First Iraqi prisoner abuse trial: GUILTY
 

CNN just sent out a news alert email saying that Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. has been found guilty in Iraqi prisoner abuse trial.

This is the difference between the US and "other countries". When someone fucks up, we punish them.

From what I've read in the news reports the past few days, everyone in the trial said that no one higher up approved of any of this.

As far as I know...his defense attorneys did not present anyone that supposedly ordered him to do what he did...and it appears that he was the fuckup that was the "ring leader" of the other fuckups. It will be interesting to see what his sentence is. I suspect it will be a lengthy one.

Ouch...even if there was some implied approval from up above the guy should have had the common sense not to pull this shit.

He appears to be an amoral...sadistic...sexually sick...individual...that if I am not mistaken was a Prison Guard before his NG unit was called up. It would be interesting to read his "jacket" or to know what his peers had to say about him as a civilian Prison Guard.

RocHard:

I'm not commenting on the trial or the defendant - the jury have more clue than anyone and they appear to have been selected from "informed" military personnel qualified to have an opinion. That is better than often happens in a civilian court where jury members are often totally dumb and unable to follow a trial if it starts getting complex - it's the old "don't confuse the jury problem" for prosecution and defence legal teams.

I was involved in one issue - not as a perp!! - but aware and had evidence for a prosecutor. The matter was so damned messy and involved more offences every time a paper was moved - the prosecution team just did not want to proceed cos the case would cost, at their reckoning $2.2m and just send a jury to sleep. In the end this was all superceded when the "perp" got caught with a load of drugs and is now serving a sentence. Tho they still have hopes of greeting him at the prison gates when release time comes - the guy is far too dangerous to be walking.

The comment about other countries, - I'm sure some other countries have problems, but rest assured this defendant would not be walking to court in most western countries - he'd be in custody and escorted into court. I suspect it would also be more than a military court hearing this case.

They should torture him

nofx:

That crumbles tho whole concept of justice and makes everyone the same as this defendant :-)

Nobody needs to be tortured, irrespective of whatever the hell they did - anyplace...

You do not have a comment about the trial or the defendant???

If I recall correctly you...and other USA bashers...had plenty of comments to make about the Abu Ghraib affair when it hit the media. Blaming the President...the Secretary of Defense and Gonzales...for the "Abu Ghraib policy" of "torture".

A lot of US bashers came out after this was exposed. However, this is not how our military acts. I'm a former US Marine, and I doubt the rules have changed all that much. This was not acceptable behavior no matter what. I find it hard to believe that "these orders came from higher up" beacause no one in their right mind would follow them.

Unless they were sick or sadistic.

His local & state prison jobs were also marked by sadistic violence. He poisoned a coworker, was accused of putting a razor blade in a prisoner's food and then beating him and calling him "n****r" as he took him for medical attention, was accused of torturing and beating other inmates, calling them racial epithets, writing KKK in their blood, putting pork in muslim prisoners' food, and such. Nothing (other than the poisoning) was provable, as it was always guard testimony vs. inmate testimony, and all alleged torture and abuse took place where there were no cameras. His home life was similarly violent, he beat his previous wife, stalked her, secretly videotaped her, threatened to kill her, and so on, despite protection orders.

Yes...a lot. They also were crying about a military cover up...when in fact the military had begun their investigation long before the media began to play the story up.

Sometimes people need to be tortured. Our soldiers strip them down and their soldiers cut off innocents peoples heads off. I don't feel sorry for any of them.

TODAY:

US 'should not rule out torture'


Outgoing US head of Homeland Security Tom Ridge
Ridge said information extracted by torture could be unreliable
The outgoing head of the US Department of Homeland Security has said torture may be used in certain cases in order to prevent a major loss of life.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4175713.stm

I am not at all surprised. What was your source...do you have a link to provide.

"Out going" being the key words here as well as...""human nature" that torture might be employed in certain exceptional cases when time was very limited." This in no way represents "policy".

i saw that. but it's all good. we found those weapons of mass destruction, right?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jun4.html
http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f...25-2923920.php
http://www.anairhoads.org/politics/graner.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Graner

This leaped out to me from one of the articles...he was constantly "disobeying orders" as a civilian prison guard. Where as his defense at the Courts Martial argued (without presenting any one that supposedly gave him orders) that he was only obeying orders.

BTW...thanks for the links.

they wont go to that extreme

Human garbage.

Time to take out the trash.

Yeap.. made of him a PERFECT candidate ....

Good...you are leaving us then?

I suppose your statement has meaning to you.

Well, he was just a bad apple. It's not like the whitehouse was exchanging memos to figure out legal ways to torture. I mean come on! We had WMD's to find!

Good observation. In fact, under the UCMJ, a soldier is obliged to disobey an illegal or unlawful order.

Didn't the soldiers underneath him follow his orders... so they must have not been in thier right mind either. :Oh crap