Posted on 01/17/2005 10:35:58 AM PST by Jon Alvarez
Pardon Graner
Now that the media has inundated the world with all the sordid images and details of the "Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Scandal", and now that Spc. Charles Graner has been found guilty of these so-called "abuses", we should all feel better, right? After all, America has done all she can to prove to the Arab street just how sensitive and caring she is, right? Pardon my French, but this is a bunch of BS! I don't know what kind of goods we're being sold, but I ain't buying and neither should you. War is hell and bad things happen in war. Just ask Army Spc. Matt Maupin.
Matt Maupin, of Batavia, Ohio, is still missing in Iraq. The last time this American soldier was seen he was kneeling in front of a group terrorists on the same kind of sick and sadistic videotape we've seen broadcast on the Arab propaganda network Al-Jazeera. In uniform, supposedly under the protection of the Geneva Convention, in the hands of the very same monsters Spc. Charles Graner and his crew at Abu Ghraib prison have been condemned for being mean and insensitive to. So where is the international outcry over the whereabouts of Spc. Matt Maupin? Where is the condemnation by the United Nations of these non-uniformed terrorists who buried Army Sgt. Elmer Krause and four civilian contractors in a shallow grave after attacking their convoy?
What this author finds so outrageous and disturbing is that so many in the world, Americans included, appear to be more concerned with the rights of non-uniformed terrorists and public relations than actually defeating this evil enemy and bringing THEM to justice. While American casualties are more in line with the War with Mexico, the very fact that we appear to be fighting a "politically correct" war grants some validity to leftist claims that Iraq is another Vietnam. The fact that Army Spc. Graner is going to jail for the mistreatment and abuse of some terrorists, including a non-uniformed Syrian who by his own admission was in Iraq to kill Americans, confirms this. Vietnam should have taught us that we cannot win a "PC" war. Stringing up a few of these guys caught in the act to the nearest light pole is what should be done.
The Geneva Convention was designed to ensure civil treatment of POWs and civilians during a time of war. In other words, while war is a very bad thing, nations do go to war for various reasons. The civilized world felt it necessary to lay out some ground rules for all to follow. However, the Geneva Convention specifically prohibits the taking of hostages and furthermore, does not apply to those that fail to "conduct their operations within the laws and customs of war". In other words, these hostage-taking headcutters, including the non-uniformed Syrian, are not protected by the Geneva Convention. Sadly, this simple fact does not come into play as it is much more fashionable to portray the United States as the bad guy in this current conflict.
While our nation has allowed itself to be distracted by the tsunami disaster in Asia, we will be faced with a similar disaster in Iraq if we allow that country to fall into the hands of the terrorists and Saddam Hussein. Abandoning the people of Iraq, as the naive anti-American leftists here in America would have us do, would be tantamount to unleashing a tsunami on those in Iraq desirous of freedom. We cannot allow political correctness to dictate how we fight the War on Terror. We certainly didn't when we defeated Germany and Japan in World War II. It is up to patriots across this great country to maintain a vigilant state to ensure that this mistreatment of our own soldiers does not happen again. I invite all of you to contact President Bush, your elected officials, and the Army Court of Appeals, urging them to do the right thing and pardon Spc. Charles Graner. Maybe he was a bit overzealous in his treatment of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, but at least they still have their heads.
Making excuses for the leakers of classified information, for those who use illegal photographs to blackmail their own Commander in Chief, who are derelict in their own duties, who engineer complete breakdowns in discipline, as well as violate UCMJ, U.S. civilian law, and the Geneva Conventions...are *NOT* ways to better win wars.
Furthermore, Graner and his gang didn't do *anything* that could have even remotely aided our war effort.
Physical torture and humiliation are the forte of fiction writers, not modern Intel forces. Apply enough pain, and your prisoner will utter any words that he thinks you want to hear, truth be hung.
In contrast, real interogations involve feel-good drugs like ecstacy, beautiful women, and a wide variety of social and inter-personal relationships and situations that encourage extreme feelings of giddiness...and that lead to lose tongues.
Graner was as far from such freely loose tongues as could be put into words. Also, consider that while Graner felt comfortable leaking U.S. secrets to the news media, he's leaked no such "secrets" of the Iraqi insurgency.
So even by *your* own warped standards, that makes Graner either a traitor who is hiding what he learned from the enemy, or else someone who failed to learn anything from the enemy.
He got what he deserved. The guy is a punk.
I wonder. If, instead of throwing the book at Graner, the President and Secretary of Defense had said "Hey terrorists, we're going to catch you and when we do, the things you saw in those photos will happen to you. If your one of the lucky ones." Would jihadi monkeys be streaming into Iraq like ants? Or would they be heading in the other direction?
It is known that Graner was specifically told to NOT have relations with Lynndie England,the slut he knocked up, He was fraternizing with a subordinate. That's against military rules.He ignored both the rules and his superiors' orders.He pimped Lynndie to his pals and put on sex-shows for them with her.
Lynndie was a file file clerk and had NO business being in that prison,nor with Graner and his "mates";let alone have anything at all to do with the prisoners....but she did.
Graner was also charged with DERILICTION OF DUTY.Do you even have the foggiest idea what that means?
This is not a movie.This is not a cartoon.This is not an action serial.THIS IS FOR REAL WAR!
You know NOTHING,understand less,yet you imagine you're an expert. LOL
Have you ever served in any branch of the military? If so,in a war?Are you even old enough to serve?
How would you know, cynicom? I actually spend every day working with the troops in Iraq and some of my weekends working with the wounded. Only somebody with zero knowledge of this war or any war of insurgency would fail to understand the damage that petty perverts like Graner caused.
Instead of the image of the brave and professional soldiers and Marines that are the majority, we have those sleazy events with Graner's rear-area commandos to serve as our emblem.
You claim to have served, but what kind of scumbag outfit did you serve with, if that's what you think American fighting men should be allowed to be? And how low a standard should we conservatives have? Have we sunk to the level of trailer park trash?
Take a look at your posts...Ponder your language...You do the military a great disservice. Personally I saw many in the military that were carbon copies of you. That type are always there and have to be tolerated.
Armies are not made up of choir boys. It takes all kinds, from criminals to saints. You seem intelligent enough to be able to place yourself somewhere between the two. Via your posts you have already shown the rest of us where you belong between the two. Have a good day...
Great, the side that historically always loses. Wonderful.
Oh yeah, I forgot the Nazis won.
sad to see so many willing to throw the guy under the bus...
now troops will be hesitant in the field...
I wonder if these folks who are so critical of an American soldier would take issue with executing a terrorist on the spot when caught in the act?
Sadly, I see this becoming a "pc" war...new liberal mantra: "have you hugged a terrorist today?" LOL
Oh please, the guy got what he deserved. For so many reasons. Don't make our side look foolish. Unlike the Dems, our side usually does the right thing. This was the right thing.
I would suggest you treat a vet in a more civil manner than what you just posted to him.
And all are subject to the UCMJ - which Graner violated - for jollies, not because of some imminent threat to his troops.
Suggest away, free forum...Perhaps it would be better if Vet were to speak for himself? Really not interested in surrogates.
But then, perhaps Vet has already expended his vocabulary, limited as it seems to be.
When and where did you serve?
You see anywhere that I suggested he was innocent??? Heavens no. Court martial the man, six months imprisonment and BCD.
Good bad or indifferent, I tend to go with the troops that are doing the job. Mess up, take them out. Ten years, a tad extreme.
In wartime I do not accede to this sanctimonious, holier than thou, moralistic self righteousness that is nothing more than a PC cop-out to fit the times.
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