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'Torture' on Trial
WSJ ^ | January 18, 2005

Posted on 01/18/2005 3:13:13 PM PST by swilhelm73

The conviction of Army Reserve Specialist Charles Graner is hardly the last word on what really happened at Abu Ghraib prison. But the 10-year sentence for the abuse ringleader shows that the military justice system is taking the issue as seriously as it should. And the Army jury that handed it down clearly didn't buy his "just-following-orders" defense.

We doubt Specialist Graner's peers would have packed him off to prison for so long had he produced any evidence at all that his actions had something to do with interrogation practices approved by his superiors. Particularly telling was the fact that he didn't seem to have enough confidence in his own story to take the stand and face cross examination.

Senior officers are still being investigated, as they should be, but so far the military trials have done nothing to prove what writer Heather Mac Donald recently described on this page as the "torture narrative." That is, they have not supported the widely promulgated theory that Bush Administration legal discussions about the range of permissible interrogation techniques for al Qaeda detainees outside the Iraqi theater of operations somehow led to Abu Ghraib.

And yet none of this evidence seems to stop the effort, in the media and Congress, to use Abu Ghraib to hamstring American interrogators in the war on terror. Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, went so far as to try to write language into last year's intelligence bill demanding that the CIA report to Congress on what interrogation methods it's using. The White House quietly sought to have this removed--which it reluctantly was--only to be tarred once again last week in some news reports with promoting "torture" for having done so.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: War on Terror
KEYWORDS: charlesgraner

1 posted on 01/18/2005 3:13:14 PM PST by swilhelm73
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To: swilhelm73

Breaker Morant alert.


2 posted on 01/18/2005 3:19:21 PM PST by Spok
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To: swilhelm73
Hot Lead Enema... torture..

Getting naked and wearing panties on your head.. not torture..

3 posted on 01/18/2005 3:36:06 PM PST by Drammach (Freedom; not just a job, it's an adventure..)
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To: swilhelm73

anyone who thinks the military cuts too much slack to their own...when's the last time you saw a civie get 10 years for
assault and naked Twister?


4 posted on 01/18/2005 4:44:50 PM PST by Rakkasan1 (Justice of the Piece: There is no justice, there's 'just us'.)
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To: Rakkasan1

Frankly, I think some of the ten years was for mistreating the prisoners, some of it was for violating the Standard Operating Procedures, and some of it was for dishonoring the military and providing our enemies with an opportunity to weaken us.

The worst thing he did was to undermine the war effort.


5 posted on 01/18/2005 5:44:19 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Cicero

your sentiments are not lost on me. he and his ugly little
breeding troll, PFC Englund disgraced the uniform.

gives new meaning to 'doing the Lyndie'.


6 posted on 01/18/2005 5:58:39 PM PST by Rakkasan1 (Justice of the Piece: There is no justice, there's 'just us'.)
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