When the photos of Private Lynndie England of the 372nd Military Police Company at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad, abusing and humiliating prisoners came to light in 2003, I gleefully and instantly used her name as a punchline. As a writer and a comedian, I did my part in securing her name in pop culture. I willingly vilified her as a caricature of a sadist - I wrote she was the Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now of Iraqi prison guards. The horror, the horror...
I said that she even made smokers look bad.
I'll admit it. I suspected that the rogue individual defense made by the Bush Administration and more specifically Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was baloney. But I eagerly made jokes and quips at the expense of England anyway. I hopped on the 'lynching Lynndie' bandwagon with no hesitation. I even considered registering mockedbylynndie.com - where it would showcase the iconic picture of the soldier, cigarette hanging from her mouth pointing at whatever contributors didn't like at that moment. Lynndie England: disgraced Iraq War soldier and sad internet meme.
'A Monster-in-chief' is what she was called by The Guardian in 2004, 'A Symbol of Shame' by CBS, 'the face of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib' in Marie Claire. The whole time, England, herself, in so many words said that she was a scapegoat, said that Rumsfeld knew, said that she was just following orders from her superiors. She said this on her way to prison after she was convicted of conspiracy, maltreating Iraqi detainees. She said this when her 20-30 year sentence was reduced. She held fast to this when she was finally released from prison in 2007.
In May of 2004 Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference, "We're taking and will continue to take whatever steps are necessary to hold accountable those that may have violated the code of military conduct and betrayed the trust placed in them by the American people I have no doubt that we will take these charges and allegations most seriously." He even went so far as to call the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib "totally unacceptable and un-American".
England was locked up for 3 years and dishonorably discharged from the military.
President Barack Obama released what is now known as the Torture Memos - the legal opinions that justified water boarding, sleep deprivation, isolation, physical violence and reality show staples like bugs and public humiliation. Basically, what we saw in the pictures of England, were justified for the CIA by the legal jerry-rigging of lawyers John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury.
A week later after these memos were released a report by the Senate Armed Services Committee drew the connection between the Torture Memos and the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
It's proof that England was telling the truth. She was just following orders.
These memos skirted around and ensured acts otherwise known as torture somehow didn't violate the Geneva Convention, the US Constitution or our common sense of human rights. Bybee, of course is now a judge in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which has rightfully caused some outrage...since his (ahem) judgment has now been called into question.
These practices have been called 'harsh interrogation techniques' by their supporters, namely kneejerk Obama oppos...and/or former vice president Dick Cheney.
Where were these 'harsh interrogation technique' peddlers when England was taking the fall? What were they saying then? Peddling the rogue individual defense, of course. The lone wolf. The bad apple: Lynndie England. Yes, they let - we let a woman that signed up for the military during war time when she was still in high school become a universal object of disdain.
Support our troops?
"We didn't kill them. We didn't cut their heads off." England said in an interview. "We didn't shoot them. We didn't cut them and let them bleed to death. We just did what we were told to soften them up for interrogation, and we were told to do anything short of killing them."
Sure when she says it - it's grotesque. But when it's in a legal memo - it's up for debate.
Now that the cat is out of the proverbial bag, it's becoming clear that she is less like Marlon Brando's character and more like the Kamikazi pilots during WWII. She was sacrificed - her livelihood, her future in the line of duty - for the sake of a war effort. Her country and more specifically her government abandoned her for doing exactly as she (it appears now) was told.
She should be pardoned. Her record completely wiped clean.
I never thought I would say this - but Lynndie England is a symbol of embarrassment. Not because she posed in pictures following orders - but because our government let her take the fall. And we/I completely fell for it.
Sorry, Lynndie.
Author's Note: I was invited to submit my column to Pajamas Media. This piece was rejected by them because they disagreed with the idea that the acts at Abu Ghraib and the CIA Torture Memos are in anyway related. Ahem.
The MP’s did as they were told. They took pictures of what they were told to do. They showed the pictures to officers above those that told them what to do. The officers told them to do what they were told to do.
The MP’s knew about Nuremburg. Their officers knew about Nuremberg. The officers were convinced that what was done in Tier 1a was perfectly legal.
There were officers, that came into tier 1a, that helped to beat up the insurgents. Those officers thought is was legal.
The MP’s were convicted for doing what the military jury thought was all their idea. The jury had no idea that these procedures came from above. That point was kept from the jury.
A few people still seem to feel that the MP’s did this on their own and by themselves.
The Armed Services Committee (Senator McCain, Senator Warner, Senator Levin and other respected Senators) held an investigation and came to the conclusion that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was caused not by the MP’s that were MI in Tier 1a, it was caused by the last administration.
Please read the Senate Armed Services Committee investigation results
Capt Wood’s interrogation procedures were passed around to all the Military in Tier 1a. They were given to MI and they were given to the MI/MP’s.
The MP’s were told to bang the insurgents heads into walls or stairs or anything else that was nearby.
The MP’s were told to do anything they wanted to do, to make the insurgents lives miserable.
cont.
.
General Karpinsky was in charge of a lot of prisons in Iraq. General Karpinsky was in charge of Abu Ghraib. Even though tier 1a was in Abu Ghraib, General Karpinski was not in Charge of Tier 1a.
MI Colonel Pappas was in charge of Tier 1a in Abu Ghraib.
Colonel Pappas was directly under General Sanchez, not General Karpinski.
Tier 1a was an interrogation center in Abu Ghraib. It was not part of the prison.
When the MP’s were not in tier 1a, they were MP’s.
When the MP’s were in Tier 1a they were MI.
The detainees in Tier 1a had nothing to do with 9-11.
The detainees in Tier 1a were mostly insurgents. They did not want US soldiers in Iraq.
They had no qualms about killing American soldiers.
The detainee with the dog collar on his head was an insurgent.
The detainee with the hood on his head and with wires attached to his hand was an insurgent.
cont.
Free Graner!
Maybe you can be instrumental in forming a group request /webstie whereby we can all sign into and make the request for a FULL PARDON TO BE GRANTED to Lynndie for the wrong that was done to her in the name of the previous Administration.
Thanks again.
Ms. England was a convenient fallguy(-gal) for the bigwigs. She was never more than a hapless (if morally repugnant) patsy for Rumsfeld and the higer ranking officers.
Glad to hear that you woke up to this reality.
Unfortunately, you fell hook, line, and sinker for the Bush spin in Lynndie. Lynndie England did not touch or torture any detainees. Yes, she stepped into pictures, but those pictures only served to document the policy instituted by her commander-in-chief. Look at the leash picture. Does Lynndie look like she's interested in what was going on? No, she looks completely uninterested? Why? Because she literarly stepped into that photo for Graner who was documenting what "Gus" was doing. Graner asked her to get his camera, handed her the tether, and click, click.
I have a feeling that if you were there that night you would have done the same thing. Lynndie's lawyers tried to obtain these memos but were denied access. She did not have due process at her trial. How many soldier grunts do you know who would buck their orders? No, those pictures only served to document the policy of the chain of command.
Free Lyndie England!
While she's smiling in this photo, the one where she has the guy on a leash, she doesn't look very happy or "into it" She almost looks a little distressed.
It's not easy to be a whistle blower, especially in a foreign country when you're in the military and "accidents" can happen. The Military powers (Pentagon) will go out of their way to cover up their culpability. They've shown it time and time again. Why not at least start with the woman who was running Abu Ghraib at the time? She knew it was happening.
Oh, that's right, her career was more important than this girl's life.
The only convictions in this case has been low-level personal. I'm pretty sure none of this was their idea. I mean, reaaaly.
I'm not trying to condone - just help people see that this was not planned or the act of a torturer.
As has come out in the memos (memos denied to England and the other Reservists at their trials) all of the things you see were sanctioned by the Bush Administration. I guess Rumsfeld also stood around all day in the nude as well wearing panties on his head....
I do not agree with Obama in not prosecuting the CIA officers as well as senior and junior military that participated and the civilian leadership that authorized these tactics. They all know that the 'I was just following orders' defense is b.s. That question was settled decades ago and all US military are familiar with the history of the Nuremburg Trials and should understand why this type of behavior is not only illegal but immoral, useless and inhuman in the extreme. England deserve more than she got and as an MP she knows it. It's a shame that a whole lot of people that participated aren't sitting in a cell right next to her...
You are a relatively new soldier, halfway around the world, in combat support. Your superior officer gives you a command which is illegal, or skirts the edge pretty closely. You refuse and he threatens to throw you in a very unpleasant jail cell for dis-obeying a direct order in combat conditions, for an indefinite length of time.
What you gonna do there, desk jockey?
It's a fictional term. In a fantasy series.
It is a DISGRACE to take her down and leave her chain of command standing.
You can relax; the others will burn, too.