I feel like this was such a waste of time...I could care less what Lynndie England and her fellow soliders did to the prisoners in there. They weren't beaten to death or tortured. I'm not condoning her actions and I don't think what she did was right, but I think it's ridiculous to turn this into an international spectacle.
And out of all this, Ms. England is the 'fall guy' and gets all the negative attention. Do you know the names of any of the other men involved? No...I bet you don't. She should be staying at home with her new son, Carter, instead of going to prison for 3 years.
And out of all this, Ms. England is the 'fall guy' and gets all the negative attention. Do you know the names of any of the other men involved? No...I bet you don't. She should be staying at home with her new son, Carter, instead of going to prison for 3 years.
FORT HOOD, Texas - Army Pfc. Lynndie England, who said she was only trying to please her soldier boyfriend when she took part in detainee abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, was sentenced late Tuesday to three years behind bars.
England’s sentencing wrapped up the last of nine courts-martial of low-level soldiers charged in the scandal, which severely damaged America’s image in the Muslim world and tarnished the U.S. military at home and abroad.
The jury of five Army officers needed about 90 minutes to determine their sentence for England, the 22-year-old from West Virginia who was the most recognizable of the reservists charged after photos of naked detainee in degrading poses became public.
The charges carried up to nine years, but the prosecution had asked the jury to imprison England for four to six years. The defense asked for no time. None of the lawyers would speak with reporters after the sentence was announced. England, who was convicted Monday on six of seven counts involving prisoner
mistreatment, sat with her eyes forward as the verdict was read, occasionally looking down.
She spent some time with her 11-month-old son, Carter, before shuffling out of the courthouse with her arms and legs in shackles. Her reddened eyes stared straight ahead as she made her way to a waiting van.
Apology for the photos
England apologized earlier Tuesday for appearing in the photos, saying she did so at the behest of Pvt. Charles Graner Jr., who she said took advantage of her love and trust while they were deployed in Iraq.
“I was used by Private Graner,” England said. “I didn’t realize it at the time.” She was in several of the best-known photos taken by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib in late 2003. In one image she held a naked prisoner on a leash, while in others she posed with a pyramid of naked detainees and pointed at one man’s genitals while a cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth.
England, speaking in response to questions from a defense lawyer, said she was embarrassed by the photos and apologized to the detainees and their families, as well as to American soldiers who may have suffered in Iraq for her actions. “I heard attacks were made on coalition forces because of the photos,” she said. “I apologize to coalition forces and their families that lost their life or were injured because of the photos.”
England’s defense contended she is a compliant person who took part in the maltreatment to please Graner, who prosecutors said was the ringleader of the abuse by a group of U.S. troops.
England recounted how her relationship with Graner, 14 years her senior, developed as they prepared for deployment to Iraq with the 372nd Military Police Company in 2003. “He was very charming, funny and at the time it looked to me like he was interested in the same things I was. ... He made me feel good about myself,” she said. “I trusted him and I loved him. ... Now I know it was just an act to lure me in.”
Graner and another former guard were also convicted at trial, while six other soldiers struck plea bargains. Graner was sentenced to 10 years. No officers have gone to trial, though several received administrative punishment. Graner on Tuesday supported testimony from a defense witness that officers failed to control the guards at the Baghdad prison, creating stressful conditions that disoriented England and led her to take part in the mistreatment.
Graner said he told officers about detainee maltreatment, which he claimed was done by order of military intelligence personnel. And at times, he said, military intelligence officers actually were present for the abuse. “I nearly beat an MI detainee to death with MI there,” he said before Col. James Pohl, the judge, interrupted his testimony.
Stjepan Mestrovic, a sociology professor at Texas A&M University called as an expert witness by the defense, testified that England should be punished lightly because of the “poisonous environment” that existed at Abu Ghraib. “She was caught up in this chaotic situation like everyone else,” said Mestrovic.
England’s sentencing wrapped up the last of nine courts-martial of low-level soldiers charged in the scandal, which severely damaged America’s image in the Muslim world and tarnished the U.S. military at home and abroad.
The jury of five Army officers needed about 90 minutes to determine their sentence for England, the 22-year-old from West Virginia who was the most recognizable of the reservists charged after photos of naked detainee in degrading poses became public.
The charges carried up to nine years, but the prosecution had asked the jury to imprison England for four to six years. The defense asked for no time. None of the lawyers would speak with reporters after the sentence was announced. England, who was convicted Monday on six of seven counts involving prisoner
mistreatment, sat with her eyes forward as the verdict was read, occasionally looking down.She spent some time with her 11-month-old son, Carter, before shuffling out of the courthouse with her arms and legs in shackles. Her reddened eyes stared straight ahead as she made her way to a waiting van.
Apology for the photos
England apologized earlier Tuesday for appearing in the photos, saying she did so at the behest of Pvt. Charles Graner Jr., who she said took advantage of her love and trust while they were deployed in Iraq.
“I was used by Private Graner,” England said. “I didn’t realize it at the time.” She was in several of the best-known photos taken by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib in late 2003. In one image she held a naked prisoner on a leash, while in others she posed with a pyramid of naked detainees and pointed at one man’s genitals while a cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth.
England, speaking in response to questions from a defense lawyer, said she was embarrassed by the photos and apologized to the detainees and their families, as well as to American soldiers who may have suffered in Iraq for her actions. “I heard attacks were made on coalition forces because of the photos,” she said. “I apologize to coalition forces and their families that lost their life or were injured because of the photos.”
Overly compliant, defense said
England’s defense contended she is a compliant person who took part in the maltreatment to please Graner, who prosecutors said was the ringleader of the abuse by a group of U.S. troops.
England recounted how her relationship with Graner, 14 years her senior, developed as they prepared for deployment to Iraq with the 372nd Military Police Company in 2003. “He was very charming, funny and at the time it looked to me like he was interested in the same things I was. ... He made me feel good about myself,” she said. “I trusted him and I loved him. ... Now I know it was just an act to lure me in.”
Graner and another former guard were also convicted at trial, while six other soldiers struck plea bargains. Graner was sentenced to 10 years. No officers have gone to trial, though several received administrative punishment. Graner on Tuesday supported testimony from a defense witness that officers failed to control the guards at the Baghdad prison, creating stressful conditions that disoriented England and led her to take part in the mistreatment.
No leadership guiding them
Graner testified that he, England and others who worked the overnight shift in a high-security section of Abu Ghraib had scant supervision. “It seems like the junior soldiers were on their own,” said Graner, who England has said is the father of her infant. “We had little leadership.”Graner said he told officers about detainee maltreatment, which he claimed was done by order of military intelligence personnel. And at times, he said, military intelligence officers actually were present for the abuse. “I nearly beat an MI detainee to death with MI there,” he said before Col. James Pohl, the judge, interrupted his testimony.
Stjepan Mestrovic, a sociology professor at Texas A&M University called as an expert witness by the defense, testified that England should be punished lightly because of the “poisonous environment” that existed at Abu Ghraib. “She was caught up in this chaotic situation like everyone else,” said Mestrovic.
3 comments:
I agree that the only reason they are making such a big deal of here case is because she is a woman. If she was a male it probably would never have made the news. However, what stupid broad commits acts like this in order to please their boyfried? She needs to straight herself out or she is going to end up raising a child like the idiots in some of these other stories.
ELLEN GOODMAN
The downside of equality
By Ellen Goodman | September 30, 2005
THIS IS THE latest entry in the Lynndie England photo album. A portrait of the 22-year-old private, sober, downcast, and guilty as charged. Guilty of conspiracy. Guilty of mistreating detainees. Guilty of an indecent act. Guilty -- although there is no official crime for this -- of shaming her country.
It's been nearly two years since Private First Class England became the face of the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. The first snapshot in the Lynndie England album showed a small, jaunty soldier in T-shirt and fatigues, with a haircut invariably described as ''pixie-like," holding a leash. At the end of the leash was a naked Iraqi.
The second snapshot showed her smiling, cigarette dangling from her lips. Her right hand signaled thumbs up, her left hand pointed at the genitals of naked Iraqi men. It was taken on her 21st birthday.
These photos not only shattered the image of Americans in Iraq. They were gender-bending to the breaking point. A country barely used to the idea of women in war was suddenly confronted with the portrait of a woman as an equal-opportunity abuser.
We were also appalled by Charles Graner, the ringleader of the abuse, a former prison guard from Pennsylvania run amok. But it was the femaleness of the young reservist that prompted a rash of stories titled ''Explaining Lynndie England." It was woman-as-torturer ''angle" behind the profiles describing her as a ''hell-raiser" from a trailer park family who first married at 19 and joined the reserves to get money for college and a career as a meteorologist.
If the first two images were breathtaking, the third was no less unsettling. By the time the legal proceedings began last September, the slight, smirking woman had been transformed by eight months of pregnancy. What female archetype did that fit? A defendant in a maternity uniform? A madonna as sexual abuser?
As for the fourth portrait, turn the page to last May. In a military courtroom Lynndie England held her 7-month-old baby. Nearby sat Graner, convicted ringleader, father of her child, and -- to add to the soap opera -- newly married to another defendant in the Abu Ghraib case.
It's no wonder that her lawyers in the final trial went photo-shopping through the available female images for their last gasp defense. Tough-as-males soldier or pregnant, defenseless woman? Wrong woman or wronged woman? ''When all else fails, you try 'the girl defense,' " says a disdainful Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain and advocate for women in the military.
England's lawyer cropped her to fit a traditional frame. She was ''an overly compliant personality," prone to depression, a Graner-pleaser. She was not a power-crazed conqueror but a slave for love. At her sentencing hearing, England said, ''I was used by Private Graner. I didn't realize it at the time."
It is no wonder that the military jury rejected the ''love" excuse. As Manning says, ''it doesn't take a moral giant to know that there are things you don't do for love, and torture is one of them." England was one of three women among the Abu Ghraib Nine. Even those who believe that Lynndie England was a photogenic fall girl for prisoner abuse blame the outrages on the chain of command, not the chains of love.
But before we close the album with a shot of England going to jail, there is something more to be said. The military is, or was, the last male bastion. On television, a female commander in chief is still just a fantasy. But there are 76,800 women in uniform, 11,000 in Iraq where the front lines are as indefinable as the route of a suicide bomber.
In the Iraq war, women have been elevated to the superheroine status like Jessica Lynch and lowered to supervillain status like Lynndie England. But 40 women have been killed and 400 wounded. Who knows the name of Leigh Ann Hester, a 23-year-old retail store manager from Kentucky who fought her way to the first Silver Star for valor in combat awarded to a woman since World War II?
As women go to war, the military offers a sometimes glorious, sometimes dismal reminder of equality. A reminder that women have as many points on the moral compass as men. That women soldiers have won an equal chance to bring honor or shame to themselves and their country.
If and when war demands heroics, it produces heroines too. But if and when war brings out our worst, the human in the word dehumanizing also includes women. The Lynndie England Album. It's not a pretty picture.
Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com.
Maybe they should have just stuck with the theory of kill them all and let God sort them out. We have lost thousands of our troops over seas and yet for stupid shit like this we are taking and putting them in jail. Who is this decieded by...some rich SOB with a desk job who would not have a clue what a battle field looks like other than what he has seen on a TV set. We ask them to protect us from evil but when something stupid happens we have to jump to drastic measures. Doc
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