the real issues...which was the manner in which this entire game was rigged as it was in Afghanistan to SKIRT the Geneva Convention rules.

I'm with you. Up until this occurred, I felt we needed to stay and fix what we broke. We now need to turn this over to the UN, pay the bill, cancel all American contracts and pay Iraqi's to rebuild their own nation and get the fuck out. It will cost less money, less lives and is the only moral thing to do. We have ZERO credibility.

And the fact that Lynndie England is pregnant makes me ALMOST advocate for forced sterilization..after reading her mother's comments and witnessing her actions, it is clear this family will only further deteriorate the gene pool.

As the only woman who was a General in Iraq, considering she had no detention experience, it seems Janis may have been deliberately placed in that position as a provocation.

ignorance of the workings of prisons so that the MI contractors could take advantage of her lack of knowledge. In fact, there is a newly posted article in LBN that would lead me to believe this all the more...the contractors incite the shit then let the grunts take the fall (not that Karpinski herself was a grunt) but I would venture to guess some of these sadistic little losers were told by their chain of command that if they broke the prisoners, a good job would be waiting for them when they got home:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x523926#523937

They (the MI guys) had to humiliate these men as much as possible, against their religious beliefs, to get them to talk. Thats why they are naked together,the posed sexual acts in front of women, thats why they are threatened with dogs, thats why they are being ordered around and humiliated by women. I also think thats why there were photos, to spread the humiliation, like a threat to others, blackmail.

The MI guys and the civilian interragators did this on purpose (not excusing the troops) as part of the psychological game they were playing on the prisoners. In a way, these women were being used as pawns, again not excusing their behavior, explaining how it came to be.

They were sent there to direct traffic, for christsakes.