Should Lyndie England be released from jail?

[lies and propaganda]

I think what she did is shit too.. absolutely awful.
But why should the assholes following orders have to be imprisoned for something they were told to do by men who are living rich in their gated communities in Dallas?

[mucifer]

1. good point.

[Hubert Flottz]

2. A good girl gone bad!

Well, in the spirit of "Don't Look Back" I don't think anyone should be in jail anymore.

[RB TexLa]

3. Judging from what I've seen of her, keeping her there would just save the police

and courts time from having to put her in jail again later.

[lies and propaganda]

5. she was certainly awful.. without a doubt

but I was in the AF, i understand something about following rules you dont want to out of fear of persecution, but the precedent being set of 'bring to justice the bad apples but not the spoiled rotten fucking tree they come from is nuts to me..

[snappyturtle]

11. Last weekend on the Starz network I watched 'Standard Operating Procedure" which

is a documentary on torture. Lindy was interviewed. What I saw was a sad girl who was swept up into an awful mess. She showed a photo of herself standing over a pyramid of naked men...you know the one that was on every news outlet at the time the photos came out. Interestingly, she had the entire photo that showed another woman with her who had been conveniently cropped out. Lindy was the bottom of the bottom feeders who obviously didn't have the sense God gave a goose. To think she on her own has the IQ to formulate a crime doesn't fit with what I saw and heard. She probably hasn't had a decent chance at life since the day she was born.imho

[Smith_3]

4. Better question: Should anyone be in jail at all?

[lies and propaganda]

BushCo.. yes

In my eyes, what they did is why jails exist. Not for potheads and kids that steal candy bars, real shit like torturing to death at least 27 men and killing how many for our farce wars?

[sarcasmo]

20. All people arrested for Marijuana "crimes" should be released before that Woman.

[Democracyinkind]

6. I don't get how what she did was a crime when the same thing done at other places

isn't illegal. But maybe it is because that happened within our "regular armed forces" . I don't know. Good point though.

[lies and propaganda]

8. Exactly. If it was jail worthy for the 'bad apple.'

then it should be worthy of a public trial for those who ordered it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

12. Her crime was getting caught on film.

Her imprisonment was necessary to protect the "support the troops" gang. Think of it a trickle down support.

[Democracyinkind]

17. All the more reason to FULLY PROSECUTE NOW.

[DinahMoeHum]

7. "If you are doomed to eat shit, you may as well bring your own fork"

- Joe Bageant
Mash Note For The Girl With The Leash

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2004/06/mash_note_for_t.html

[Solly Mack]

9. She's been out

But I get what you're saying

[lies and propaganda]

14. Wow.. youre Right, I was unaware

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England

She served 521 days of her sentence. and received a Dishonorable Discharge which will haunt her for life.

[Aristus]

24. Haunt her for the rest of her life? You mean she won't be able to get a job at a Wal-Mart

in whatever squalid corner of West Virginia she ends up in?

:nopity:

If she had disobeyed that unlawful order (as the Army used to teach and encourage), she might have gotten a dishonorable discharge anyway, but she would have had a media full-court press in which to tell her side of the story, plus a book deal, plus a favorable TV-movie, and Susan Boyle-levels of public admiration for doing the right thing in the face of harassment and intimidation. She could have become a regular featured guest speaker on the Rachel Maddow Show the way the chairman of the Iraq Vets organization is. President Obama might have given her a Presidential Medal of Freedom. All that, if only she had done what was right instead of what was easy. Plus, it looked like she was having fun in those photos, so to Hell with her...

[lies and propaganda]

25. Im only attesting to what a DD can do to anyone..

doesnt matter who you are or why you got it, you will not be able to get a good (or even less shitty) job with one. And then there is houses and cars, etc..

I have a General Under Honorable Conditions Discharge that was almost a Bad Conduct Discharge for the AF, i know all about the ramifications of this.

So, yeah.. wasnt really speaking about her specifically, more like any soldier who had their career ruined for following orders, disgusting as they may be.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

16. Yet Charles Graner still rots in jail.

Notice the quote from the prosecutors re: not following illegal orders as an excuse.

Ah, what a difference 10 levels of pay grade make!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Graner
White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales had issued a memo which defined torture very narrowly as "intentionally causing permanent damage to vital organs or permanent emotional trauma".<33> This would have excluded Graner's acts of intimidation. However the prosecution argued that even if he was following orders from senior officers, he should have known that the orders were illegal.<34>


Verdict
On January 16, Graner was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, a dishonorable discharge, and the loss of all benefits.<35>.

Defense lawyer Guy Womack contended that Graner and the six other Abu Ghraib guards charged with abuses were being scapegoated.<35> For example, the Washington Post reported in 2004 that a stress position known as a "Palestinian hanging", where a prisoner is suspended by their hands behind their back, was approved by the Bush administration for use in CIA interrogations (termed an "enhanced interrogation technique" by the CIA).<36>

Graner's mother, Irma Graner said, "You know it's the higher-ups that should be on trial... they let the little guys take the fall for them. But the truth will come out eventually."<37>

[lies and propaganda]

19. all the difference in the world!

the Illegal Order Givers should be in there.

[LynneSin]

10. I've said this before and I'll say it again - you have to punish the policy makers

Lyndie England will live the rest of her life in shame and embarassment for what she has done. But keeping her in jail will NOT change anything. She's a soldier and she lives by the 'Chain of Command'

Go after the big guns. Jailing England just means another one will fill her shoes and do the same thing.

[snappyturtle]

13. Amen. nt

[Democracyinkind]

15. I think we should punish both. No soldier is worth his salt when he accepts the order to torture.

We didn't prosecute the people who legalized torture and mayhem in Nürnberg. ( We prosecuted the "big shots" who were involved, but we didn't prosecute the authors of the legal opinions, the enablers.)

We did prosecute the SS KZ guards.

I don't think a soldier who is willing to follow any order is qualified to be a soldier. "just following orders" is the lamest of excuses. With that, you could excuse and decriminalize about everything.

They both belong to jail. There's no merrit in jailing just one side.

[90-percent]

18. Lyndie

I use her prosecution all the time when I want to make a point about our dual justice system.

She did the time so Bush and Cheney DON'T HAVE TO!

If you're a "little person", it's off to jail for you for 'just following orders'.

If you're an elite, you can effectively do the same thing on a massive scale and end up with a Congressional Medal of Freedom!

We seem to be a Nation of unjust, selectively enforced laws these days!

Frank Zappa discussed 'mass criminalization' a long time ago. Basically, there are so many laws that at any given time we are all breaking some law somewhere. (think of driving completely legally all the time - you'd get run off the road!)

So if the elites don't like somebody, they can prosecute them for breaking the same goddamned laws we all break while we live our lives.

Nice system we got here, huh?

-90% jimmy

my recent rant about this very subject, on another thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5502717&mesg_id=5503214

[rcrush]

21. Scapegoat Fall Guy Sacrificial Lamb

They are great! Just keep throwing these scapegoats into jail while we just get different people to do it next time. Its the circle of life.

[Booster]

22. IMO, if the AG decides that what she was told to do wasn't a

crime, then I don't understand how the people who carried out the orders can be held. Just common sense. And Janet Karpinski (sp?) should be given back her rank.

[Bluenorthwest]

23. On the basis that prosecution of crimes in the past

is 'looking backward' I can not see how they can keep anyone in jail. Free them all. Manson, all of them. All crime is in the past, therefore it is just a lust for vengence, there is no such thing as justice, and the prisons should be emptied now. The past is the past, right?
If they are not going to prosecute those who ordered them to do this, clearly all the lower ranking people should be openly pardoned by Obama, by name and in public, with full photo evidence of the actions he is forgiving.

[MasonJar]

26. Release her unless Cheney and Rummy and Bush are tried also.