September 23, 2005
"Pfc. England, you're a good man...er..woman."
My girlfriend wrote about this news story today, but I had to throw in my two cents too.
News Link
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) -- Two former guards convicted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal testified at Army Pfc. Lynndie England's military trial Thursday that England was impressionable and under the sway of her soldier boyfriend, whom prosecutors have labeled the ringleader of detainee abuse.
First off, I'm sure that when you look like a cross between Sam Kinison and Chunky from "The Goonies", you'll go for any dick you can get. But I honestly don't understand how a fellow soldier who more than likely just used her as a jizz-dumpster could have such a powerful influence on her decisions...namely her decision to degrade war prisoners.
It's not about being impressionable, and it's not about peer pressure. I'm sure nobody put a fucking gun to her head, and I'm sure that they could have just as easily dug up another idiotic guy..uh..gal to take hold of that leash and point at that emaciated Iraqi cabbie mistaken for a terrorist.
But another convicted former guard, Pvt. Jeremy Sivits, said England appeared to enjoy one incident in 2003 in which prisoners were stripped, forced to masturbate and stacked in a pyramid. She was laughing, he said.
"She seemed to be having a good time," Sivits said.
"BUT IT WAS MY BABY DADDY WHO MADE ME LAUGH!" followed by a swift agreement from the lawyers along with a collective assent of, "You see, she's retarded."
My point is that if your convictions are strong enough, you'll tell somebody who's supposedly forcing you to do whatever it is they're forcing you to do to fuck off. If someone wanted me to degrade and insult a near-death prisoner who could more than likely be an innocent, I'd immediately counter with, "Fuck you. If you don't like it, shoot me." If they did, cool. If they responded with some macho bullshit and stormed off to go find some other jackass to kick an emaciated Middle Easterner around, fine. I'd still do my best to dissuade them from doing it. And if they all got together and beat the shit out of me? Cool. At least I wouldn't have a guilty conscience. Shot me during an exercise and chalked it up to friendly fire? Fuck it. At least I'd have died with my dignity intact, having stood up for what I thought was right.
It's idiots like these that make the armed forces look like a gang of inept stooges. They look at it like a vacation, like a fucking episode of "Jackass". I wouldn't have been surprised to see them pushing an elderly Iraqi woman around in a shopping cart, crashing it into bushes and curbs. And that's what drives me up the wall. There's plenty of good, respectable soldiers out there who are just doing what they feel is their duty to their country, and they don't deserve to be lumped in with this gang of morons. These are the kind of people who are ruining America's image. The right likes to piss and moan about liberals and the anti-war movement, but that's an invalid argument, solely because:
Imagine you're a foreigner. Pick a nation, any nation. You're invaded by a mass of troops from another country on whatever mandate you want to choose. Now install an anti-war movement in that antagonistic country, essentially represented by a single mother whose son died in the "war" against your country. Then, add a scandal of prisoner abuse on your own people, with photographic evidence of your own people being degraded and laughed at by the opposition.
Which of the two scenarios would be more likely to inspire you to take up arms against the opposition?
If your response is "the anti-war one", you could obviously give a shit less about your country that you supposedly covet so much.
With that example in mind, trying to absolve Lynndie England of her behavior (of which there's pure photographic evidence as well as several eyewitness accounts) is a waste of time. This girl deserves to reap whatever consequences she may have sown that day in that dingy prison.
Posted by Jake at September 23, 2005 08:29 AM
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