'Worse things took place at Abu Ghraib' (Lyndie England)

'Worse things took place at Abu Ghraib'

Posted online: Monday, October 03, 2005 at 1140 hours IST

Washington, October 3: A US soldier convicted of humiliating and abusing Iraqi prisoners has said she knew of "worse things" happening at Abu Ghraib and insisted military commanders were fully aware of what was going on in Iraq’s infamous jail.
(snip)

The comments, made by private first class Lynndie England in her first post-court marshal interview, contradicted assertions by top Pentagon officials that a small group of out-of-control soldiers were responsible for abuse at Abu Ghraib, and that however repulsive that mistreatment was, it did not amount to torture.

"I know worse things were happening over there," admitted the 22-year-old convict.

She said one night she heard blood-curdling screams coming from the block's shower room, where non-military interrogators had taken an Arab detainee.
(snip/)

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=55802

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is the transcript of the interview with Lyndie England, from the NBC Dateline show aired Sunday night:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9532670/

Rate the article at the bottom of the second page, if you'd like.

you to know, we're not ready for the truth.

is that the terrorist, and islamic extremist will play it as current events and use it as a recruitment tool, look what happened when the first set of pictures came out, Nick Burg died, he was beheaded.... hmmm alot more extreme than several pictures. so if the new pictures came out honest soldiers, and contractors will be targeted because there is new fuel of hate and motivation for the extremists.

now im not saying it was right, those soldiers should be held on charges for killing all of those inocent people.

Forget about everyone else in the world for a minute. Now listen: torture is wrong; a free society does not torture people -- ever; now repeat as necessary.

"I think they just want somebody to take the blame and they are pointed it at us, just because our faces are in the pictures."

I couldn't agree with her more.

The lawyer of Javal Davis, one of the other MPs in the pictures who has been sentenced, wants to put Rumsfeld on the stand. Only then will any attempt at real justice be made. Only with Rumfeld's life imprisonment will any kind of justice be served.

The Geneva convention was a way to protect all captured soldiers. Now our troops will be at grave risk if captured. What idiots. Where is the supervision and leadership? I won't even get into the morality part of the torture. That seems to be beyond the grasp of Americans. But maybe they can understand survival.

excuse me?

I am saying that americans do not seem to care
about the immorality of torture. Maybe they can grasp
that it puts our troops in grave danger.
What are you saying?

understand the concept, then you understand what I'm saying.

Otherwise, it is unclear what you are trying to say.

Many of us DO care.

Most of us. Even a lot of conservatives do.

We are deeply ashamed of the actions of our rogues -- from the grunt soldiers like Lynndie England all the way up to the Boy-King squatting in the White House.

I grew up in a "military family". My Dad was a career soldier. Stuff like this, when it was reported from Vietnam, used to sicken him. He couldn't even watch TV when they were discussing the trial of Lt. William Calley, the commander of the gang of thugs who torched My Lai and killed a hundred or more people.

This is all old news. Most people over 40 either remember this from 1964-1975, either from the news or worse, from being there.

It comes from the anti-Communist paranoia that prevailed from WWI until about 1960, but it hasn't gone away. And it's always from the same small group of "superpatriots".

But it's not Americans in general, not by a long shot.

--p!

I don't want to hear about the progressive next to me at a anti-war rally. I wanna know who are these Americans who keep supporting torture-loving administration officials. If they're winning elections, or if they're getting away with stealing elections with Diebold, then obviously they're doing something right.

But people don't think that by voting for the GOP, they will be voting for torture, or even necessarily war.

Of course, that will probably be changing.

--p!

People may avoid unethical conduct when left to their own devices, but when told to do something by an authority figure, people will nearly always do it, then rationalize it later. Obedience trumps conscience almost every time. Stanley Milgram proved that Americans are no better nor worse in this regard.

Any military chain of command operates ethically only to the extent that the people at the very top are so inclined.

The same holds true for the TV audience. If asked to choose between their comforting flag, and the plight of people tortured under it, comfort will win almost every time. Only when shown pictures will they ponder the question.

http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/prisonerabuse.html

And yes, I've become a little cynical. Google "milgram experiment" and "cognitive dissonance". Once people make the initial, often-trivial choice between conscience and obedience, their self-image becomes wholly dependent upon deference the superiority of the authority figure's moral code. It's not a slippery slope, it's a cliff.

Speaking of cliffs, thanks for pushing me over this one. I seldom take the opportunity to discuss issues of conscience, in large part because most of it lately has been discussed by screaming.

I was probably being over-selective in my post; and I agree with yours. My response was based on my belief that American-bashing is way too popular, and it always misses the real point. Nobody is immune to doing evil -- Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil". Americans are indeed no different than anyone else, either in virtue or in evil.

My only quibble would be that we're talking about two broad classes of people (other than the victims), the obeyers and the observers. The vast majority of Americans are observers, so a different reaction sets in -- the pains of a transgressed conscience. Although obedience is a "cliff", as you described it, people not pushed to that cliff will not fall over it.

One of the weaknesses of Milgram's original experiments was that they did not measure indices of resistance to the push to obey, which Milgram himself saw, and sought to design later experiments to measure that resistance better. Zimbardo's experiments were more free-form and yielded a lot of difficult-to-measure data concerning moral choice. Lawrence Kohlberg's work did a better job of dealing with the positive end of the scale, the development of conscience and conscientious behavior, and Kohlberg and his team developed a six-stage model of moral/ethical/conscience development.

As a result of all these "eggheads", we pretty much know how atrocities are committed. And the military planners conscientiously ignore everything we've learned, relying instead on William Calleys and Lynndie Englands to take the punishment for plunging over that cliff -- under orders, of course.

Their punishment is deserved -- but in what proportion? I've argued elsewhere that the real perps get commendations and medals, not courts-martial.

Which brings me back to my assertion that many, that MOST, Americans deeply regret and are ashamed of the actions at Abu Ghraib. It is easy to observe, and has led to the epithet "Liberal Guilt".

The main difference between Americans and non-Americans is that our government has become much more bellicose since the end of WW2; conducting more wars provides more chances for the Milgram/Zimbardo experiments to be replicated in real life. Widespread brutality in the military and police was also seen in Soviet-era Russia and its satellites, and the empires of England, France, Belgium, and Germany were easily able to persuade their troops to become brutal.

Most people also have a "there but for fortune go I" response. It's a very strong cognitive dissonance, and all cognitive dissonance seeks resolution. I think the recent turn against George Bush and his junta are parts of this resolution. This time, it is an ignorant and narcissistic Authority that is going over the cliff.

--p!

both in Gitmo and Abu Grhaib.
And not with civilian contract personnel (never truly ID'd) who promoted and cooperated in the worst of the worst.

...if the failure of Democratic pols to make torture an issue is any measure of comprehension.

Yes, I agree with the spirit of the post: the torture of Arabs is apparently quite acceptable to a great many Americans. Why, in a vengeful Puritan society, should that assertion be shocking?

Rumsfeld was aware, Gonzales was aware and I'm sure Der Fuhrer was aware as well.

to soldiers of a nation, not terrorist...... and its ok for a terrorist to cut someones throat and let them garggle and gag on the street and leave him to die, just because hes an american in the wrong place at the wrong time, isnt that torture??? terrorist dont follow the geneva convention so why is noone going after them for war crimes????????

them at the same time. You cannot break the law to preserve it.

Think about it for a while.

:shrug:

She's going to the stockade -- as in, military prison.

She'll be as vulnerable in a military prison as those "A-rabbs" that were non-tortured at Abu Ghraib.

My hope is that she does her time quiet, keeps her proverbial nose clean, and on release, implicates every brass-wearing criminal she remembers. If Grainer's pulling a decade, the officers ought to be pulling twice that.

--p!

I'll see that and raise you... how's about the now infamous BOOK DEAL that's eventually brokered into a MOVIE DEAL? Remember, the current hostile press atmosphere toward "dissidence" in the "fatherland" isn't gonna outlast le shrub's tenure as carpetbagging squatter on Pennsylvania Avenue! There are many wandering chickens out there; big, evil, mutant HELL CHICKENS in felony shoes, and they're all looking for a place to roost in the press coop. This'n here's a real doozie. I bet rummy goes to bed each night thankful that he's so old he can't possibly live long enough to face the music before he croaks.

Now... Casting call for the movie? My vote is to have Lou Diamond Phillips put on about 135 pounds and a bra to play Lynndie. As for her be-spectacled boyfriend in the playtex living gloves, hows about James Spader? Janice Carpinski, our lady of pain? Hmmmm... Candace Bergen, maybe? Haveta shave her head first, but she's got possibilities. Rummy... nolo contendere, baby: the inimitable Christopher Lee and a dash of grecian formula. It would be a near religious experience to hear him recite rummy's accidental haiku... Now THAT'S art! How bout a director? I'm thinking David Lynch or Francis Ford Coppola... this definitely ain't a Ron Howard joint. Ideas?

:dem:
powwowdancer out

I wouldn't rate her survival as a much of an official priority.

Okay, Lynndie, I'll take you at your word. Since what you & others did "didn't amount to torture", then surely you wouldn't mind if you & other American soldiers were treated the same way by foreign troops, right? Jeebus.

the statement said it was the Adminst/Military that said it did not amount to torture.

Lyndie is as guilty as they come, imo. But she HAS been made the poster girl for A.G. Just as Jessica was put into that position to "prove" . um. what again?

Sing!

you'd have at least offered names to the military court.

May those screams haunt your dreams until the day you die, sicko.

I can't believe this actually made her aroused enough to get pregnant. Most normal people would have nightmares.

wtf are you talking about?

...to a baby fathered by Charles Graner.

According to her, she was in love with him, and therefore allowed herself to be influenced and used by him to do the actions we saw in the photos of her.

The baby's father could be one of those naked Iraqi prisoners in the photos. Unless the tapes come out...

Or one of those lizards. Um, yeah.

:-P

Lots of women "get themselves pregnant," no men involved. Miraculous sperm. Geez. This is DU and almost 2006... can't believe people are using this phrase....

You still see it in the papers when OLD religious hags say "She got herself Pregnant!!"

What we have discovered is vile and it makes many of us very angry. No doubt it makes people in the Middle East absolutely incandescent with rage, particularly when one considers the sicko sexual aspect of what has been going on.

I don't know for sure but I can't see the military/intelligence logic in horrors such as Guantamano Bay. That said it's reasonable to infer that those poor devils are unlikely to hold secrets that will give leads as to the whereabouts or plans of the terrorists. The whereabouts and plans of the latter are now history anyway so it seems very unlikely that the prisoners have anything useful to tell.

I suspect this is more about creating more terrorists by provoking people in the Middle East. Those who want perpetual war over there, and restrictions of civil liberties in the US as a response to fighting terrorism, are probably using the obsenities we have seen as a policy tool.

for those in power to actually do their job and catch terrorists (i.e. OBL), since then they would have to step down from their terror spree on the American public. - K

One more stupid, stupid girl throwing her life away for a worthless piece of trash. I could see her on Springer - "Why did you stay with him?" Lynndie: Because I loooove him, Jerry!"

Good call. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who remembers that.

So... what do you think the chances of Lynette having an "accidental suicide" while in the stockade are?

(Sabrina)
(Sabrina)
(Lindsey)

Including RUMDUMB