Go read "Five years of my life" by Murat Kurnaz

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Years-My-Life-Guantanamo/dp/0230603742

Graner is getting the light version of the Gitmo treatment.

After all, he's getting to see his family - he can talk to them. He's not being held incommunicado in Cuba.

I don't have much sympathy for Graner but it's true it is an utter disgrace that none of his superiors or anybody from the CIA has been punished. Nor, it seems to me, is there much appetite to make this happen; America has 'moved on'.

But what is striking is the barbarity of the prison conditions under which Graner is held. What do the authorities hope to achieve by this? If this sort of casual brutality permeates the system then it's no wonder that Abu Ghraib happened and will happen again in the future.

The way he is being treated is pathetic and pathological and probably unconstitutional. But what the hey . . .

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilisation ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. [Albert Einstein]

He did it. There are the pictures of him grinning over his choice of action. He's like those who willingly joined the nazi party and then say they were "only following orders".

Everyone who took part needs to be punished. From top to bottom they need to be drummed out of the military and any political position. All these people forgot that when you torture others then the others get to torture you.

Is anyone really surprised at the treatment/mistreatment of Charles Graner? He's obviously being kept incommunicado by his detainers until Dubya and his coterie and clique of war criminals is out of the building. All one has to do is to remember that old adage about sh*t running downhill to understand why he is the designated fall-guy.

Under a just resolution of the horrors of Abu Ghraib, et al, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the conspiritors would be before a military tribunal or a civilian court at The Hague being tried on war crimes. THAT ain't gonna happen, however, so look for Charles Graner to remain right where he is...until after Bush's term expires. (Bush may commute his sentence as he's going out the door, but, he probably will not exonerate him.)

I'm sure that in the future, Charles Graner, and others, will write tell-all books enumerating the number and names of their superiors who not only encouraged their incivility but required it. Hopefully, justice will prevail...eventually.

and the grotesque pictures seen all over the world did more damage to America's reputation than the initial invasion. These were the people bringing the American version of democracy to Iraq! Lynndie England is as "thick as a plank", easily-led and devoid of any moral sense. Her low intelligence, her lack of conscience and her infatuation with an amoral man made her utterly unsuitable for any position of authority over the lives of other human beings. The "We were only obeying orders" excuse isn't even original, as it was flogged to death (metaphorically in the particular circumstances) at the Nurenberg Trials in post-war Germany by the odious guards of the concentration camps. The pictures of their American equivalent in Abu-Ghraib show that this particular bunch of "scum of the earth" was having a high old time, enjoying every moment of the degradation and cruelty their twisted minds could devise to inflict on those in their power.

Let Charles Graner stay in prison until he has purged his soul of its ugliness. So, he's deprived of mental and physical stimulation having heaped an excess of it on the men he tortured! This article is designed to elicit pity for Mr. Graner, the product of a family now casting the warped bully as victim. Let him serve his sentence and attempt to join the human race for the first time in his life when he's released. He should read the Geneva Conventions, for starters, as they govern the status and treatment of captured and wounded military personnel and civilians in wartime. Redemption can be achieved by the truly contrite but all this grizzling about his incarceration implies that Charles Graner, his family, and his apologists are far from reaching that conclusion.

Charles Graner did what he did and he has to live with the consequences. Just because he wasn't the key in the engine, he did turn the ignition on.

That the other people were allowed to go free was a complete travesty of justice and should have never had happened. Those people should have been kept imprisoned as well.

I can't feel bad for what is being done to him. He is now a partial prisoner of Guantanamo Bay - now he knows what humiliation feels like, although not to the point that he put the true prisoners of Abu Ghraib. He is surely not being used as a toy doll, being manipulated into doing things.

Graner got what he deserved and he deserves even more for what he did. His cohorts do as well, but it looks like the ringleader is the fall guy.

Is it fair that Graner be in jail?

Yes. But given the length of the other sentences, I am not sure why his is so long.

Are the conditions of his imprisonment fair? Probably not. I suspect, by the way, that he is far from the only mistreated prisoner in this country.

Should ONLY Graner be in jail for Bush's torture policies? No way.

Do I feel sorry for Graner? Yes, I hate the idea of anyone being mistreated. But pity for one prisoner (among many who are mistreated) is not a policy position.

If Obama is going to address Bush's torture policies, Obama might consider commuting Graner's sentence as part of the process of acknowledging that Abu Ghraib wasn't an aberration, but a policy.

I also think the whole issue of prisoner treatment in the US should be examined, including looking at ways to release more of our prisoners, especially non violent ones.