Lame Online Poll of the Day
Right now this poll on Findlaw has almost 95% of respondents saying Lynndie England should not serve any time in prison for her actions at Abu Ghraib. Query how many of these respondents really think her outrageous actions were no big deal, and how many were tricked by the Findlaw pollster’s brilliant decision to place the “no” radio button above the “yes” one rather than below it, where it belongs.
UPDATE: Then again, if the comments to this thread are any indication, maybe the poll isn’t so far off after all. Lordy.
September 28th, 2005 at 1:27 pm
I guess that there are a lot of guys and girls that really go for short-dumpy women in uniform. With a leash!
September 28th, 2005 at 2:45 pm
Pfc. England Says She Was Used by Graner
Army Pfc. Lynndie England apologized Tuesday for posing for the notorious detainee abuse photos at A
September 28th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
I’m squarely in the “no jail time” camp. Those bastards in Abu Gharib, at least in the photos I saw with Ms. England, were humiliated - not physically hurt in any way. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about their feelings and I barely give a rat’s ass if any of them were actually physically assaulted (depending on the severity, of course; a little pushing and shoving is necessary to instill obediance for sociopathic jihadis).
Maybe she deserves jail time for criminal stupid (taking pictures), but that’s about it.
September 28th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
I don’t know what her defense was, but I think prison is arguably too severe a punishment. For example, if she really thought that she was just helping out in the process of breaking prisoner’s wills down, the I don’t think she deserves any more than an official reprimand.
People keep acting like she was engaged in some sort of inhuman torture. It just wasn’t that bad. At least nothing that I saw.
September 28th, 2005 at 8:09 pm
The goal here is to go after those (much) higher in the chain of command, including those outside the military who were apparently involved. Otherwise, her and the others are just fall guys getting heavy sentences that should go to others.
September 28th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
She had to get jail time, regardless of how one feels about the prisoners or their actions prior to capture. Once they are under care, custody and control of military authorities their treatment is a reflection of the jailers ethics, not a just desserts for their terroristic actions.
I served in the Marines for four years, but not in combat (Hawaii, in fact. Tough duty.) But I am confident that there are few combat veterans who feel that Lyndie is getting a raw deal. I bet a poll would show overwhelming approval for her punishment. It’s not like she held a gun to their heads in order to elicit timely life saving info, like the location of the ambush that a patrol was soon to run into. I could justify that in my heart. It was gratuitous, laughing, sexual humiliation and I was just as disgusted with her and her colleagues as I was with the media for inflating what happened for political purposes. And posing and taking pictures? How about a Darwin award.
September 28th, 2005 at 9:23 pm
Ben: Objection! Assumes a fact not in evidence. Few if any of the detainees in Abu Ghraib had not been convicted of anything, and not all (or, IIRC, even most) were suspected of terrorist activities. Some probably were, but others were just whoever happened to be in police custody at the time, for whatever reason, and it’s estimated that 60% hadn’t committed any crime at all. To justify England’s proven criminal acts based on their alleged ones makes no more sense than to argue that police in the U.S. should be allowed to do the same. Besides, even if we assume they were all terrorists, so what? The primary outrage is not so much sympathy for the victim as disgust at individuals wearing the uniform and engaging in vile acts that American soldiers just don’t do. Next time a real jihadi uses Abu Ghraib to recruit more would-be jihadis to murder American soldiers, be slightly pissed off at the media for over-hyping the Abu Ghraib story, but be far more pissed off at the animals who created that story in the first place.
Doc Rampage: Objection! Assumes another fact not in evidence. There is no evidence any of these would be frat boys/girls were trying to collect sensitive information, or do anything else except take “happy snaps” of themselves horsing around and abusing prisoners for fun. To argue that prison time is “too severe” is, with all due respect, nuts. What England deserves is to be imprisoned and subjected to the very same crap she subjected those prisoners to. That not being an option, prison will have to do.
KC: Objection! Assumes yet another fact not in evidence. If you have any proof that higher ups ordered these frat boys to horse around and smile for the camera while abusing prisoners just for the hell of it, I’d love to see it. Otherwise, I have little choice but to assume that if such conspiracy theories had any merit, they’d have come out in England’s trial, or at least allowed Chip Frederick to cop a better plea. Even if your fanciful theory were true, it would be no reason to let the lower guys off. I’m not a big fan of the Nuremberg defense.
Mikem: nice to see someone is limiting himself to actual facts of the case.
September 29th, 2005 at 12:57 am
Yeah, well, this is a comment section in a blog. You expect me to have evidence for my random speculations? What planet do you live on?
September 29th, 2005 at 1:01 am
I say, send her back to Abu Ghraib, and let her serve her time THERE as a prisoner.
September 29th, 2005 at 11:30 am
Let’s assume that Graner et al invented these techniques themselves and did them only on their own initiative.
Neither of those pass the laugh test. I don’t know the current status of any other investigations or allegations, but if it just stops with them this will have probably been a very successful scapegoating.
September 29th, 2005 at 11:41 am
Sure they pass the laugh test, unless that test is being administered by a person who has already made up his mind about what is supposed to have happened, to himself. That it makes you laugh is evidence of your own prejudice, it’s not evidence of anything else. Barring any real evidence to the contrary, I tend to believe by Occam’s razor that a group of unruly employees ignored their duties and threw a wild party while the boss is away - not that the amorphous boss secretly ordered them to do so for no apparent reason. To any objective observer who doesn’t have any inside information not available to you or me, that should easily pass the laugh test, just not the “I’m Oliver Stone and I desperately want new material for another crappy film” test.
September 29th, 2005 at 12:02 pm
Yeah, Kat, what Xrlq said. Do you really think that people need orders to abuse and humiliate other people? It happens all the time, all over the world. Brothers do it to younger brothers, seniors do it to freshmen, strong prisoners do it to weak prisoners. And I’ll bet that in prisons all over this country, guards do it to prisoners when they think they can get away with it.
All of these incidents happen, not because those in charge order it, but because those in charge aren’t around. Yet in this one case, you think the causes are reversed.
September 29th, 2005 at 10:19 pm
Frankly, the sentence was way too harsh. She should have got a OTH discharge, reduced in rank and thats it.
Remember, she is an extremely young very junior enlisted person in the reserves who was under the direct supervision of many low and mid grade NCOs and officers–I’d fry them.
She did not act in isolation. She did not go out and murder someone. She exercised very poor judgement but so much more poor than what we might expect for someone in her position.
The excessive punishment that she was given is a disgrace. If anything, Kapininski was far more culpable, but she skates.
England is a scapegoat. That’s my professional opinion as a former Army officer.
September 30th, 2005 at 7:20 am
Paul: I am very surprised that you, a former officer, would not immediately grasp the difference between what the photographs prove happened, gratuitous sexual humiliation, for which there is no excuse and your other scenario, the possible killing of a prisoner, which is wrong but is more understandable as a part of war. Killing the enemy is the duty of a soldier after all, what England did is never a soldier’s duty. Killing a POW is something that can happen under the pressures of war, what England did is something a wannabe, REMF type person does after the fighting is over. If England has just witnessed a friend killed by an IED, came to work and killed a prisoner, I’ld have more sympathy for her, although she would face worse punishment. But what she did?
Also, you use the term direct supervision in a fashion unfamiliar to me as an NCO. If I say I had direct supervision of something or somebody, it means “I was there”. It is not the same as being in command or even giving an order (a direct order, if from you) which a soldier may or may not obey out of your view. It is a much more damning indictment of a superior because it implies the offense happened with their approval, since it went on with their knowledge and they therefore either allowed it or were so hapless as officers or NCOs to not be able to stop it. Either way, it does in fact usually mean that the officer or NCO gets the worst of the punishment.
Certainly you don’t mean to imply that an officer should go to prison because someone under his supervision (read command) commits a crime, do you? Because from what I have read, everyone (that they know of) that had “direct supervision” of what she is being charged with has also been charged along with her. Maybe you mean her supervisors (everyone above her in her chain of command, to a logical higher limit) should also be imprisoned. I disagree with that and am surprised at the assertion.
September 30th, 2005 at 9:41 am
He seems to be arguing that Janice Karpinsky ordered all of this. Like several others in this thread, he appears to think he’s entitled not only to his opinion, but to his own set of facts. Calling the opinion a “professional” opinion was especially silly; it was about as professional as Bill Frist, M.D.’s “professional” opinion of Terri Schiavo’s condition, which me made from the Senate floor.
September 30th, 2005 at 11:43 am
I’m saying that there are different levels of responsibility. Kapinski, as the commander, has responsibility for everything under her command. Here the problem was systemic and not a isolated action of a single person.
This is the premise behind military professionalism. (And is the reason why administrative controls, training, logistics, etc. are primary concerns of each command–not just specific orders.)
We expect PFCs to act like PFCs–not like career NCOs. We plan and train based on these assumptions (for which reason the military is often much like kindergarten).
September 30th, 2005 at 12:25 pm
“Direct supervision” means that a PFC does not operate semi-autonomously. A PFC in a large facility is always under someone’s direct supervision.
An example of a situation where there would be indirect supervision would be an administrative grouping or a detachment.
September 30th, 2005 at 7:38 pm
You could say that Abu Grhaib puts the PFC in the PCF.
September 30th, 2005 at 7:48 pm
I was going to take issue with a couple of your more confusing statements, but after reading the crack about the military and kindergarden, suddenly everything is clear. Thanks for sharing, General.