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• Monday, December 1, 2008 11:16 AM

  On the question of Graner's family abuse

  Maureen O'Connell (Jeezus, is she back?! ugh) raised the issue of Graner abusing his first wife and kids. Let's be clear about this. Neither I nor anyone else here can say whether that's true or not. Probably it is (where there's smoke there's usually fire), but as far as I can tell he was never convicted of that in a court of law. If there was strong evidence that he was battering her and the kids, why was he not prosecuted for it? Accusations of abuse are sometimes used as weapons in nasty divorce and custody proceedings, and the fact that she was awarded a restraining order proves little, as they're usually not that difficult to obtain and have a far lower burden of proof than even a civil lawsuit judgment requires. Some might argue that these accusations fit a pattern, given what he was convicted of doing at Abu Ghraib, but that's a real stretch. Unproven accusations that he smacked around his wife and kids are not even in the same ballpark as is documented evidence that he participated in the torture of adult male members of a dehumanized, foreign enemy who were in custody precisely because they were accused or suspected of engaging in terrorist acts or attacks on US forces after the invasion settled into an occupation. We're talking apples and oranges here, and there's no conclusive evidence that justifies linking the one to the other, or claiming that the one definitively proves the other. To make that argument is to engage in mere speculation with a desire to pile on and trash the character and reputation of a man who's already been thoroughly vilified.

  —Confucius Always Say Read Confucius Always Say's other letters
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