Stephen Vincent wrote:
>I suspect the Pentagon will use this story to propel their contention that
>the Abu Graib torture was indeed perpetrated by low ranking soldiers and a
>female general with a shoplifting record.
>In terms of the story - when it fits somebody's purposes - the Military
>obviously - unlike with gay soldiers - has a "do tell" policy. I wonder how
>this story may or may not change the recruiting crisis in the military. Any
>lonely kid in America can join the military and imagine live in his/her own
>Peyton Place. Definitely great "trash fiction"!
>
>S
>
>
No argument, exactly. It's as though the Services are going out and
enlisting misfits. Much attention was focused on Lynndie England--there
is a bulletin board somewhere that conglomerates all the Trailer Park
White Trash jokes in one place. They're not funny. Graner fell under
the radar even though he drew a 10-year sentence and apparently was the
ringleader of this mayhem festival. You can't put him in front of a
firing squad for what he APPEARS to have induced England to do (I
sometimes wonder whether the Times doesn't "do a half-Murdoch" to get
readers interested)--but if he suborned a young woman who was smitten
with him (God knows why, given his history as an abuser), as much as I
hate to admit the military got it right, the court martial behaved
justifiably. England, because she's a woman and who we SOMEHOW found
out was not above "putting out," got the brunt of the attention.
Graner's turn is long overdue.
I am stuck with the sad image of Lynndie England, a mother looking
raptly at her baby son. Was the Liberal Press trying to manipulate my
emotions? They succeeded anyway. What an awful start in life for that
little boy. Maybe when he's old enough and as messed up as his parents
because they spent the first years of his life in a stockade, the Army
will take him for the next part of the Exit Strategy.
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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