Oh, huge apologies for accidentally substituting a "C" for a "D" in your handle!

I must say, though, that I'm fairly shocked. You posted four letters on this thread, and not a single one included anything venomous or derogatory toward Barack Obama. That must be a new record for you! I didn't know you had it in you; it must be the spirit of goodwill of the approaching holidays, I guess. Either that, or you're still wracking your brains in an effort to find an anti-Obama angle to the Graner story.

Oh, and I don't mind being an eggplant. Purple is a cool color, and aubergine is my favorite French word (although champignon and papillon are tied for a very close second place.) Have fun dropping those suet balls!

I don't believe in revenge, or an eye for an eye. On the other hand, when fate puts a low-life like Graner through a much milder form of the abuse he dished out, my lizard brain gets kind of happy about it.

Sure Graner's being scapegoated. You join the military in any country and you are volunteering to suffer and die for the good of the team leaders (and only as circumstances allow, for the team). That's the reality of putting yourself under the power of an institution, and hence its leadership. (Pay attention, shareholders--this applies to you too.)

As long as there are armies, there will be scapegoats like Graner. Not all of them will be sadists like him, though; save your sympathy for those who better deserve it.

And in the meantime, if you don't like solitary confinement, fight against its use in any circumstance. And if you think going after Bush et al is worth the fight, go for it.

(Good luck with that; a great many Americans share responsibility for the evils perpetrated by the Bush administration, having taken a lot of pleasure in the arrogance, threats and violence of their leaders when they were frightened after 9-11. Most of those who condoned the abuses in the past will choke a little on the hypocrisy of voicing righteous anger now.)

He didn't get 30 days in solitary; he's been in solitary for 29 months out of less than 48 months that he's been incarcerated at Leavenworth.

Yes, but I doubt whether he was just placed in solitary for 29 months for the odd extra book or similar. The trouble with these kind of articles is that they lack detailed information. The author would have a much better article if he listed all the offenses for which Graner received solitary, with the amount of solitary for each offense, instead of relying on vague innuendoes from the parents who are presumably relaying second-hand information from Graner himself.

I am furious that the Administration officials who instigated war crimes as United States "policy" remain uncharged, brazen and freely rewriting history as we speak. Many citizens hope that President Obama's deep intellect will come to the conclusion that these American War Crimes cannot be swept under the rug without damaging our nation itself. If our own elected officials cannot find the spine to do the right thing, 'rendition' them all to the Hague for international war crimes trials.

Charles Graner seemed to enjoy his job. I don't feel much sympathy for him because he is still imprisoned, but do feel that no one should be in solitary for so long. Prisoners should be treated as human beings, no matter what they have done. We are supposed to be better than that.

I wonder about his parents. Why didn't they report these monstrous crimes when they saw them with their own eyes? Could they not have sent some of those photos, without their son's likeness, to the media? How could they read Graner's accompanying reports of such horror and let it continue?

The jury is still out as to whether the majority of Americans care that much about the existence of brutality and inhumane prison conditions.

Oh, I think that has already been decided, and only a minority of Americans actually care about such things. Hell, even a month or two after the Abu Ghraib story broke most of the American public was issuing a giant collective yawn, trying to shove the story down the memory hole, and moving on to other things. There has been no mass, collective mobilization against Gitmo among the majority, and even less collective sentiment against inhumane conditions and prisoner abuse in domestic civilian prisons.

Of the majority of the population that appears to be sanguine about prison brutality, I think most are merely indifferent or willfully ignorant, but an obnoxious minority actually savor the idea, thinking that criminals deserve to be brutalized while incarcerated. There have even been hints of such sentiments on this thread, and this is Salon for Chrissakes! One can only imagine the sentiments one would find on right-wing websites.

First, I know only what the press, network, and cable TV has told me about the situation, and that makes it unreliable at best. Second, I hardly doublt Bush knew anything about the situation until after it happened, and it appears the guity parites went to jail, so if Charles is still in jail he must have been the ring leader. The details have been kept pretty quite by the military, and rightfully so. I was in the military and tortune is not condoned, period. If you do then you go directly to jail, and again that's where they ended up.

But, I do agree the family needs to know exactly what happened and the family should be informed as to the reason.

no doubt...and i did not get the gist of sympathy for him that posters are responding to...the fact of the matter is he deserves jail and all the ignominies jailing has to offer.

i really think mark benjamin was trying to evoke the sense of injustice that he was the only cat gaged...

benjamin does not present his arguments very well. it would seem.

you seem to have a hook on elephantman...i have always had a notion that he may be a wolverine....