Lynndie England says she's a scapegoat

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html#mustreads

"Just followed orders"

Lawyers for Army Pfc. Lynndie R. England say she has been a scapegoat for higher-ups who want to shirk responsibility for lawless behavior in U.S. military prisons in Iraq. The Washington Post reports that England's attorneys say she "was ordered by her superiors to pose with naked Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison ... so that the photos could be used to frighten and demoralize other prisoners. 'People told Pfc. England, 'Hold that leash,' told her to smile, so they can show the photos to subsequent prisoners,' said Carl S. McGuire, one member of a team of Denver-area lawyers defending England. The 21-year-old Army reservist, who was photographed holding a leash tied to the neck of a naked prisoner, faces a court-martial on 13 counts of misconduct."

"'They picked her to get the smallest, youngest, lowest-rank woman they could find, and that would increase the humiliation for an Iraqi man,' said Rose Mary Zapor, another member of the Denver-based legal team. In a news conference Monday night, England's attorneys also said that President Bush's public condemnation of the prison guards at Abu Ghraib makes it all but impossible for the accused soldiers to get a fair court-martial."

WHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

HELP ME!! HELP ME!!

Especially those assigned to herd Jews and others into the gas chambers!:grr:

B-)

The seductions of authortarianism and coercion are potent.

I keep seeing the pictures of her...with the biggest grin on her face.

This is the most pathetic thing I've read today.

Will the tearful appearance on "The Barbara Walters Special" be far behind?

They don't just go over there in the National Guard with whips and hoods, ect and start doing these things. Someone ordered them to do it--I'm not excusing them but lets not let these grunts take the blame for something which may have been authorized by the CIA or DOD to itimidate prisoners to get them to talk.

She's no saint, but she's a small fish and a convenient scapegoat because her image is all over this. If she were male, I doubt she'd be quite so infamous.

Seems like she was really enjoying carrying out her "orders." :eyes:

but don't you believe that this goes higher than a few "bad apples" :eyes:

Someone had to order all those collars, hoods, and other equipment. Where are the receipts? Follow the money.

I also believe she is culpable for her own actions.

What she did was wrong, orders or no orders.

Even as reservists, they should have known what is and is not acceptable treatment of prisoners. This was wrong.

She's a (made-)willing tool.

but then she will certainly be punished... the key now is to keep the pressure up and go after those who ordered this. From all I've heard over the last week or so, it seems pretty clear that this was part of a wider strategy of interrogation. The officers responsible are the ones who really need to be punished.

The defense is saying that photographs were an accepted form of punishment and humiliation which counters the argument of the rogues blowing off steam. I hope she gets a speedy trial.

I can't believe any RepubliCON higher up would ever pass the buck on to a lowly woman. They are all real men who accept personal responsibility for their actions and the actions of ALL those under their command. I mean, it's embarrassing how everybody from the Commander-in-Chief on down have been fighting to take personal responsibility over the prison torture incident.

(sarcasm off)

only to have to say you accept responsiblilty?

Responsibility and Donald Rumsefeld have zero in common.

In a post several days ago, I stated this - the pictures were taken to frighten and terrify incoming prisoners! Who wouldn't be freaked out if you saw these photos?

I'm no big fan of Ms. England, but I believe she has a solid point no matter what anyone thinks.

Orders are order in the military.

Orders are order in the military.


... if she had simply refused to follow orders?

order. Then, in the trial she could've brought all this out in the open.

She deserves to be punished. But she is correct, in the sense that she and the other six low ranking services members are looking at a far harsher punishment than the officers that gave the orders.

so she is still guilty

and that person may not get punished, as England surely will be.

and those above her should pay to a greater degree

She better start singin' like a canary and naming names.

We don't care about that girl. We want Bush out. It is becoming clear that these soldiers were following orders. Does that excuse their behaviour, probably not. But who cares? The point is that there is a chain of command to follow that leads right to GWB. Forget Lynndie England, we've got bigger fish to fry.

Point two: We don't want to be against the soldiers, they are coming around to our side. The true evil is in Washington.

She may well have been "just following orders", but that doesn't excuse her from following illegal/immoral orders. Her shit-eating grin will be her shame that she takes to the grave.

Fuck her.

commands.

These soldiers no doubt thought what they were doing was a sanctioned form of interrogation.

"She's just a dumb ol' country gal who dint know no better...."

Poop.

who engineered this situation.

That doesn't absolve her and her dumb buddies who committed the crimes on camera. There's lots of blame to go around on this one. Rightly so.

BushCorp would like nothing more than to portray this whole thing as the work of just a few renegade guardsmen, rather than a policy instituted by the highest officials in the administration. The obsessive focus on Lynndie England and the others shows that it's working, even here, where people should know better.

Should England and the others be punished? Certainly. But it shouldn't stop with them. And acting as though she and the others cooked up this whole thing of their own just falls into Bush's trap. It's like busting the guy who collects the protection money while letting the godfather go free.

... judging from those pictures - it's not going to take a big sell job to make her look bad.

actions regardless.

even if they didn't hold the leash or take the pictures. Whoever set the tone that made Abu Ghraib possible should pay in some way, or American justice is even more of a joke than the world thinks it is.

Make no mistake bout that.

she liked doing what she did..and she`s coming back to her home town where she`s a hero...

but the most important thing is that she seems to be squealing. That's the first step in taking it up the chain of command.

The POW torture is apparently systemic and institutionalized. The problem is much higher up. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, etc.

The whole ideology of the group, from Bush's swaggering "if the U.N. won't approve it, we'll do it anyway" comments, to Rumsfeld's open disdain for the Geneva Convention, this lawless attitude defines the cause.

Hell, look at Negroponte's appointment to Iraq. His record is much the same. That's probably why they want him there.

So yeah, this woman is a scapegoat. She's a guilty scapegoat who deserves to do hard prison time, but she's a scapegoat nonetheless.

against something. There's no doubt, as you say, that she's guilty of something. If no grunt had followed the orders, there'd be no war crime to investigate. But the fury people feel toward her is misplaced, I think. The danger is that the monsters who set her up are going to get away with it once she is made to pay for all their crimes. She may or may be a monster herself for actually following the order, but she is far from being the only monster involved here.

I would be doing exactly the same thing. Her lawyers seem to be at least competent, which is more than can be said for some death penalty cases.

The pictures are part of the military's SOP for "softening up" prisoners. The purpose is to make them as degrading as possible, which is why a woman was ordered to pose with them. Interrogators would then threaten to show them to the men's families.

Sure, she's shit for enjoying it, but what about all of her fellow soldiers whooping and hollering from behind the camera? (Does anyone seriously think they weren't?)

I hope she sings loud and clear and implicates the brass and the mercenaries and the system that encoded this kind of torture.

Her lawyers, not lawyers in general.

Well, not that much, I suppose.

her should be locked up

or something like that.

in front of the prisoners with her boyfriend? Actually don't answer that.