…come in for some criticism for that column The Corner linked to yesterday suggesting that sexual tension among the mixed-gender soldiers at Abu Ghraib may have contributed to the atmosphere of indiscipline there. But this argument is lent more plausibility by the reporting in recent days. Consider Pfc. Lynndie England, who is famous for holding the leash over the naked Iraqi detainee. Well, it turns out she wasn’t supposed to be mixing with detainees at all, but ended up doing so in visits she paid to her boyfriend. This is how the New York Post reported it today: “There, the young reservist was not supposed to oversee detainees, her family claims. Her role was to process and fingerprint Iraqis.
She would regularly visit her fellow reservists assigned elsewhere in the prison, including her boyfriend, Spc. Charles Graner, 35, one of six reservists from the Maryland-based unit now facing court-martial.
Army officials confirmed yesterday that she is pregnant. The baby is known to be Graner’s child.
’She was trained as an administrator – a paper pusher,’ her father, Kenneth England, told The Baltimore Sun. ‘At night, she would . . . see her buddies. They were the ones doing the interrogations.’”
Also consider the other news item of the last 24 hours (mentioned in The Corner yesterday): “One of the disciplined soldiers is a company commander, Capt. Leo V. Merck, 32, who is in trouble for another digital snapshot taken after the prison incidents. He was relieved of command and faces a court martial after a female U.S. soldier accused him of taking digital pictures of her while she was showering. Capt. Merck, a National Guard reservist, stored the incriminating photos on an Army computer, Gen. Taguba’s report says.”