- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
I have the same intellectual/emotional reaction to Graner's situation as I have to the death penalty: I will always vote against capital punishment, but I lose not a moment's sleep when I read about a particularly vicious killer being executed.
Graner is one of those knee-jerk patriots whom I often encountered duirng my years in the trenches fighting Reagan's war against the peasants of Nicaragua. Had Graner met me or any of my friends protesting outside federal buildings, he would have accused us of being Soviet stooges and urged us to "move to Russia" if we "didn't like it here."
The fact is that Graner reveled in every second of his abuse of the Iraqi prisoners. Why did not Mark Benjamin even mention Joe Darby, whose conscience led him to expose the abuse? There is no indication in Graner's letters to his parents, which included the photos, that he expressed the slightest moral qualm about what he was allegedly "told" to do. Nor is there any indication that his parents were concerned that their son might be acting illegally and immorally, even if supposedly "under orders."
So Graner and his family are somehow surprised that the higher-ups get off scott-free and the lower ranks take the heat? Duh!! Generations of American peace activists have fought against this corrupt system, and and it is a certainty that Graner and his good old dad, "Red," held those activists in absolute contempt.
The proper solution to Graner's problem is not to release him, but to put Rumsfeld, Bush, and the spooks in the cell with him. (Condolezza Rice goes to the women's floor.) That won't happen, but neither will I lose any sleep over the injustice of it all.
