A Judge and Jury of Your Peers
I’m disappointed that Lynndie England has had her guilty plea thrown out and a mistrial declared. Her plea sounds like the only bit of honesty to come out of the Abu Ghraib abuses. “You can’t have a one-person conspiracy,” the judge declared, but you can if the other parties involved aren’t admitting their guilt, and despite his testimony, England’s erstwhile boyfriend, Charles Graner was convicted. His excuses, that the photos were for “legitimate training purposes” and that the leash in the photos “slipped” from the prisoner’s shoulder to around his neck, are obvious and stupid lies and weren’t believed in his own trial. England’s admission to wrongdoing isn’t contingent on anyone else admitting to their own. To declare a mistrial is a miscarriage of justice. Colonel Pohl is not worthy of his post. We can only hope that Lieutenant General Metz will do the right thing.