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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Dear Mr. Graner,
I am sorry that you are a more direct victim of the arrogance, manipulation and abuses put on the entire american society by those who try to control us all. Although you were apparently involved in some very disrespectful behavior; activities unbecoming (or at least they should be) of the american military code and not representative of what we as civilized citizens of the world should want to promote, you were a pawn. Your primary failing (I won't use the word crime) was one of ignorance. You joined the military thinking that you were upholding american ideals and freedom, and protecting us from foreigners who despised us for those; whereas in reality you and ALL of our military are being used by international banking and corporate elitists and their political mouthpieces to further their own agenda of greed, power and control.
Your wife, children and family should not be subjected to this pain and I truly feel sorry for them. My only advice is to use this opportunity for good and educate yourself as to how the world, in particular the US, works with regard to monetary policy, and foreign and domestic political policy. If you take the time, you will discover how what you thought you were fighting for and trying to protect is a sham, and what you really need to fight to save is your and your childrens future from your own elected leaders.
Barack Obama has made some attempts at fashioning himself as a new Abraham Lincoln. We shall see, but so far all he has shown is that he is a mouth piece for the status quo, in particular Wall Street.
Best of luck to you.
We Need Abe in 2012
They're the only ones in jail because the crime was taking photos, not the torture. Rummy all but said this when he publicly lamented the fact that these guards would take photos and, worse, allow them to get out
people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise, when they had not even arrived in the Pentagon.
That irrefutable documentation was disseminated before it could get acquainted with Cheney's ubershredder produced no shortage of exasperation, but the fact that we would do this to randomly rounded up foreign citizens we had ostensibly 'liberated'? Nary a word. And why couldn't ol' Rummy couldn't bring himself to express regret about torture of the kind of Iraqis likely to've been swept up in the type of wildly capricious and unintelligent raids US forces were conducting at the time, e.g. taxi drivers and dentists? Simply because he was all for it, and was not going to be forced to eat crow or disown what he thought was good stuff. Rummy doesn't do prostrate- that's for the swarthy untermenschen and their liberal pussy pals.
Likewise, the lieutenant was probably acquitted because he didn't know about the photos, not because he didn't know about the torture. Ditto all his superiors, and all of the other grunts who merrily tortured and murdered away without the cardinal sin of letting the evidence get out. Torture of Muslims good and God fearing. Photos bad.
Still though, for the rest of us, it's quite a juxtaposition. Graner should be in jail, but his being there does present something of a problem for all the Bush administration officials that would have us believe that prosecution of such things amounts to no more than a political witch hunt, certainly four years on and past their ability to defy subpoena. Nothing to see here- move along now. The Important Business of the nation is far more pressing than prosecuting our armchair terror warriors.
That sound you hear is Satan preparing a special place to accomodate these guys. Torquemada is donating his consulting services.
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." (My emphasis.)
Inside Baghdad's Rusafa prisonIt took some time to make sense of the scene in front of us.
A jailer at Baghdad's Rusafa prison had just swung open the heavy metal-barred door.
Inside a small dimly lit room, the first sight was the iron-framed double bunks, packed together and hung with plastic bags, clothes and towels.
Then, staring back at us from the bunks, faces and faces, bearded, unshaven, balding, greying. And then into a larger room and in almost every conceivable space there was a human being.
Four or five men perched on a bunk, some even tucked on the floor underneath.
It was astonishing to see so many people packed into one space. It's the first time the foreign media have had such access to an Iraqi jail since the US invasion in 2003.
They were nervous at first, at seeing their jailers at the door behind us and no doubt at seeing foreign journalists suddenly appear in their midst. Everything is fine here, was the first thing they said.
But then a man in a long white robe or dish-dash jumped down from a bunk.
"Don't listen to that," he said. "The conditions are terrible here. There are people sleeping next to the toilets. Some stand so that others can sleep."
Prisoners say some have to stand to make room for others to sleep
Another man, sitting on a top bunk said: "I feel like I'm dead in here."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7748016.stm
It's okay though, they are "enemies" who are "evil" and "bad". They are the other.
It's funny that the authour was "astonished" at the conditions. The conditions of this prison would not be unfamiliar to another torturer, Sheriff Joe Arpio...
Brian Crenshaw, a blind man, was serving six months for shoplifting.His mother Linda Evans learned he had been in some sort of scuffle with officers at Tent City before he was transferred and placed in solitary confinement at Madison Street Jail.
Six days later Crenshaw was taken to the hospital after being found unconscious in his cell. However, Crenshaw had already told a prison doctor he'd been beaten by officers. He died one month later and the family is suing.
Evans says, "They murdered my son. Mr. Arpaio is responsible. He is the head of the sheriff's department and yet he seems to thrive on this cruelty and this mentality that these men are nothing."
The sheriff insists Crenshaw fell off a bunk. Even though medical evidence indicates otherwise, it's Arpaio's story and he's sticking to it.
Arpaio said, "Well, a lot of people in jail say certain comments that are not true. So, if you want to believe a few of these inmates ... so be it."
http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking3/SheriffJoeBBC.html
This whole issue of torture is much bigger than Graner, it's bigger than Bush, it's the system. It's usual. Just ask Sheriff Joe.
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
