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Monday, December 1, 2008 12:00 AM

Sympathy for Charles Graner

No one from the Bush administration has been held accountable for torture. But the guard from Abu Ghraib prison is still behind bars, and his family wants to know why.

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  • Monday, December 1, 2008 10:14 AM

    Elephant's straw hut of self-righteousness

    Here's the hut:

    "No end, and no apparent limit, to the bashing of Cheney and Rumsfeld. Still, no word from Mark Benjamin, supporting his allegation...

    that there had been "orders" regarding torture/abuse.

    The quote, from Mark Benjamin, that I have challenged: "Years of revelations, however, show that the prisoner abuse started at the top, yet nobody who ordered the abuse has ever been tried or convicted of anything."

    OK, Elephant, you're right. Not one of the convicted soldiers claimed to have been directly ordered to do each specific action of prisoner torture. But now that you're done with that pin-sized strawman, do you really think that from Rumsfeld on down that this entire "policy" wasn't wink-winked into existence by those in positions of authority who knew they weren't legally culpable if it ever came out. And yet they were still encouraging of said policy. Sometimes encouragement is all the mouth-breathers of the world need (just look at the majority of "eye-for-an-eyer"s on this thread), and the higher ups knew it.

    The fact that Graner (and others) had a pre-determined predilection to cruelty apparently didn't raise any red flags in the military system. And why should it. They're not exactly the best and brightest anymore, are they? They're more likely to be the last-best-hope'rs or the its-either-this-or-jail'ers. None with a lick of college or any real critical thinking skills to speak of. No wonder no one needed to issue formal "orders".

    So the question is: At what point do you start doing your Nicholson "You can't handle the truth" routine so we can chuckle knowingly to ourselves thinking "Sure, it's us who can't handle the truth".

    I'm surprised you even have the temerity to stick your nose into these parts anymore, seeing how completely wrong you've been about almost everything. Just add one more thing to the list, I guess.

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