Three women

A naked detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison is tethered by a leash to prison guard Army Pvt Lynndie England (Radio Free USA)

Hillary Clinton, Janis Karpinski and Lynndie England. Three American women who wanted to make something of themselves. Now they are thrust -- in Hillary's case, one might better say self-propelled -- into the international spotlight, major players in the winner-takes-all Hearts-and-Minds™ game.

Hillary speaks for herself. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, she is in a position to make things very uncomfortable for George W. Bush through his surrogate, now on the hotseat, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Army Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski "sees herself as making way for women to get to the top in the US Army," said a colleague of the woman formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib prison, suspended from duty and expected to be charged, reports a Radio Free USA article:

But many of her soldiers said she had been promoted beyond her ability because she was a woman.

She was out of her depth and on a mission to raise her own profile. Now, she ll be forced to quit.

Equally out of her depth, according to the Radio Free USA article, was the young woman at the opposite end of the chain of command -- "the petite brunette with a cigarette hanging from her lips" posing in one picture with a naked Iraqi detainee on a leash:

Army Pvt Lynndie England, 21, a rail worker's daughter, comes from a trailer park in Fort Ashby, West Virginia, which locals proudly call "a backwoods world".

She faces a court martial, but at home she is toasted as a hero.

"A lot of people here think they ought to just blow up the whole of Iraq," Colleen Kesner said.

"To the country boys here, if you're a different nationality, a different race, you're sub-human. That's the way girls like Lynndie are raised.

"Tormenting Iraqis, in her mind, would be no different from shooting a turkey. Every season here you're hunting something. Over there, they're hunting Iraqis."

Like many, England signed up to make money and see the world.

We are, of course, reminded (You always are -- ed) of our recent post citing George Neumayr's American Spectator challenge to the woman that would be king:

Hillary Clinton can at least explain to her fellow members of the Armed Services Committee the pressing military importance of unisex policing in Muslim countries.

Comments

[CJ]

Excuse me for my politically incorrect response beforehand. They call this abuse??(referring to the picture)....................... I consider it foreplay! A little levity never hurt!

[Sissy Willis]

Not my cup of tea, CJ.

[John Anderson]

Another woman in some photos says they got training before going overseas, but it was combat training, not police-work training.

Gee, could that be because MP's might be expected to have already been trained for police work, but maybe not for combat?

[Anthony A. McClure]

To the gentlemen speculating that MP are trained for police work and not combat. Army MP are trained in 5 combat support roles: Movement and Mobility Support Operations, Area Security, Internment and Ressetlement Operations, Police Intelligence Operations and then, Law Enforcement. MP are well trained for combat. Many soldiers, who actually know what MP do, refer to them as glorified infantry b/c MP are right their, chewing the same dirt w/the grunts. It's a shame that PFC Lynndie England is constantly referred to as "that MP". If this were a soldier of any other military occupational specialty, she would just be referred to as "a solidier". The incidents involving PFC England have not only disgraced America and the US Army, but have especially impacted the US Army's Military Police Corps.