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Graner gets 10 Years

WildCat

NWO Master Conspirator
WildCat
Joined
Mar 23, 2003
Messages
59,856
Payback:
Army Reserve Spc. Charles Graner Jr., sentenced to 10 years in a military prison for his role in abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, says he has no apologies for his actions in Iraq.
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Scumbag. 10 years is a pittance compared to all the harm he did, both to the prisoners in his charge and to the reputation of the US armed forces. Just my half-a$$ed opinion.
 
he twice answered "No, ma'am" when asked by reporters if he had regrets or apologies.
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what's funny is when he says he has no regrets. So basically he's saying abusing prisoners was worth wasting away the next 10 years of his life in jail for.

No regrets? Liar (among other things)
 
He has no regrets because if he disobeyed orders he would've been prosecuted and jailed for violating their precious Uniform Code of Military Justice also. It was a loose-loose situation.
If it weren't for the photos, we still wouldnt know about this abuse and the military, from the top down including that fat MP General Janet Karpinski would be continuing their program.
It's weird how come she wasn't prosecuted. Probably to protect higher ups she now threatens. I hope she has good bodyguards.

We will not hear the last of this and now that the army decided to throw the book at him I hope they will go after the people who allowed and ordered this to happen, including and up to Rumsfield.
 
a_unique_person said:
He claims he was 'only obeying orders'. I have no doubt he deserves to be punished, but to lay all the blame on the 'rotten apples' theory is to be naive.
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That's what he claimed, yet he couldn't name a single person who allegedly gave such an order. His defense further fell apart when it was shown that most of the prisoners he abused were common criminals (robbers, burglars, rapists, etc.) and not insurgents who were being interrogated. And what MI officer would have interrogators photograph their illegal methods and post them on the internet for all the world to see?
 
materia3 said:
He has no regrets because if he disobeyed orders he would've been prosecuted and jailed for violating their precious Uniform Code of Military Justice also.
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No soldier is required to obey an unlawful order, in fact they are trained to disobey it. He would certainly not have been prosecuted for doing so, if such an order had actually been given. And there was no evidence at all that there was such an order.

It was a loose-loose situation.
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Lefty loosey, righty tighty. ;)

If it weren't for the photos, we still wouldnt know about this abuse and the military, from the top down including that fat MP General Janet Karpinski would be continuing their program.
It's weird how come she wasn't prosecuted. Probably to protect higher ups she now threatens. I hope she has good bodyguards.

We will not hear the last of this and now that the army decided to throw the book at him I hope they will go after the people who allowed and ordered this to happen, including and up to Rumsfield.
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Evidence?
 
materia3 said:
He has no regrets because if he disobeyed orders he would've been prosecuted and jailed for violating their precious Uniform Code of Military Justice also. It was a loose-loose situation.
... Probably to protect higher ups she now threatens. ...
We will not hear the last of this and now that the army decided to throw the book at him I hope they will go after the people who allowed and ordered this to happen, including and up to Rumsfield.
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Not that he isn't a jerk who deserves what he got, but when I was in the Navy we had a phrase for people in Spc. Graner's position-sacrificial anode.
 
I am presently reading Seymour Hersch's Chain of Command. The first section deals with the Abu Ghraib scandal, as well as the goings-on at Guantanamo. Hersch was interviewed by Diane Rehm months ago, when the book came out. At the time, he said, "I hope a bunch of sergeants and privates don't take the fall for this."

It appears that is exactly what's coming to pass. The book is a rather scathing indictment of the prosecution of the "War on Terrorism", and Hersch pulls no punches in laying the blame for the prisoner abuse directly at the feet of the administration in general, and Rumsfeld in particular. That these actions were sanctioned and directed by shadowy "military intelligence" figures is beyond any reasonable doubt.
Even the commander of the prison noted that there were lots of "unknown" personell running around the prison, guys in civilian clothing or unmarked military uniforms. She "couldn't keep track of all those people."

Good book, I'm reading the section on Afghanistan now, and it strongly echoes the thoughts of Michael Scheuer in Imperial Hubris.
 
I believe that had he been given such an order and disobeyed it, he would have fared well in a military court--and so I believe he deserves his prison sentence.

However, despite that soldiers can officially disobey unlawful orders, I would not be surprised to find that such instances were quite rare. I just don't think soldiers tend to do that, even when given an illegal order. I can't speak from authority on this... I would like to hear from any veterans that post here, how "real" is that option to most soldiers?

So basically I hope this is not the end of it. If there were orders coming from higher up, I hope the decision-maker is found and given the sentences of all the underlings combined.

To anyone that supposes it is sometimes necessary to give questionable orders and then disavow them -- that there's dirty work to be done and someone has to do it... I would say there's cowardice evident in this situation. SOMEONE gave the order and isn't owning up to it. If the order was so righteous, even if illegal, THEY should still be the one sacrificing their career and going into prison, instead of making someone else go in their place.

A question to consider: do you think Graner was the most senior officer involved?
 
I spent 26 years in the Army, active, National Guard, and Reserve. I spent two years in Vietnam. In my experience good leaders avoid even approaching the unlawful order. In my experience good leaders leave no doubt in the minds of their subordinates what their standards are.

The best than can be said for the leadership of this man is they failed to impart their priorities. The worst that can be said is they wanted the violations to occur due to agendas that abandoned American standards of justice.
 
Bikewer said:




Even the commander of the prison noted that there were lots of "unknown" personell running around the prison, guys in civilian clothing or unmarked military uniforms. She "couldn't keep track of all those people."
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Lots of unknown people around? In a prison? Where some of the prisoners might be violent insurgents? The commander really, really, really, "couldn't keep track". Yeah sure!
 
WildCat said:
Payback:

Scumbag. 10 years is a pittance compared to all the harm he did, both to the prisoners in his charge and to the reputation of the US armed forces. Just my half-a$$ed opinion.
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I imagine that a collective sigh of relief was heard at the White House when this news was released.

Now, Bush & Co. can still maintain their line that the abuse was due to a few "rouge elements" and not in any way reflective of the US Government because the trial proved that Garner, and the rest, had no official orders to abuse their prisioners.
 
Just like the last time materia3 brought up this load of horsecrap, even after being called on his igorance of military jurisprudence, he still keeps parroting someone else's words that indicate they don't even know what the UCMJ is.


Also not that he won't be able to explain why the troops who DID disobey these alleged orders, weren't courtmartialed
 
crimresearch said:
Also not that he won't be able to explain why the troops who DID disobey these alleged orders, weren't courtmartialed
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That's rather easy to explain, whether you believe the premise or not... if they had given an illegal order, to prosecute someone for not following it would immediately place the order-giver in the hot seat. That's a very simple motive--not wanting to get caught.
 
Precisely...which premise shoots down materia's claim that Graner would have been courtmartialed had he refused.
 
I see validity to both sides. Yes, the claim that it was an illegal order is a legitimate defense, but how many people plead out when they have a legitimate defense? One can't count on one's innocence guaranteeing acquittal, especially if one’s innocence depends on affirmative defense. One can’t expect every soldier to have sufficient legal expertise to be confident that the order will in fact be viewed as illegal. Furthermore, simply being court-martialed, even if it results in acquittal, can be a deterrent. Furthermore, the military has a great deal of control over the lives of its soldiers. There are many ways in which a soldier can be punishment without any official criminal proceedings.

On the other hand, his failure to name anyone who gave him an illegal order suggests that he either did not receive any, or that he is covering up for them. If the latter, then imprisonment is still warranted. Also, if he thought this might be illegal, asking for a written copy of the order may have been an option.
 
I base my analysis of the situation on the statements made by General Janis Karpinski who started showing up in civies on talk shows in the earliest days of the scandal trying to cover her six with veiled statements that she was ordered to concede control of the prison to MI operatives. This was confirmed by Hersh.

Karpisnki has dissapeared, shut up and is who know's where.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janis_Karpinski

You'll really enjoy this one....don't let the music get you. Scroll down:

http://home.att.net/~professorboris/SPECTRE/janice_karpinski.htm

And then there's the good old BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3806713.stm
 
materia3 said:
Karpisnki has dissapeared, shut up and is who know's where.
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Really?
Now Karpinski is at home in Hilton Head, S.C., writing a book. She has toyed with several titles, including Stand in the Door - the command given paratroopers as they wait to jump.
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Or did she disappear and shut up after this story was published less than one month ago? Because writing a book about the whole thing doesn't really fit into my understanding of shutting up.

materia3, perhaps you should learn how to use Google. And I don't have the slightest idea what you were trying to prove in the links you provided.
 
You dont have the faintest idea about the links because you obviously have not read them.

Karpinski has dissapeared. She has been carefully excised from the airwaves. She no longer appears on television to advance her earlier statements ......which if you read the links, you'd understand why Graner et al are taking the rap for the higher ups. Holed up writing a book at Hilton Head is dissapeared IMHO. Why wasn't she out there backing up Graner's "obeying orders" mitigation when in fact she had already stated this out of court already? Because she's the scum-bag who is worried about her own fat behind and what the people above her could do to it.

It's really funny that when she first went public, she was lamenting she was the scape goat for those above her (she's a general) --- not a very long list, and one can only conclude that she and her general buddies found a way out: let the grunts on the ground take the rap. I am not saying Graner et al are angels. I am not saying they were not stupid. I am saying Karpinski, Sanchez and the rest of them who had a hand in this should be in the cell next to them at Leavenworth. Right now Karpinski, poor thing, is nursing a bruise on her wrist where it was slapped.

You have no idea how demoralizing this is for our guys and gals and their families.

This one is not gonna go away.
 
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