From The Wall Street Journal, an opinion article by Dorothy Rabinowitz
.... When the news of those pictures became public in April, Pfc. [Lynndie] England had an explanation: She had been following orders from higher-ups, had been told, like others in her company, that she and the others were doing a good job, and to keep doing what they were doing with the prisoners. In her sworn statement, she described making a detainee run and crawl down a hall for hours at a time while she had a belt around his neck, and how her fellow MPs also kicked and punched prisoners. Who the higher-ups were who had approved the group's treatment of prisoners she could not say.
This was a decidedly different explanation from the one she initially gave, according to the Army investigator who first confronted her with the photographs. Months before those were made public, investigator Paul Arthur testified at the recent Article 32 hearing, Pfc. England had told him that the photos of her humiliating the naked prisoners had been taken just in order to have some fun -- just some fooling around while on the night shift. There was no mention of orders from higher-ups. The just-following-orders defense would come later -- the explanation offered not only by Lynndie England but most of the other six members of the 372nd Military Police Company facing serious prison if convicted.
It was a defense instantly embraced by every antiwar, anti-administration organ in the nation. .... Others, too, took the position that innocent soldiers were being made to pay the price for doing the bidding of powerful superiors who had directed them to commit the acts. ... |