No, disgraced soldier Lynndie England still does not regret treating Abu Ghraib prisoners like absolute garbage. She claims she did it all to please her boyfriend. She’s just 26, has graying hair, and hates going out in public even in her hometown. And her biggest fear? Somebody years from now will have a problem with her history abusing detainees, and kill her. The BBC has the fantastic interview here.
soldiers
Geoff M
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” She is one sad individual.
jeffrey
I’m still in shock the cow even had a boyfriend. Hate her.
dvlaries
So we see that her inflated sense of self-importance is still intact. Not only is she unapologetic, but she feels she’s significant enough for someone risk a murder conviction to take her out too…?
No, no honey. We’ll never forget the way you disgraced your uniform and our country but, day to day, we do a pretty good job not giving a damn about YOU.
grimwig
Why even link to something if no one even bothers to look at it? The BBC bit (I would assume) came about because she did hours and hours of interviews recently that ended up being made into both a documentary and a book – I heard about it on This American Life.
I admit it – I used to hate her just as much as anyone else. But her story is heartbreaking. No, she’s not perfect, but you have to feel bad for a woman who becomes the poster child for prisoner abuse instead of those that were the architects of the torture practice (Rumsfeld), those who ordered the specific soldiers to torture people (commanding officers at Abu Ghraib) or the enlisted man who actually did the torturing – Lynndie England’s boyfriend. (The boyfriend, by the way, that got her pregnant and dumped her for another soldier when things started heading south.) What was her part in it? Posing for the pictures.
Yes, it was fucked up for her to just jump right in the shot and smile, but of all the people to blame, why her? Now she’s living in the middle of nowhere with her parents, and can’t get a job because the guy that got her pregnant – with the kid who looks more like his dad every day – tortured people and we all decided to blame the woman in the pictures instead of the guy behind the camera, the one holding the whip.
You don’t have to feel sorry for her, much less forgive her, but could we at least stop making her life – which is already as close to Hell and Kansas as I’d ever like to be – that much worse?
That, or we could just keep doing what we’ve been doing:
Yeah, I heard her name before, too! Didn’t she torture people? Fuck her!
Dave
You all are a bunch of judgemental jerks. First of all, it is/was quite common to do what she did AND it was APPROVED by the government. These people were made scapegoats in the instant age of media and news. Trust me my time in the Marines showed me how much of a bigot, hypocrite and ass Uncle Sam really is.
Landon Bryce
@grimwig:
I was shocked to learn the England was already out of jail. She should not be.
Is she as guilty as her boyfriend? No.
Is she as guilty as Donald Rumsfeld? No.
Does that make her gleeful participation in torture something that a human being should get to do and walk free ever again?
I guess you think so.
I think human dignity matters more than that.
Landon Bryce
@Dave:
England expresses no remorse or compassion for the people she tortured.
Yeah, the people here are really jerks for judging her.
petted
@Dave: So your a fan of the just following orders line… members of the gestapo were too.
M Shane
No. 5 · Dave She had a choice; Did we let all of the Nazis go. Aparently not enough: Research of leters and documentation since has provenn that most of the German poulation was in support of the Death camps etc. I even talked, when I was quite young to Ex german citizens who said that it was a POPULAR WAR. We should have executed many more who went free.
Anyone who thinks that the Religious threat is petty for gays , think again.
The interesting fact is that the U.S Judge at Nuremburg
had reported that the Nazi leaders who were put to death for exactly what Bush & Co did: Start a Preemptory War in Iraq. Inded it is a fact that if the world was not in such fear of us they would be tried fore war crimes and put to death..
People like England should be put in prison for life. The many people who Profiteered from the war should get life sentences.
Phoenix (Smooching Nelly Anarchist In The Rainbow Army)
She’s rather dim and always has been. She was deprived of oxygen at birth and probably is “functionally retarded”. She is unable to learn anything or feel anything because she is a dimwit with a sociopathic personality disorder. Or so the shrinks on another website claimed months ago when this first came out.
John from England(used to be just John but there are other John's)
I wonder if the people who have sympathy for her here, do for Obama!
Nope!