When I heard on the radio this week that Stern-Magazin was going to publish an interview with Lynndie England in which she tells Stern everything about Abu Ghraib she did not want to tell the US media, I decided not to buy it, because I knew it would spoil my day if I did so.
But today I read it online, and I am disgusted. The key sentence of the interview is probably this one:
Do you feel sorry looking back now?
To be honest, the whole time I never really felt guilty because I was following orders and I was doing what I was supposed to do. So I’ve never felt guilty about doing anything that I did there.
Wow! No individual responsibility, but instead an obscure “why blame me, if I can blame others”-strategy? Sorry, I do not buy it.
I prefer reading what one of my favourite blogs “Shield of Achilles” has to say about it (thank you John, you really made my day!):
Lynndie England, the US Army reservist who became infamous from her poses in the Abu Gharaib photographs, is currently out on parole. She just gave an interview to Stern magazine.
She claimed: “I really do still think that Rumsfeld knew what was going on”, based on a single one-day visit the former Secretary of Defense made to the prison in 2004. She also blamed the media for the scandal (I partially agree), and made all sorts of nonsensical excuses for what happened, claiming that prisoners were put in pyramids to “control them”, and they were only naked because they were about to change into prison uniforms (no word on whether the dog leash was part of the uniform).
However, the Stern interviewers seemed equally clueless, trying to push her buttons so they can get some sensational quote, and asking ridiculous questions like: “did you do any water boarding?”
This statement galled me:
“How can they say that [these soldiers were "bad apples"] when it was happening all over Iraq. The same thing is happening in Guantanamo now and other places. We knew that our officers knew about it and our sergeants. We thought if they know then somebody else knows.”No Lynndie, it was NOT happening all over Iraq, or even in Guantanamo Bay. Crap like that didn’t happen in my unit, or in the unit of anyone that I know.
When pressed by the interviewer, she tried to take a small amount of responsibility:
“Okay, I do take responsibility. I was dumb enough to do all that. And to think that it was okay because of the other officers and the orders that were coming down. But when you’re in the military you automatically do what they say. It’s always, “Yes Sir, No Sir.” You don’t question it. And now they’re saying, “Well, you should have questioned it.”No, Lynndie, any time you are given an illegal order, you DO question it. In fact, you are required to question it. You went to basic training just like I did. You were taught that as well as me.