Posted on 09/27/2005 9:42:49 AM PDT by Valin
She was in charge of something...her actions. And the "I was only following orders (or the lead) of my superiors doesn't excuse a thing.
Abu Ghraib is a metaphor for a pi$$-poor chain of command! Where in the heck were the staff duty officers/NCOs? Were they sleeping on their watch?
I can't believe that Graner, England, and other enlisted personnel are doing years worth of hard time while the rest of the chain of command are given administrative punishment at worst.
I hope her sentence is less than two years including time served. No doubt she disgraced the uniform, and deserves to be punished.
It's time to stop the continued deployments of NG units. Let's face it, National Guard and Reserve units reason for existence (reserve units in case the balloon went up) ended when the Cold War was won. The idea that these units should be constantly deployed (as if they were active units) could only have been dreamed up by a REMF.
If we need an active force strengh of XX divisions, then let's be honest about it. Playing games with force levels supplemented by NG and USAR units cannot succeed on a long-term basis.
Karpinski never would have made BG on active duty. I'm not demeaning our NG/USAR units, but they were never meant to be on extended active duty.
The defense said England blindly followed Charles Graner, the abuse ringleader and father of her 11-month-old child. Graner, who has since married another woman and pleaded guilty in the scandal, is serving a 10-year sentence. Graner, what a nice upstanding young man. No wonder Lynndie followed him around like a puppy dog and let him get her pregnant. </sarcasm>
I will not flame you for the chain of command comment. It is spot on.
I will scorch your statement about NG troops being inferior. Their mission did NOT end. NG and USCG are the reason that we do not have active-duty military occupation in the USA! They are held to extremely high standards by virtue of taking the oath and wearing the uniform.
I have been rather polite in scathing your comments. Hope you got thick asbestos, cause some here are gonna roast-your-post!
She's 22 now. How long was she even in the guard and how much of that time was spent with the guard being trained? She had to be 20 when this happened and I'd guess the time she spend being trained and actually with the guard is in units of weeks if not days. It's certainly not years.
The guard put this pvt in a Lord of the Flies sit and expected her to do what? The Army now is holding her accountable for mistreating prisoners? I don't see that. What I see is that she was following the lead of her superiors. Had she different and honorable superiors, she wouldn't be in this sit. She would in fact have gone through her time and have been granted an honorable discharge.
Pvts don't run the military and she wasn't killing, or even torturing prisoners. She was not trained and led, she was put in a Lord of the Flies type situation and abandoned. Her superiors used that Lord of the Flies situation to their advantage and left this private out to hang.
That doesn't address my statement at all. I never said she was in charge of the army...I said she was in charge of HER actions.
She was not trained and led, she was put in a Lord of the Flies type situation and abandoned. Her superiors used that Lord of the Flies situation to their advantage and left this private out to hang.
Nor did I say that she alone was guilty. Clearly those involved with her as well as those in charge of the facility (and quite possibly higher as well) also retain responsibility for the events as well...but that does not exonerate her for her participation in the least.
When I was in the army we were taught about legal and illegal orders...I would speculate that such a class still remains as part of basic training...so contrary to your claim, the following the orders or lead of others is simply not an acceptable defense. Was the situation ugly, sure was, does that make her innocent...it sure does not.
Where did I say the NG was inferior? I'm only saying these units were never designed to be deployed on a long-term basis! One of my best friends from college just finished up his command of an NG brigade in Bossier City, LA. I have nothing but respect for anybody who wears the uniform, but I stand by my contention that Karpinski never would have worn stars had she stayed on active duty.
You are being a mite over the top with this statement: NG and USCG are the reason that we do not have active-duty military occupation in the USA! IMO, it is because our oath of office states that we will "support and defend the Constitution of the United States." Last time I checked, the oath to the Constitution is the same for active and reserve/NG.
I can't relate to the NG experience, because I don't have any. I was drawing upon my experiences, albeit long ago, as one who served on active duty for eight years in a combat arms branch. Additionally, the officer who replaced me in Germany, one of the finest officers and gentlemen I have ever known, came from NG duty in NM, and gave me a great deal of insight.
I apologize for offending you. It's a good thing I kept my Nomex shirts from my two summers as a firefighter during college!
Yes, criminal behavior on all their parts. I just know the brass will walk.
We dont' need this kind of behavior in our military. There's always a few bad apples that spoil the rest.
Try to be adult about your post, huh? It was not a question in the true sense. It was in regard to who else is being punished or not being punished.
She joined out of H.S. ... are you certain about the current age, I thought she was a lot older than 22--she certainly looks it.
The leadership was negligent in its duties, that's what they did wrong. They neither authorized nor condoned this behavior. They were just incompetent and oblivious to what was going on. The actual deeds were done by Graner, England and others.
No, England deserves time. Being ignorant didn't excuse a NAZI from hanging, it shouldn't excuse her either. Her actions were premeditated, malicious, and hurt people. You don’t need any policy letter to tell you that “TORTURE” is wrong. You learn that in Kindergarten. “I didn’t know I was doing wrong” and “feel sorry for me” is no viable defense in her case. While her actions are far over exaggerated in the media (Some of the things done were "frat house" activities), she none the less acted outside of any Army regulation, training, command guidance, or any thing else. It’s on her! She pays.
The Reserves-National Guard are there to use. We pay them, equip them, give them the honor and privileges of being in the “Armed Forces” of America. Now it’s pay day and some don’t like it? The NG is not there as a supplemental retirement program. It’s there to augment the “Armed Forces” of the US. You’re right in that the Cold War is over. Today we need a flexible DoD that can SURGE to enormous size when necessary. What we don’t want is huge defense spending on capabilities we don’t need the rest of the 99% of the time. Already today the force requirements in Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia are lower than in 2003. Iraq alone has fallen from 330,000 to 130,000 today. Korea is reduced by one BDE and the Haiti/Liberia missions are over. Even the Homeland security mission is rolled back since 01. You don’t make sense to me. Tell me, why do we have a RESERVES and a NATIONAL GUARD?
Red6
Well, dammit, I do condone it. Condone in the sense of, " excuse, make allowances for, be lenient with." Sure, she disgraced the uniform and she caused this country no end of difficulty and set back the war effort...
But come on folks, Slick, as Commander in Chief did far worse, and for selfish reasons, but received no punishment at the hands of the Senate. While one such failure of justice certainly does not excuse another in a legal sense, it most certainly sets the cultural context against which moralizing on this thread must be considered. Moreover, it sets a standard against which punishment should be consistently administered.
Finally, where is the mens rea here? Was she trying to break these prisoners to aid her country or merely indulging in prurience? Should a mere foot soldier be held to a stricter accounting for her peccadilloes than the Commander in Chief? How many years incarceration is this indulgence in execrable taste worth? Did she physically harm any prisoner? Did she try to fix a court case, commit perjury, suborn perjury, or hide evidence?
As between the foot soldier and the most powerful man in the world, who had the white heart and the empty head? Who abused his position of power in pursuit of his own lusts and cynically manipulated the system, the truth, the reputations of innocents, the national spirit, the press, the law, and the good will of the American people to escape the just consequences of his crimes?
Let the punishment fit the crime, but let the criminal be punished consistently. Let us not endorse the hysteria of The New York Times in manipulating this declension into a human rights violation worthy of Nuremberg. Abu Ga-rib was a damn stupid, senseless, product of indiscipline but not malum in se, that is, not intrinsically evil, and certainly not worth the over the top coverage ginned up by the Times. Let us not validate the Times' exploitation of this pathetic frat stunt with an equally disproportionate reaction.
I hope she's breaking rocks for 20 years. She and her idiot friends are a disgrace to the uniform.
No offense taken. It appears that we are stating the same positions with respect to NG and USCG being under the same oath.
Oh, by the way I am a Mothers Son.
Fine, since you're speculating. How much time do you think this guard pvt spent in this training? How much time do think they spent going over the GCs?
You apparently equate this mistreatment of the prisoners with some kind of serious violation of the GCs and the fact that the violations ARE self evident. They are not. The fact is that general common practice was to have the prisoners naked. The rest requires thought and judgement. Pvts aren't their to think and judge, especially in this kind of fog. They're there to do and follow the leadership.
Your arguement would be worth something if this was about theft, torture, or some other sort of clear criminal action. Instead you are arguing to hold someone that's ignorant and less than sharp with a complicated BS moral crime.
This pvt got a raw deal from the guard that put her in the Lord of the Flies sit and is punishing her for what I would expect to happen. I really think a tally should be taken and all those that support this travesty should get 10 years for moral bankrupcy and pure viciousness.
Oops! Sorry about that! Mistakes like that tend to occur when work gets in the way of Freeping! ;^)
The diatribe posted is recognized. It cannot in good conscience be responded to or refuted.
That others have disgraced the uniform, failed as leaders, and dishonored the principle that they swore to uphold; does not excuse this.
Why not just cut her head off, put it on a side show travelling through the desert and proclaim, "AMERICA IS JUST!" ?
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