Northern Valley Beacon
Information, observations, and analysis from the James River valley on the Northern Plains----- E-Mail: Enter 'Beacon' in subject box. Send to: Minnekota@Referencedesk.orgThursday, September 22, 2005
Somewhere in Texas, a lowly Pfc. is taking the fall for you
A lost soul is taking the fall for a failure that implicates the entire country. (The 21st century version of Billy Budd is being written.)
While we fuss and fume over Katrina for exposing the fact that we are not as nice, as intelligent, and as competent as we told ourselves we were, another occasion for shame is taking force. It has nothing to do with Rita. It has to do with Lynndie.
Pfc. Lynndie England is being court-martialed at Ft. Hood for her part in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. She is being made a scape goat for a incident of incompetence that is the responsibility of a whole chain of command.
Yeah, we know. Six enlisted soldiers have plead guilty to prisoner abuse. Two have been court-martialed. And the general in charge was demoted to colonel. Something is being done. What is being done is making a whole bunch of low-level soldiers the scape goats for ranking personnel who were not doing their jobs.
Pfc. Lynndie England should be added to John Kerry's litany of Bush administration disasters:
Brownie is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq, what George Tenet is to slam-dunk intelligence, what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad, what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy, what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning, what Tom DeLay is to ethics and what George Bush is to 'Mission Accomplished' .
While we fuss and fume over Katrina for exposing the fact that we are not as nice, as intelligent, and as competent as we told ourselves we were, another occasion for shame is taking force. It has nothing to do with Rita. It has to do with Lynndie.
Pfc. Lynndie England is being court-martialed at Ft. Hood for her part in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. She is being made a scape goat for a incident of incompetence that is the responsibility of a whole chain of command.
Yeah, we know. Six enlisted soldiers have plead guilty to prisoner abuse. Two have been court-martialed. And the general in charge was demoted to colonel. Something is being done. What is being done is making a whole bunch of low-level soldiers the scape goats for ranking personnel who were not doing their jobs.
Pfc. Lynndie England should be added to John Kerry's litany of Bush administration disasters:
Brownie is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq, what George Tenet is to slam-dunk intelligence, what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad, what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy, what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning, what Tom DeLay is to ethics and what George Bush is to 'Mission Accomplished' .
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