Article

2005-01-17 Home Front: WoT

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Fred 2005-01-17 00:00:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by Thavinter Chesing9218 TROLL 2005-01-17 12:24:32 AM|| 2005-01-17 12:24:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by Unomock Jomble5468 TROLL 2005-01-17 12:43:24 AM|| 2005-01-17 12:43:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by sibilla ecumenica TROLL 2005-01-17 2:27:32 AM|| 2005-01-17 2:27:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 I'll bet he regrets he got caught.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2005-01-17 3:24:06 AM|| 2005-01-17 3:24:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 It's a pity the jury can't revisit the case, take that attitude into account, and make it the maximum 15 years.

Posted by Tom 2005-01-17 8:33:53 AM|| 2005-01-17 8:33:53 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 On the other hand, maybe you lot will regret not giving people like him more space to operate.

Posted by gromgorru 2005-01-17 9:09:37 AM|| 2005-01-17 9:09:37 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Doubtful. The guy was a sadist, a loser who had been in trouble in his civilian prison job, too. He incited others in his unit to disobey orders; he was a detriment to the orderly operation of that unit.

He's getting off easy.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2005-01-17 10:10:00 AM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-01-17 10:10:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 I haven't seen enough hard info-what were the actual convictions? The article names prisoner beatings & humiliation and the sentence is 10 years. Is that about average for "beatings and humiliation of prisoners"? Did he hit them in retaliation for their throwing excrement or some such other provocation? Perhaps in court it doesn't matter, but this is such a superficial coverage, it's difficult to judge what exactly happened.

Is there any element here of letting lower ranked personnel take the fall for someone higher up? What were the instructions people in excluded units like his were given? This smells a little to me-is he being made a fall guy for what was a controversial and fuzzily-defined softening up policy (although I wouldn't exclude humiliation and pressure as acceptable tactics in this war, were it my decision).

Posted by Jules 187 2005-01-17 10:37:43 AM|| 2005-01-17 10:37:43 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 I saw Mon and Dad on a morning show and they are convinced that he was following orders. I don't remember hearing about that defense during the trial, but I have not followed it close. His Dad warned parents about letting kids join the service. I remember Graner (before the trial) claiming that some unknown CID people telling him to 'soften up' the prisoners, but he never gave a name/date/details about this CID encounter. They also tried to point the finger at the "Torture Memo" as proof but it wasn't released to the military in Iraq before the abuses occured. I am pretty much convinced that this guy is not teling th truth and is hoping that by spreading enough poop something will stick. Fortunately it only makes him smell worse.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2005-01-17 12:13:27 PM|| 2005-01-17 12:13:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Dad warned parents about letting kids join the service.

I would guess that coverage of this episode will not help recruiting efforts.

Posted by Jules 187 2005-01-17 12:19:22 PM|| 2005-01-17 12:19:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 What I am certain of, is 2 things:

1) He and his little crew / kind / ilk did the greatest disservice to the US and the US Military in the last 40 yrs -- handing a bogus "issue" to all of the forces of anti-Americanism which, of course, memed it into their mantra to be repeated for generations to come as a truism.

2) I want his sorry ass OUT of that uniform -- and into the pinstripes that cowards ought to wear.

Posted by .com 2005-01-17 12:23:40 PM|| 2005-01-17 12:23:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 As far as I have been able to tell, Jules, Graner was doing this for the sheer pleasure of it. In his civilian life as a prison guard he'd been disciplined for similar actions. Remember, in addition to the naked body piles, there was also forced sex with and between prisoners, forcing them to watch while Graner and England had sex, and so forth. This was not a carefully calibrated attempt to soften up the prisoners for interrogation; if those were the orders Graner was given, he either was not given proper instruction on how to accomplish that, or took the opportunity to amuse himself and his comrades. The latter seems probable, as the participants took care to hide their activities from their superiors.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-01-17 12:29:26 PM|| 2005-01-17 12:29:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 That is more information than I've seen in any article-thank you, TW. It would be nice to see it confirmed.

It's important that the complete story gets out there. Reporting the precedents in previous work settings of forced sex or beatings, as two examples, would be pertinent. I would think that is a very powerful and essential piece of information that the military would want out there? Maybe they can't put it out there?

As to calibrated softening up, it seems to me that since a superior/superiors were giving instructions on how to deal with detainees and reports of abuse are coming from more than one place (right?), there are at least three possibilities for what happened:
1) Instructions were intentionally vague because this kind of outcome was anticipated. This is the ugliest of the 3 possibilities and, if this is borne out over time, it will be devastating.
2)Instructions were explicit and Graner and Co. did what they wanted anyway.
3) Instructions were not explicit because of incompetence/poor leadership/mismanagement.

Posted by Jules 187 2005-01-17 12:47:43 PM|| 2005-01-17 12:47:43 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 As to calibrated softening up, it seems to me that since a superior/superiors were giving instructions on how to deal with detainees and reports of abuse are coming from more than one place (right?)

Wrong.

Do some more reading before you try to come up with more theories. Start with Heather McDonald's piece in City Journal.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2005-01-17 12:53:52 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-01-17 12:53:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Will do, Robert. What you say would indicate that the 20 other cases on rantburg's other thread are all from the same unit?

Posted by Jules 187 2005-01-17 12:58:32 PM|| 2005-01-17 12:58:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Didnt the case also look at his fraternizing with subordinates? I may be wrong but I thought I heard that somewhere. If so would that not hold rather large consequences in a military courtroom?

Posted by J 2005-01-17 1:13:15 PM|| 2005-01-17 1:13:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Is this the right article?

http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_terrorists.html

The abuse at Abu Ghraib resulted from the Pentagonâs failure to plan for any outcome of the Iraq invasion except the most rosy scenario, its failure to respond to the insurgency once it broke out, and its failure to keep military discipline from collapsing in the understaffed Abu Ghraib facility. Interrogation rules were beside the point.

As the avalanche of prisoners taken in the street fighting overwhelmed the inadequate contingent of guards and officers at Abu Ghraib, order within the ranks broke down as thoroughly as order in the operation of the prison itself. Soldiers talked back to their superiors, refused to wear uniforms, operated prostitution and bootlegging rings, engaged in rampant and public sexual misbehavior, covered the facilities with graffiti, and indulged in drinking binges while on duty. No one knew who was in command. The guardsâ sadistic and sexualized treatment of prisoners was just an extension of the chaos they were already wallowing in with no restraint from above...

Posted by Jules 187 2005-01-17 1:24:41 PM|| 2005-01-17 1:24:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 sounds like a future sit com

Posted by half 2005-01-17 2:27:40 PM|| 2005-01-17 2:27:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 What you say would indicate that the 20 other cases on rantburg's other thread are all from the same unit?

No, it wouldn't.

The point -- which I'm not sure you got -- is that there were no instructions to Graner and company to "soften up" anyone. They were ignoring the orders they had -- in part because the officers above them included some gross incompetents (their Brigade command) and some merely inadequate.

The single largest contributing factor to Abu Ghraib was, IMHO, Graner. He's a sadist looking for the chance to act out his fantasies; unfortunatley the break down of command at Abu Ghraib gave him his chance. The reason you haven't heard much about his history is because it doesn't fit the story the press wants to cover.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2005-01-17 2:28:40 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-01-17 2:28:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 I don't disagree with you that the press has its own misguided agenda. Nor do I dispute that an individual-Graner-could be a sadist and could have used his sadism on his subordinates and prisoners alike.

What your rebuke of me and the Macdonald article do not address is whether all counts of abuse-or even the majority of them-come from the same locale. If they do not seem to be bunched there, then it is correct to question what the policy was as part of the total analysis of how sodomy, beatings, etc happened. I am not interested in focusing on the spin of this story in the MSM-those folks equate panties on the head and pyramid buildings with amputations, broken bones, executing prisoners. I am interested in learning that good military people who were following orders didn't get taken down with sadists and other violent nutcases. I don't want to run away from this story because we are too uncomfortable with considering other reasons for how Abu Ghraib, etc happened. If these events were widespread, inquiry is natural.

Posted by Jules 187 2005-01-17 2:53:30 PM|| 2005-01-17 2:53:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 I do believe I read the reason this abuse occured in the wee hours was because there were no officers surpervising the detainees at those hours. England was a clerk and was not supposed to be in the detention area. No women were supposed to be there at that time of night. Most probably some of the charges against Graner were for sexual misconduct. You do NOT have sexual relations with your subordinates regardless of your rank. The commander of the prison, What's Her Ugly Mug, should be court martialled as well for dereliction of duty.

Posted by Deacon Blues 2005-01-17 3:37:02 PM|| 2005-01-17 3:37:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by Thavinter Chesing9218 2005-01-17 12:24:32 AM|| 2005-01-17 12:24:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#23 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by Unomock Jomble5468 2005-01-17 12:43:24 AM|| 2005-01-17 12:43:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#24 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by sibilla ecumenica 2005-01-17 2:27:32 AM|| 2005-01-17 2:27:32 AM|| Front Page Top