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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
If you can't bring yourself to be sympathetic to Graner's situation (and how his parents must feel) maybe at the very least we could attempt some empathy here. The fact he is guilty of abuse and dereliction of duty are really not the arguement... the fact he is being singled out as the lone person to take the fall and do time under these conditions are what's wrong - plain and simple.
It was wrong in Abu Ghraib, it is wrong in Guantanamo, it is wrong in China, it is wrong in Russia, it is wrong Korea, it is wrong in Mexico, it is wrong in AMERICA.
I'd be sympathetic to Rumsfeld's family too if that old bastard were brought up on charges and thrown in prison (where he deserves to be)... not going to happen though - they've got their patsy.
When I see the often broadcast shows about the rise of German Nazis I NEVER feel sorry for the old delusional people who say they didn't know what was happening or they couldn't speak. BULLSHIT! They knew and they had many opportunities to speak. The German people failed the world in the 30's just as the US failed the world after 9/11.
I still hear people connecting Saddam/Iraq with 9/11, that's their delusional justification for all the death and suffering the US has caused in a country that was no threat to us whatsoever. Remember the Sudatenland? Hitler went in to help the people, just like we did in Iraq. When Republicans talk about liberal appeasers it makes me laugh/cry. They're actually referring to all the countries that gave Bush tacit and not so tacit support as he embarked on his blitzkrieg (a.k.a. shock and awe).
The torturer soldier gets no sympathy from me, it just makes me want to see Bush in the Hague even more.
I don't believe Graner's incarceration serves any purpose ... but I believe most (if not all) of his cohorts pled out, pled GUILTY to lesser charges ... they "cooperated" and "accepted responsibility" while Graner appears to STILL resist accepting any judgment but his own ... and, like other people found GUILTY, he will likely stay in prison until he gets beyond the "unfairness" of it all. Parole boards really aren't interested in releasing the "unrepentant."
IMHO, he is martyring himself .... As I wrote earlier, his sentiments as expressed in this article will be used against him ...
happened at the prison, which can properly be called torture. But this?>>>
"He and other soldiers at Abu Ghraib forced prisoners into stress positions and frightened them with dogs, stripped prisoners naked, put hoods and women's underwear over their heads."
I'm sure it wasn't pleasant, but neither's rushing a fraternity. Complaining about dogs and panties trivializes *actual* torture.
Torture is an act. The definition is not dependent upon who inflicts or receives cruel treatment. Bureaucratic distance from the physical torture procedures doesn't lessen the burden of guilt for espousing or encouraging them.
Mr. Graner is treated with the same cruelty he treated others. That doesn't undo damage done, doesn't "fix" the issue of torture or shift the political or moral context. Punishing, torturing, really, one person, no matter how apparently publically gratifying, doesn't challenge the institutional position that torture is useful and acceptable.
Inflicting torture as payment for torture makes no sense. It contradicts itself! It also undermines the legal and moral reason for court martialing Graner in the first place.
For those who think there was a way out for Mr. Graner, I must ask them what action they've taken, besides posting to Salon and joining Amnesty International. I must also ask when they've been trapped between a rock and a hard place. I'm sure those occasions were not as fraught as Mr. Graner's.
The question isn't "why is Graner in Prison?" Its, "why is no one else in prison." Graner broke the law. You don't have to follow orders if they are illegal. If someone ordered you to jump off a bridge, would you do it? The idea that torture is somehow OK if your superior orders you to do it its completely ridiculous. I have no sympathy for this man. He did something inhuman and he should pay for it.
However, that doesn't mean that I also think he is the only person who should pay for it. There had to be others responsible, and they should also be punished.
The Abu Ghraib stuff was disgraceful to the U.S. but it was not the equivalent morally or physically in terms of what Nazi era Germans did, or of what is done by current represive regimes, various head chopping islamic terrorists and relatively recent genocidal actors in places like Rwanda. We are also not "better" or "above" these people.
That said, Abu Ghraib was definitely bad and heading toward badness more in the league of the stuff mentioned above. It is to our credit that our own public outrage brought it to an end before it got there. It is not to our credit that we've let the leaders slide and just punished chumps like Graner.
Chumps like Graner do need to be punished though, and hard. It helps other people remember, even if they find themselves part of a mob or an Abu Ghraib interrogation staff, that there is a moral universe outside the mob or prison. It might help a few people opt out of the mob or blow the whistle on it.
If you were stripped in front of strangers and made to cower in a corner while a frothy, snarling dog (who BTW, has been trained to kill you, if ordered) was held inches from your person: pretty sure you'd consider yourself tortured.
The panties thing seems a bit less torturous, but taken with the religious tenants of most of these prisoners, it's a lot like making an orthodox Jew wear a pigskin.
Just because there's no blood or permanent bodily damage doesn't mean its not torture, aeschylus. Hell, waterboarding, if done correctly, leaves no physical damage.
Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you..
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"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
