Mary Riddell (London Observer): A new monster-in-chief

[Jack Rabbit]

From the London Observer (Sunday supplement of the Guardian Unlimited)
Dated Sunday May 9

A new monster-in-chief
Lynndie England's snapshots have provided the latest hate figure to help obscure the bigger picture
By Mary Riddell

Private Lynndie R. England, trailing an Iraqi prisoner on the end of her dog leash, is the most loathed woman in the world. Cigarette in mouth, finger stabbing towards the genitals of naked victims, she is, according to one newspaper, 'the trailer trash torturer who shames the US'. Queens of violence, from Penthesilea of the Amazons to Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, can attract awe, but Lynndie is no upmarket she-devil. Instead, the response to the Abu Ghraib pictures sandwiches her somewhere between Myra Hindley and Maxine Carr in an all-women axis of evil.
England reminds me a little of Carr. Same childish physique, same small town background, same terrible taste in men. Though England's lover and co-abuser, Charles Graner, is hardly Ian Huntley, there is not much to commend a grinning torturer with a Bible fetish and an alleged history of wife-beating. Like Carr, England is a bit-player who came to symbolise a wider horror story. Back home, family and friends are trying to work out how a 'sweet, down-to-earth' paper-pusher who wanted to be a weather girl turned into a preening sexual predator.
By coincidence, Fort Ashby, a one-traffic light town in West Virginia, is also home to Private Jessica Lynch, the all-American heroine of the Iraq war until it turned out that her 'rescue' from hospital was a stunt spun by the army. England, who is pregnant and held in North Carolina, is unlikely to have her reputation similarly downgraded. Now facing charges of assault, she heads the female cast list of a ghastly parody of the TV prison drama Bad Girls . . . .
Amid the outrage inspired by such scenes, it is worth remembering that fury is selective. While uncharged suspects going slowly mad in Guantanamo or Belmarsh are not to be compared to Private England's trophy heap of naked men, human rights are not always an obsession in Britain or the United States.

Read more.

[Stuckinthebush]

1. Someone give me the background of Maxine Carr

I have no idea who this is.

[RC]

2. google is your friend

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Maxine+Carr&btnG=Google+Search

[Stuckinthebush]

4. Too lazy to google

Have a beer in hand - surfing DU - figured that a nice British citizen would fill me in.

Back to beer.....

[Jack Rabbit]

3. She is a figure in a British murder case

She was accused of assisting her boyfriend, Ian Huntley, attempt to thwart the investigation of the murders of two schoolgirls.

Here's some background on that case from the BBC.

[Stuckinthebush]

5. Thanks JR...

I appreciate the info.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. The article is written for a British audience

An American writer might have used Lizzie Borden in the same context, or perhaps one of Charlie Manson's friends.

[BlueStateGirl]

7. Just one factual error. Jessica Lynch is not from Ft. Ashby.

She's from Palestine, West Virginia.