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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Graner belongs in prison for his heinous crimes. Officials at the top, all the way to the top, should be prosecuted and when they are found guilty, their sentence should be comparable, in terms of time, as that imposed on Graner.
That being said, if our culture wants to stake a claim on justice, it needs to look at its reflection in every possible light, including the manner in which persons convicted of civil criminal law or military criminal law are treated while in prison. Graner's crimes do not justify mental torture. He may well deserve it, but we must demand of ourselves the highest moral and ethical ground - by leaps and bounds, and not by mere inches, in order to stand behind prosecutions of soldiers, officers and public officials who engage in war crimes.
No sympathy from me, thanks! Let's wait and see if Obama has the balls to get someone else held accountable, but Graner is exactly where he deserves to be.
Here's a notable quote from Charles Graner: "The Christian in me knows it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me loves to make a grown man piss himself." He enjoyed doing what he did. He gets no sympathy from me.
"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."
That's it, that's all the proof we get? How can anyone take this article seriously. It's just another slash piece on "The Bush Administration". All this innuendo and hyperbole is getting tedious and tiresome. Exactly who "at the top" "ordered" this abuse. PROVE IT!
PS I have no sympathy for Charles Graner.
I cannot help but roll my eyes at the fact that Graner would call what he has gone through "torture." I wonder if he sees the irony. Given that he was tried and convicted of actual and specific crimes, while many at Abu Ghraib are being held without charges makes it hard for me to feel much sympathy. Pictures of kids and Santa don't make him any less culpable for his actions. I suspect that some of the folks who are literally losing their minds after over a half a decade of being held without charges have children too. And maybe some even have their own pictures as Santa Claus.
Should Graner be the only one sitting in a jail cell for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib? No. But the "everyone on the road is going 80 mph officer, why did you single me out?" defense shouldn't work for Graner any more that it does for the guy who gets busted and ticketed for speeding. And “I was just following orders” should be no more a defense now than it was when we condemned it in WWII.
Maybe the fact that someone like Graner can get caught, tried, convicted and imprisoned while the folks who carry out the orders will make folks in his position (those who actually have to do the dirty work) think a little bit harder before engaging in actions they know (or certainly should know) violate the law and simple human decency.
My son just got home from a 15 month stint in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne. If he had done even one of the things that monster Graner did...I would blame my upbringing of him. He's getting exactly what he deserved. Hopefully Rummy and company will find themselves sitting in a courtroom also. Didn't anyone teach this monster compassion for others??? And we wonder why the Middle East hates us. Hah!
and Lynndie England served only about a year and a half in prison.
Both should have been thrown into prison for life.
What does that tell us? That Bush43, Cheney, Rumsfeld, all the "dual-citizenship" types from AIPAC and PNAC are guilty as hell but waiting to try and weasel their way out of prosecution for their war crimes, quite like the Argentine junta perps did back in the 70s.
You know what justice would look like? Not one lone psycho grunt in a cage but a gallows on the White House lawn that can serve six at a time, with Nancy "Not On The Table" Pelosi, Hammerin' Hank Reid and the rest of the gutless, useless 110th Congressional Democrats as an undercard with each and every worthless criminal bastard from the Bush43 administration serving as the main event. Live on television and the Net around the world. Hang them by the neck until dead as Saddam Hussein. Make certain to include the five Mossad agents witnessed celebrating the collapse of the WTC on 9/11/01 -- btw what was on their videotape? The first impact? That suggests significant foreknowledge from an alleged ally of hte US, does it not?
All their lies hinge on 9/11/01 -- get a hell of a big crowbar and let's flip this rock over and closely examine the subhuman life forms operating beneath it. Nothing un-American can live in the sunlight.
you wrote:
I fully expect that if Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney had had in mind a special operation to abuse prisoners for potential intel, they wouldn't have entrusted it to a crew as woefully incompetent as Graner's pathetic unit of reservist janitors and sometime prison guards.
having watched this clownish administration for the last 8 years, they are exactly who i would expect it entrusted to...heck of a job, elephant!
The actions at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo are the direct result of the Justice Department inventing legal precedence for prisoner abuse. We in America love to talk about our principles to others, but neglect to abound by them when stressed. To classify prisoners as enemy combatants is just one of those legal maneuvers invented by the Bush administration so that we need not apply the Geneva Conventions nor our own legal protections to prisoners. Similar attitudes have the US opt out of the international criminal court at the Hague, because we cannot surrender our autonomy. It is no surprise that the rest of the civilized world sees through the hypocrisy of the US. We are fueling the very hatred that we are trying to quench.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
