VERY professional. "But..uh...we weren't trained...we didn't know we shouldn't be having sex with each other over here and filming it. Oh yeah..we didn't know it was wrong to humiliate and torture people either."
Supposedly it was her...there isn't a position on earth I can picture her in that would be remotely sexy.
US Army Spec. Charles A. Graner, Jr (rear), and Pfc. Lynndie R. England are seen at Abu Ghraib prison. CBS News has learned England and Graner, both divorced, were involved in a romantic relationship in Iraq and that England is four months pregnant with Graner's child.
Did anyone read the article from a feminist perspective on the fact that a woman was involved in all of this so heavily? It was in the Chronicle this past Sunday. It basically said that historically, women have been the victims of these sorts of things, particularly when a conquering army came riding through...rape...sexual abuse...humiliation. And then it said that what this tells us is that this isn't a testerone-only affair...that women are just as capable, given the chance, of falling to these depths as men are...and have been. Interesting article.
She is one classy lady. She tortures, takes those pictures with her being so darn cute pointing at nude POW's private parts, taking home movies of her and her army torturer friend having sex. Way to log Lynndie, or would she prefer Mizzzzz England.
no...not at all condoning. sort of a refreshing honest wake up to reality...that one gender doesn't hold the patent on inflicting pain, misery and humiliation. it didn't defend her at all.
Krugman... ______________ Just Trust Us By PAUL KRUGMAN Didn't you know, in your gut, that something like Abu Ghraib would eventually come to light? When the world first learned about the abuse of prisoners, President Bush said that it "does not reflect the nature of the American people." He's right, of course: a great majority of Americans are decent and good. But so are a great majority of people everywhere. If America's record is better than that of most countries — and it is — it's because of our system: our tradition of openness, and checks and balances. Yet Mr. Bush, despite all his talk of good and evil, doesn't believe in that system. From the day his administration took office, its slogan has been "just trust us." No administration since Nixon has been so insistent that it has the right to operate without oversight or accountability, and no administration since Nixon has shown itself to be so little deserving of that trust. Out of a misplaced sense of patriotism, Congress has deferred to the administration's demands. Sooner or later, a moral catastrophe was inevitable. Just trust us, John Ashcroft said, as he demanded that Congress pass the Patriot Act, no questions asked. After two and a half years, during which he arrested and secretly detained more than a thousand people, Mr. Ashcroft has yet to convict any actual terrorists. (Look at the actual trials of what Dahlia Lithwick of Slate calls "disaffected bozos who watch cheesy training videos," and you'll see what I mean.) Just trust us, George Bush said, as he insisted that Iraq, which hadn't attacked us and posed no obvious threat, was the place to go in the war on terror. When we got there, we found no weapons of mass destruction and no new evidence of links to Al Qaeda. Just trust us, Paul Bremer said, as he took over in Iraq. What is the legal basis for Mr. Bremer's authority? You may imagine that the Coalition Provisional Authority is an arm of the government, subject to U.S. law. But it turns out that no law or presidential directive has ever established the authority's status. Mr. Bremer, as far as we can tell, answers to nobody except Mr. Bush, which makes Iraq a sort of personal fief. In that fief, there has been nothing that Americans would recognize as the rule of law. For example, Ahmad Chalabi, the Pentagon's erstwhile favorite, was allowed to gain control of Saddam's files — the better to blackmail his potential rivals. And finally: Just trust us, Donald Rumsfeld said early in 2002, when he declared that "enemy combatants" — a term that turned out to mean anyone, including American citizens, the administration chose to so designate — don't have rights under the Geneva Convention. Now people around the world talk of an "American gulag," and Seymour Hersh is exposing My Lai all over again. Did top officials order the use of torture? It depends on the meaning of the words "order" and "torture." Last August Mr. Rumsfeld's top intelligence official sent Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the Guantánamo prison, to Iraq. General Miller recommended that the guards help interrogators, including private contractors, by handling prisoners in a way that "sets the conditions" for "successful interrogation and exploitation." What did he and his superiors think would happen? To their credit, some supporters of the administration are speaking out. "This is about system failure," said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina. But do Mr. Graham, John McCain and other appalled lawmakers understand their own role in that failure? By deferring to the administration at every step, by blocking every effort to make officials accountable, they set the nation up for this disaster. You can't prevent any serious inquiry into why George Bush led us to war to eliminate W.M.D. that didn't exist and to punish Saddam for imaginary ties to Al Qaeda, then express shock when Mr. Bush's administration fails to follow the rules on other matters. Meanwhile, Abu Ghraib will remain in use, under its new commander: General Miller of Guantánamo. Donald Rumsfeld has "accepted responsibility" — an action that apparently does not mean paying any price at all. And Dick Cheney says, "Don Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had. . . . People should get off his case and let him do his job." In other words: Just trust us.
Anyone see they just recently be-headed an American civilian who was kidnapped supposedly in retaliation for the prison abuse?
Yes, it's sickening. I just checked the news (and here) and it takes a sick, twisted **** to do that. I have a close relative working in Iraq as a contractor and his parents are be beside themselves with worry. There is no excuse imaginable for this, just as there are no excuses for the torture and possible killings at Abu Ghraib. The nightmare continues.
This thread is disturbing on soooo many levels. Anyone else have mental picture of several of our fellow BBS'ers posting from their homemade underground bunkers adorned with German WWII memorabilia?
Via Josh... _____________ As I said earlier today, I don't think I can remember a more shameful spectacle in the United States Congress, in my living memory, than the comments today of James Inhofe, the junior senator from Oklahoma. Clearly, it is part of the RNC talking points now to shift the brunt of the media storm from the abuses themselves to the political storm they've created. But no one that I saw at least rose more naturally to the effort than this man. No one else's heart seemed so matched to the deed, with his snarls at "humanitarian do-gooders" (i.e., the Red Cross) trying to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions. America's greatest moments in the last century came when she tempered power with right and toughened, or sharpened, the edges of right with power -- World War II, then the post-war settlement that framed the Cold War are the clearest, though certainly not the only, examples. But here you have Jim Inhofe lumbering out of his cave and on to the stage, arguing that we can do whatever we want because we're America. Inhofe's America is one that is glutted on pretension, cut free from all its moral ballast, and hungry to sit atop a world run only by violence. Lady Liberty gets left with fifty bucks, a sneer, a black eye, and the room to herself for the couple hours left before check out. Yet there was a much brighter side to these hearings on Tuesday. For all the dishonor Inhofe brought on them, I was struck by how much of this is being carried by Republicans -- in particular, John McCain, John Warner and, perhaps most strikingly, Lindsey Graham. Graham has become some mix of the star and the conscience of these proceedings because of his specialized knowledge as an Air Force JAG and his ability to see that this goes beyond partisan politics, threatening as it does not only America's honor, but (in a way someone like Inhofe could probably never understand) also her power. Graham got it exactly right today when he said: "When you are the good guys, you've got to act like the good guys." Another way to put this might be to say that being the good guys is about what you do, not who you are. That's a truth that the architects of this war, in subtler but I suspect more damaging ways, frequently failed to understand. -- Josh Marshall
Looks like Colin is getting increasingly fed up... ____________ Powell: Bush told of Red Cross reports President may have known about Iraqi prisoner abuse earlier than he's admitted By Mark Matthews / Baltimore Sun WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Tuesday that he and other top officials kept the president “fully informed in general terms,” about complaints made by the Red Cross and others of ill-treatment of detainees in American custody. Powell’s statement suggests Bush may have known earlier than the White House has previously acknowledged about complaints raised by the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights groups about abuse of detainees in Iraq. “We kept the president informed of the concerns that were raised by the ICRC and other international organizations as part of my regular briefings of the president, and advised him that we had to follow these issues, and when we got notes sent to us or reports sent to us ... we had to respond to them, and the president certainly made it clear that that’s what he expected us to do,” Powell said. Powell said that he, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld kept Bush “fully informed of the concerns that were being expressed, not in specific details, but in general terms.” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said last week the president was first informed about the abuse of detainees in Iraq by Rumsfeld, who “let the president know that there were allegations of prisoner abuse in Iraq and that the military was taking action to address it.” McClellan did not give a precise date, but Rumsfeld, testifying before Congress, said he told the president in late January or early February about an investigation being conducted by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba into alleged prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, the main U.S. detention facility in Iraq. Bush has said he did not see the graphic pictures of prisoner abuses until they were broadcast on television. Powell, in his comments Tuesday, appeared to be trying to show that he and the State Department did not ignore or minimize early reports of abuse of detainees in U.S. custody when they began to surface last year. Red Cross officials have said they began complaining about the condition of Iraqi prisoners more than a year ago, before major combat ended, and raised concerns about the main detention facility at Abu Ghraib last October, more than two months before Taguba launched his investigation on orders from Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military commander in Iraq. A Powell aide said he couldn’t pinpoint when the secretary first spoke with the president about detainees in Iraq, but said Powell told Bush about receiving complaints about detainees generally — in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, “at various times throughout this period — the last year or more.”
