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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
In the interest of fairness Graner should be released. As repugnant as his actions were, it is unacceptable that he should be so severely punished when not one of his superiors is held accountable.
If his superiors were tried and sentenced then Graner would have no case. But as it is, I would reluctantly let him go.
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld are war criminals, yet they are walking free. If justice is meted out only to the lowest on the food chain, there is no justice at all.
Sure, but at the end of rush you're in the frat. At the end of torture its not like the guard ends up in prison...
Oh wait...
The "like a fraternity" and "I stand at my desk" justifications are ludicrous. There is a difference between choosing to do something and being forced to do something. There is a difference between knowing something is a game and knowing that no one will hear you no matter how much you scream.
And, in my humble opinion, several of the comments along the lines of "you reap what you sow" aren't so much "the bastard had it coming" as "you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas"... If you embrace brutality the chances of you ending up brutalized only increase. What I see from many of the letter writers is the expression that its not a GOOD thing that he's now being treated as he treated others, but its shouldn't be a SURPRISING thing either.
I've heard that one enough times- I think Rush Limbaugh was the first high-profile media commentator to put it out there- to feel the need to respond.
Context is everything, in that regard. Fraternity hazing- including the fraternity of military units- is well-known for ritual initiations that involve stress, shock, duress, and tactics that involve various degrees of public humiliation.
The difference is that in a fraternity hazing, the candidate has volunteered for the procedure- and that part of that volunteering necessarily involves placing a high level of trust in ones companions, including those making the most stressful demands, that they'll limit the level and duration of the abuse to a reasonably tolerable amount.
An unwilling captive or prisoner has no such mental set in place. Quite the opposite, in fact.
It's also worth noting that at least some of the more extreme "hazing" tactics formerly employed by various fraternities have been either forbidden or voluntarily abandoned nowadays, due to various incidents of permanent harm or even death that resulted from their use.
On an issue related to a previous comment of mine in this thread: I understand the need for Security Housing Units in the American prison system, and support their existence (although there better be sound and defensible reasons for putting someone into that level of confinement, especially long-term or permanently.) But that doesn't mean that I think the correctional authorities have the right to turn SHU inmates into lab rats.
I suppose I can forgive your citation to The UK Guardian as a source of legitimate news, but I cannot accept your stubbron stupidity on the question I posed to Mark Benjamin: DID ANYONE [senior military, senior White House staff] "ORDER," AS BENJAMIN SUGGESTED, THE ACTIONS FOR WHICH GRANER WAS EXPOSED AND THEN CONVICTED -- THE ABU GHRAIB ABUSES?"
So far, you've supplied nothing. I don't expect that you and I will agree on much of anything, and we certainly won't agree on how the CIA handled some high-priority detainees. But none of that had anything to do with Graner & Co.
You, Cabdriver, and Mark Benjamin need to be a whole lot more careful with your words. Please don't bother me with allegations as to CIA techniques, or memos dealing with Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, or renditions or anything else. Graner wasn't CIA, and he wasn't ever at Gitmo, and he was never in charge of the highest-level detainees. Let's stick to the question I posed. Mark Benjamin said pointedly that Graner was acting under orders. And so I have challenged him. Whose orders? What orders? It's really a simple question, calling for a direct answer.
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.
-- Jonathan
Thanks, man. I just get all warm and tingly, knowing that tonight I'll go to bed safe in the knowledge that I was right and Mark Benjamin was wrong. Have a good one.
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
