Lynndie England Interview at Stern

I believe part of her story. I also believe her when she says SHE believes everyone knew. The 'all-knowing' leadership is a falicy though. A few people knew, they didn't say anything. It's easy for a private to hear some g-nothing from another agency say good things and believe the head of the CIA knows. But that's just not reality.

 

The girl was a scapegoat, plain and simple. While I don't condone some of what was done to the prisoners, to lay the blame for it at the feet of the Joes on the ground is utterly disgraceful.

 

T2,
I think considering the stream of memos on the issue from Justice Department and Pentagon that you severely underestimate the extent to which stuff like Abu Ghraib reflected a deliberate policy. But then, I believe you want to. I don't blame you. I don't blame you. I guess I would too, if I lived in America.

 

I don't really believe the top brass at the Pentagon got on the phone and directly ordered those soldiers to sexually abuse, degrade and torture those Iraqi prisoners. I also don't think any rational person can believe the soldiers in the photos were just a bunch of miscreants who took it upon themselves to do this, all absent direct knowledge of and blessing from the chain of command. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

However - a hell of a lot more people should have gone down for this than have to date. I think it's absolutely disgraceful how these soldiers got thrown under the bus by their superiors. Equally as disgraceful to me is that these soldiers didn't stand up and say "no, I will not do this, there is no honor in this, it is beneath us. America is better than this." Quite the opposite - they seemed to be enjoying themselves. And yet there are still people in this country who are angry at the Iraqis for not showing us more gratitude for all we've done for them.

That's all I have to say.

 

Stream of memo's? One of the problems was there was no written record to come to defense of the soldiers convicted of these atrocities. There was no smoking gun that could link even the commanding officer to approving such actions. The officers in charge of the prison got mild punishments for being substandard -- investigating officers found the leadership of the prison to be ineffectual. The officers rarely even went into the prison, instead they left day-to-day tasks to sadistic NCO's like Graner.

When I was in charge of security on a naval ship, I stressed responsibility and accountability. Both are inherent to any duty in the military. When performing a job in the military a person is trained on the regulations. An individual is accountable to those regulations and responsible to their commanders to uphold those regulations. Failure to follow the appropriate regulations is a punishable offense. In the event of a senior officer ordering an act which disobeys a written regulation, both the officer and the person committing the offense are held accountable. That is the law in the military. Regulations can be changed in writing, but to disobey a regulation without written authorization is never advisable (it's done on occasion, but it's not a smart move).

Policy linked to CIA prisons was not the policy approved by military prisons. There are specific regulations for military prisons. Those regulations were not followed. Whose fault is it? That is the $64,000 question. With no written memos to tie such actions to direct orders from military commanders, the entire burden was on the guards. As I said, that some pion from another government agency thought what Graner was doing was cool WAS NOT permission for those actions. That g-whatever from whereever was not in Graner's chain of command. For Graner to assume comments from someone outside his command altered his regulations was stupid. For Graner to act outside his regulations was criminal on his part. When England followed suit, she was criminally liable for her own actions.

Ignorance of right or wrong was not an issue with Ms England -- she knew it was wrong but chose to proceed.

Edit: DR -- I mostly agree with you. With one addition... it is equally possible the leadership of the prison was completely inept. They didn't want to be there. They wanted to be in the action, not in a prison -- after all, you don't get medals being a prison guard. In their contempt for the job, they abandoned it to the enlisted personnel. "Absent direct knowledge" is quite possible when the leadership wants exactly that. I've seen this in action. I know it can happen.

 

T2 - Having never served myself, I'll certainly concede that that's not only possible but quite likely. You and Drew both speak with more authority on military matters than any of us here.

 

And this was deliberate. As I recall, one of the...sergeants, I believe, was approached by someone from the intel community and told to do the sort of things England and pals actually did. This fellow, however, insisted on getting those orders in writing. Unsurprisingly, the intel boys didn't go along with that. So he never did the sort of things England & pals did.

I should point out that the most compelling argument does indeed indicate that there's good reason to suspect this stuff came from above, but that above != Bush. In this case, it equals Cambone.

EDIT: Ah, The General's Report

 

Some background:

The Green Light

Memo Sheds New Light on Torture Issue

Don't let yourself be fooled by the careful language of the articles, namely words like 'might constitute' or 'some experts say'. This is US mainstream media writing about US war criminals and their war crimes when they were part of the Bush administration. They have to formulate it like that to avoid sounding 'inflammatory', which inevitably makes the text sound half hearted.

If I was Feith or Addington or Gonzales or Yoo or Haynes I wouldn't dare travelling abroad.

 

Charles Graner in civ life was a prison guard at SCIGreen max security prison and had abuse problems there, seem kinda dumb to put an NCO like that in a military prison setting. What ass didn't check his background?

SCIGreen-State Correctional Institution-Greene, Pennsylvania.

 

Got the impression that she doesn't feel sorry for the prisoners. Just sorry for how the incident affected her

So on the same note, I don't really feel sorry for her either.

 

Same here. She thinks it's all about her. She just doesn't seem to get it.

 

In a certain sense it is all about her. She's the one under the spotlight and the one fielding the brutal questions. So I'll make a few observations and share some thoughts.

1: I categorically do not agree with the behaviours that occurred at Abu Gahraib (I probably did that wrong, apologies.)

2: I would like to say I would have stood up and said "no, I won't engage in these reprehensible practices! Damn you all!" Maybe I even would have. But not having been in her position and situation, I can't say for sure. Who among us has never succimbed to peer pressure and the heat of the moment? It's still wrong, but a little walking in her shoes would be educational for everyone.

3: Even the foulest of the foul has the right to defend themselves and their actions. This girl made some serious and horrible mistakes and she should pay for them, but she didn't, say, decapitate a prisoner with a rusty saw online. She has every right to defend herself. It seems to me that some people want her to break down and grovel every time the topic comes up. God knows she's paying the price for what she did. At least accord her the same courtesy we give people like Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, and their ilk.