From The Observer comes a damning indictment of Lynndie England and the system blamed for her metamorphosis into sadistic torturer.
I post this for several reasons -- as an interesting take on the aforementioned system; as a not-uncommon example of damnation from overseas; and as a warning that it's not just us
librul elitists tossing around such fightin' words as "trailer trash."
Perhaps more than anything else, however: This is the first article I've seen that even begins to touch on the issue of women as torturers (at least in an intelligent way). Despite my lifelong commitment to the idea that men and woman are "equal" in everything, I've never lost sight of the fact that we are still
different.
There's nothing wrong with recognizing differences, of course -- and it's downright stupid to pretend those differences don't exist. As for what those differences are, just think math & mechanics versus intimate friendships & passing toilet paper under the walls of the stall; i.e., we have differences that are neither good nor bad -- we are in many ways inclined toward different behaviors. Whether that is a result of "nature or nurture" isn't the point, and probably best left to a different discussion. Maybe.
What this article begins to touch upon -- for me -- is a dis-ease with which I have been grappling since the first torture pictures hit the wires. I am not proud of this feeling; in fact, I hate that part of myself that feels this way, because my good, liberal, egalitarian sense tells me it is wrong, wrong,
wrong to feel the way I do...
And that feeling is: I hate this Lynndie England with all my being, because she has betrayed my sex. And (taking a deep breath) because I expect more from women that that.
Don't hate me, men. Try not to flame me. You have your nearly-hard-wired prejudices about women (and, actually, so do I). And don't take me for a "man-hating lesbian" -- it has nothing to do with my being gay. It's just that this issue has forced me to confront a deep-seated belief that violence is primarily the dominion of men (straight men, to be specific).
Funny thing is, the root of this idea is no different from that of many ideas men often take for granted about women. I see women as nurturers, lovers, Earth mothers -- not sadists or killers... and so do many of you, gentlemen.
That said (and as I brace for the onslaught of flames), this is what the following op/ed brought out in me.
I hope you will forgive me for feeling the way I do. It isn't a conscious decision -- and I suppose it's something I need to work on, to remedy, because it's so very, very unfair to you (men) for me to think this way.
Well, maybe that's one more tiny bright light to come out of this horrible event: It's forced me to confront my own prejudices.
And it's forced me to confront my fantasy-ideal of women, as... as people who wouldn't,
couldn't, do
this.
I don't know whether to be grateful for the destruction of the false myths I hold to be true, or to hate Lynndie England even more for exploding the last Santa Claus myth I held dear.
You want to know what I'm most ashamed of? The sense of relief I felt when I learned that England was
not a lesbian. My first thought was:
Thank God -- at least they can't pin this on us, on top of everything else straight people hate us for.Here are just a few brief excerpts from the piece -- it's well worth the full read:
(T)he response to the Abu Ghraib pictures sandwiches (Pvt. Lynndie R. England) somewhere between Myra Hindley and Maxine Carr in an all-women axis of evil. England reminds me a little of Carr. Same childish physique, same small town background, same terrible taste in men. Though England’s lover and co-abuser, Charles Graner, is hardly Ian Huntley, there is not much to commend a grinning torturer with a Bible fetish and an alleged history of wife-beating. Like Carr, England is a bit-player who came to symbolize a wider horror story. Back home, family and friends are trying to work out how a "sweet, down-to-earth" paper-pusher who wanted to be a weather girl turned into a preening sexual predator.
Nor are violent women the aberration they are sometimes painted. Mothers ready to defend their children to the death are a common stereotype, while any notion that women are Stepford soldiers, caring and compliant, was challenged way before Boudicca headed the Iceni. But, though female warriors have a long history, their legends rarely dabble in gory detail, let alone the fact that bloodlust can be triggered more by role than gender. ...
Even so, revulsion at the England case stems partly from evidence that women soldiers, more often mentioned in Pentagon dispatches as victims of sexual assault by male colleagues, also revel in power and cruelty. The more troubling issue is who helped turn Lynndie England into an apprentice torturer. The list of suspects stretches from her superiors, through the CIA, to a president who called for the blood of "evil" men and a society who watched him spill it. Somewhere in her obscene behavior are the traces of all our fear.
The story that centers on Pvt. England goes beyond gender. ... Mythology is a casualty of this war. Fairytales of female innocence are dead, laid to rest with the dream of the British soldier as an updated Rupert Brooke. If Frances Cornford’s “young Apollo, golden-haired, ... dreaming on the verge of strife,” still exists, then he didn’t train at Deepcut. Yet stories of bullying at home and atrocities abroad have never sullied the notion that something in the squaddie’s soul is forever Journey’s End. There are many fine soldiers, obviously, but nostalgia sits uneasily with a shot, even if mocked-up, of a rifle butt crashing into a prisoner’s groin. ...
Much more:
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2004%20opinions/May/10o/Nobody%20but%20Neocons%20Created%20Lynndie,%20Mary%20Riddell.htm