The torturess of Abu Gharib, Lynndie England is standing trial for her acts most foul. The defense counsell is putting on a most interesting defence: "She was brain damaged at birth and so couldn't have known better."
West Virginia school psychologist Dr. Thomas Denne — the first defense witness —
said England's learning disabilities were identified when she was a kindergartner — and though she made progress in school, she continued needing special help. "I knew I was going to know Lynndie England for the rest of my life," West Virginia school psychologist Dr. Thomas Denne said.A military jury of five men and one woman was seated earlier Tuesday to make a sentencing recommendation for England, 22, who pleaded guilty Monday to seven counts of mistreating prisoners. She said she let her comrades talk her into going along with the abuse.
England, from Fort Ashby, W.Va., accepted responsibility for the smiling, thumbs-up poses she struck for photographs taken at Abu Ghraib that made her the face of the prisoner abuse scandal.
In one of the photos, England held a leash looped around the neck of a hooded, naked prisoner. Another showed her next to nude prisoners stacked in a pyramid, while a third depicted England pointing at a prisoner's genitals as a cigarette dangled from her lips. The charges carry up to 11 years in prison. Prosecutors and the defense
reached an agreement that caps the sentence at a lesser punishment; the length was not released. She will get the lesser of the military jury's sentence or the term agreed on in the plea bargain. Prosecutor Capt. Chris Graveline told jurors in opening statements that England and a half-dozen other soldiers in the 372nd Military Police Company took great pleasure in humiliating the prisoners.The prosecution rested its sentencing case without calling any witnesses. Graveline said England and Pvt. Charles Graner Jr. — the abuse ringleader and the father of England's child — knew it was wrong to mistreat the detainees and take the photos, "but they did it anyway for their own amusement."
Well, I guess one would. Isn't that the logic of prisons and Milgrim's 37? They abused the Iraqis because deep down, they knew they were the dirty end of the stick punishing the Iraqis; and so in a desire to please their masters, they over-stepped their mark into a Sade-ian Fantasy.
UPDATE: I've spent the afternoon thinking about this trial and it seems to me it highlights some odd issues. If indeed this woman was less than average intelligence as the defense counsel contends, then it seems peculiar she should be in the Army at all. How did she get into this situation?
I'm going to reverse imagineer this a bit.
She probably couldn't get a regular job because well, she'd be subnormal at any task so she wouldn't be a good candidate for the Private sector. She'd likely have looked at spending the rest of her life on some kind of welfare and thouhgt, "Darn it, that's not for me!" and more power to her, she looked for a government job. Given that what she had to offer was an able body, it was probably logical that she looked into joining the Army.
And the Army? Maybe the Army couldn't turn her away because they simply needed as many bodies as they could get? And once they had her on the roster they realised she was the Tony Womack of intellectual activity? - As in not good at all.
So the Army didn't give her something responsible to do; no, they made her a PFC and sent her to guard prisoners. It's not like they promoted her toWestpoint or made her a staff officer in charge of logistics, or put her at the console of a multi-million dollar craft... They gave her, her issue sidearm and sent her off to be a Military Police person. They certainly didn't give her complex instructions when you think about it; in a nutshell they said, watch these folks we locked up for you. So she sleeps with her boss and pushes out a kid and then gets a little over-enthusiastic about humiliating the prisoners and the next thing you know she's the corner-stone of international outrage. However, I ask you this question: Just where was the Army supposed to hide this bum contract?
Are we surprised that the events that transpired, transpired at all?
Who is really on trial here? I'm not trying to make light of her alleged crime. It's pretty objectionable, but you can sort of see how society ended up putting that compromised person there to fail and now she's going to pay for that mistake as well as her own transgression. She takes the fall and the Army gets to say they did the right thing through due process. Doesn't that strike one as being a little too pat? Yes, it's moral for the wrong-doer to get punished, but really how productive is that in the long run? If anything it seems moral accountability is hardly a sufficient yardstick to measure the crime.
Yankee Makeover
You don't get do-overs in the major leagues. Well, you don't even get do-overs in social leagues. Anyway, stung with the first losing April in 14 years, the yankees have decided to make some serious changes.
Get ready for the new-look Yankees.
Hideki Matsui is moving to center field for an ailing Bernie Williams. Tony Womack is headed to left, and Robinson Cano is coming up from the minors to play second base every day. Plus, Randy Johnson could wind up on the disabled list because of a stiff groin, putting another young pitcher in the rotation.``We're looking to get this thing on track. We just feel there are certain things we need to start doing,'' general manager Brian Cashman said after Monday night's 6-2 victory over Tampa Bay improved New York's record to 11-15.
With his $200 million collection of talent struggling below .500 this late in a season for the first time in more than a decade, Cashman felt compelled to do something. He called owner George Steinbrenner on Sunday and said he wanted to travel to Tampa to join the team.
``The way we're playing, I don't want to be too far away,'' Cashman said.
What's really interesting is that Cashman is sounding like George Steinbrenner, jumping in to make his meddle-move.
On the whole, Godzilla to CF is a good gamble because Matsui is probably the better CFer than Bernie right now. Matsui's about just below league average while Bernie is going to cost the Yanks 5 games. More mysterious is the Womak to LF move, though there are some indications that he's actually a useful glove in the outfield. That's good because he wasn't much whack as an infielder. Even if Cano is a little below average, he's going to be better than Womak. It's a little like the Chuck-Knoblauch-Experiment, but they don't have much else to go with.
Cashman has stated explicitly he wants to go back to 11 pitchers on the 25 man roster. Makes good sense given that it allows for more off the bench; something the Yankees sorely need.
The Yankees optioned Steve Karsay to make room for Cano, brought up Sean Henn, and so the next generation of Yankee rookies has finally arrived in the Bronx. Count them!: Chien-Ming Wang; Andy Phillips; Robinson Cano; Sean Henn; not to forget Colter Bean who finally made his MLB debut; and Bubba Crosby from last year, who finally stuck at the Major League level. It's all good. Suddenly the Yankees just got very interesting and exciting. When one sees Juan Rivera, Nick Johnson, Brad halsey and D'Angelo Jimenez all holding down regular or semi-regular spots on other clubs, it sort of makes you think of what could have been ( - though I'll never regret the Soriano for A-Rod deal. That was GREAT thank you very much.)
- Art Neuro
2 comments:
Yes. My point exactly.
The system that only gives the option of the Nuremburg defense and insanity pleas to explain it is actually insufficient to the task of answering the ethical question being posed, IMHO.
Yes, the law, the law, the law. Upon laws our land are founded and all that. No argument. But before it gets to the court martial, the system has broken down and all the law does is pass assignments of blame.
Also, IMHO, the Nuremburg defense *should* actually hold significant weight, but pedestrian morality dictates that the individual who commits the action under orders has to pay. It's crap. Also, we know the Goering position about war tribunals being showpony/kangaroo courts is also accurate, and here is somebody being put through that process to be the scapegoat for the society that produced the mechanism by which she commited her crime. It's disgusting.
Imagine a Mongoloid kid. Turns 18. Bravely she says, she doesn't want to be a welfare recipient; she wants to actively participate in the work force. The only place that would take her is a post-feminist-enlightened Army. The Army gives her Basic T; then gives her a job to guard the sacred-profane cookies. Eventually bored qnd hungry, the mongoloid kid eats the cookies instead. And we argue, well the monogloid kid ate the sacred/profane cookies so should be spanked and thrown in a cell for 10 years or 15 years.
And this isn't even the biggest tragedy going around; but it's man-made and you'd think somebody would notice this isn't cutting muster.
It's a weird world of searching for accountability in a foreign hostile, uncaring universe. You'd think there's a Quango going on right now somewhere, but they're probably insufficient to the task too.
I have problem with step 2.
If a person is a member of a military service, they are in a position to inflict violence in a state-legally sanctioned way. IOW, the person is okay to kill as long as the person they kill is OK-ed by the state and this is backed up by the chain of command.
i.e. Just because you're in the military doesn't mean that you can just go kill *anybody*. They want you to only exercise violence where chosen.
So given that violence is going to be enacted; and that a person's only reference to whether the violence is correct or not is the orders that come down, the ND has to be considered more legitimate/correct than people allow it. Because if you put it back on the inidiviual to not follow orders when it is morally/ethically repugnant to them, then how can you ever shoot/punish your own deserters when they say, "But the violence was repugnant to my personal moral code"?
Being in the military is not like being a civillian in the one crucial sense that the military personnnel is asked to *surrender* if you like their moral qualms about violence for the betterment of the state they serve. It's totally irrational and illogical to then ask, "Why didn't you use your own moral judgement?" in a court martial afterwards.
Well, they gave that up when they joined. Only the orders remain; if the orders should not be allowed, then those rules should be made clear to every soldier. I doubt any military will hold with that.
The ND of PFC so-and-so is also what allows you to hang Goering and the head-honchos if not Hitler. Hanging so-and-so as well as Goering and co. is not a move in the morally correct direction; it's just another state exercising vengeance, The Wiesenthal centre and Eichmann not withstanding.
The reason the ND is disregarded is not because it is logically flawed; it's because it suits the punishers to punish even while disreagrding the illogicality of their position on 'moral' grounds. Hypocrisy is a beautiful thing when it fools most of the people most of the time.
So in Lynndie England's case, either she was ordered to do it or not. Did Colonel Jessep order the Code Red or not? I think we're entitled to know that truth and I feel confident I can handle the truth of that one. :)
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