Comments on: Everyone Knows It’s Lynndie

By: Underlankers

Underlankers — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:25:13 +0000

Absolutely. To scapegoat lower ranks while leaving the higher ranks who issue such orders intact solves not one thing. All that does is intimidate any future would-be whistleblowers who might have the desire to speak in the future and leaves room for more such orders and future catastrophes.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:11:06 +0000

Underlankers :
You are also right that it’s one thing to speak of that as armchair ethics and another to actually be in the situation itself. I wonder how much of this is simply scapegoating England herself as a woman because theoretically women should be much more….domestic I guess you’d say than this.

Nail head? Meet hammer. I had a helluva time explaining the Lynndie England "following orders" thing to an extreme feminist on Usenet. As far as she was concerned, Lynndie England had put lie to the contention that men are all barbaric rapists and women are all dove-like angels blessed by Earth Mother. And as a consequence, this feminist decided that Lynndie England must be crucified - even if it meant letting the truly responsible parties off the hook! I found this attitude baffling and I warned her that crucifying Lynndie while ignoring the CIA and the administration was a recipe for continual disaster. I was right. She was wrong. And on and on it goes...

By: Underlankers

Underlankers — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:59:00 +0000

Now on that I will fully agree with you. It reminds me of how De-Nazification ended up executing most of the SS hatchetmen but let a lot of army generals who themselves created atrocities die of ripe old age escaping any real consequence.

You are also right that it’s one thing to speak of that as armchair ethics and another to actually be in the situation itself. I wonder how much of this is simply scapegoating England herself as a woman because theoretically women should be much more….domestic I guess you’d say than this.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:52:54 +0000

I agree with your comments. In writing about the “we’re all stewards of ethical behavior” argument I was trying to head off the millions of people who condemned Lynndie England to the exclusion of her superiors. They argue that Lynndie should have said “no” and refused what amounted to an “unlawful order”. What these stewards of ethical behavior don’t realize is that standing on ceremony in the US Army during wartime is a very dangerous thing to do. Armchair ethics are easy. Battlefield ethics are much, much harder.

By: Underlankers

Underlankers — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:31:43 +0000

I would disagree with the notion that anyone in the Soviet Union would have been able to oppose Josef Stalin on the Gulag and live to tell about it. The man destroyed the Communist Party and the entire Soviet military hierarchy, and this with Hitler’s dictatorship in the West preaching the virtues of destruction of the USSR. In any case the old Soviet Union didn’t care much about PR or the virtues of same.

I think the better comparison is with say, the Nazi Empire. When Hitler gave orders for widespread mass murder by military forces in the East lots of German generals and some of the lower ranks protested. Did not one whit of good and Hitler sacked some of them and replaced them with the likes of General Jodl, who unleashed widespread terror after Barbarossa.

And of course there was never a Rosenstrasse Protest under Stalin……