Excellent.
By convicting Graner and giving him a meaningful sentence, we just showed the world why America is the leader of the free world.
We respect the rule of law and we apply our laws without prejudice.
While I agree that he is merely a fall guy and that there are higher-ups who need to be punished, it is still gratifying to know that he will be made to pay for his crimes.
"I was just following orders," is never an excuse.
Having served in the military, I know that everyone in uniform is taught to recognize the difference between a legal and an illegal order. Whether or not they pay attention to that training is of course, their choice.
Ignorance however, is no excuse.
Perhaps Graner's ten years in prison will serve as an object lesson for anyone else who thinks that they are above the law simply because they have donned the uniform of their country.
Abuse
Speaking of all of this, whatever happened to the soldier in the 101st Airborne who threw the grenades in the tents of his sleeping superiors killing his captain and injuring a few others in Kuwait before the war got started. I never hear about him or if he has even been brought to trial. You'd think the soldiers at Abu-Ghraib were the only courtmartials going on.
Not to diminish this particular case, but we have a certain U.S. Senator and former Presidential candidate currently running free across the Middle East and Europe undermining our President's Foreign Policy that has admitted before a Congressional committee of committing atrocities that were far worse than naked human pyramids and panty head shots.
Unbelievable! Graner is a scapegoat for all the higher-ups who gave the orders for Abu Ghraib.
This could never have happened without the slavering liberal media and its bias. Mary Mapes was the architect of the whole thing.I hope the bitch rots in hell someday.
Torture is the Bataan Death March. Torture is standing naked Jews out in an icy prison yard in subzero temperatures for hours. Torture is tossing Chinese babies in the air and catching them on Japanese bayonets while the mothers wail in agony. Torture is Oliver Cromwell hanging young Irish mothers from trees, and hanging their toddlers tied in the mothers' hair.
Torture is NOT humiliating Saddam'a Palace Guard, which routinely raped young schoolgirls, shredded young men to bits, and tossed old folks in the river. Torture is NOT panties on the head and fake electrical wires. Torture is NOT a frat house pyramid.
Graner should have been given a few medals, instead of this excessive and unjust punishment.
Why do the liberals in this country care more about the well being of the murdering enemies of this Nation than it does for our own flesh and blood?
And more mportantly why do we tolerate this idiocy?
It's sick, sick, sick!
The damage that he and the others that participated in this .... "whatever it was", utterly apart from the US Military or the US Government is irreversible and immeasurable in terms of the PR damage it did to our nation and way of life!!!
For those who don't know, and there appear to be quite a few on this thread, the prisoners Graner abused were not enemy combatants believed to possess important intelligence about the enemy's plans. It was established at trial that, for the most part, they were run of the mill Iraqi criminals who knew nothing of value. Graner simply got his jollies, like a good sadist, by banging them around.
To hell with him.
This stuff is amazing. Scapegoating these enlisted folks is one thing, but their commanding officers better go on trial real soon. This is a disgrace.
And whoever let photographs escape that place should be hung.
Let's not call it torture without giving it a grade or level.
This whackjob caused great harm to the USA, its citizens, and armed forces. IMO, he should hang. A double-hanging along with Hackworth would be better (if he truly did release the AG photos to the media).
This idiocy plays like a mathematics word problem:
If Graner gets ten years for his "torture", then how many light years will Saddam Hussein get for the real deal?
While Hussein sits in a cell somewhere seeking ways to delay his trial and just execution until he dies of natural causes, We've become a nation of misplaced priorities, and the MSM is leading the charge. Who cares about the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi dissenters and their families that Hussein put through the shredder and the gas chambers, past the assassination squads and into the ground? Who cares about that when we can slander the U.S. military for acts of justifiable "torture" that would be considered a slap on the wrist before the 1990's?
Not the NYT or CBS news, and not the left-wingers in the U.S. Congress and Senate it seems.
Misleading title and inflammatory title
http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&gl=&ncl=http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2005/01/16/20050116wacabusesentence.html
All of the articles say prison abuse..Not one calls it torture..only an Australian paper that I found used the word torture.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6795956/
MSNBS says prison abuse...
He also aided the enemy,although I don't think that was his intention at the time, that is what he did.
But ten years?! I think that is wayyy to long.
Seems like there might be a gross sexual imposition charge,and this would be a first time offense.
1 year in prison and then probation would be just about what would happen in the civilian world.
The only mistake this guy made was forgetting which side the media was on.