Abu Ghraib

Posted on 05/02/2009 at 1:42 pm by Bob Cesca

I was wondering when this would happen:

Prison guards jailed for abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq are planning to appeal against their convictions on the ground that recently released CIA torture memos prove that they were scapegoats for the Bush Administration. [...]

Charles Gittins, a lawyer who represents Charles Graner, the ringleader of the guards who is serving a ten-year sentence, said that the memos proved his long-held contention that Graner and the other defendants, including his former lover Lynndie England, could never have invented tactics such as stress positions and the use of dogs on their own.

This is all so disgraceful and embarrassing.

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  • http://www.xkcd.com/ ∇•B=0  Silly Ratfaced Git  ∇•D=ρ

    Odd that the BushCo criminal conspiracy prosecuted their minions who were just ‘following orders.’ Rumsfeld and Cheney come from that long line of scofflaw ne’er-do-wells that always find a convenient scapegoat to stick the blame to so that they can skate.It’s long past time for us to stick the blame where it belongs. I want to know why Rumsfeld and Cheney have not been arrested for war crimes. It’s way overdue.

  • http://www.xkcd.com/ ∇•B=0  Silly Ratfaced Git  ∇•D=ρ

    I also find it telling that a U.K. paper has the story but nothing in the U.S. media yet.Is this a story that will be ignored by the U.S. media cartel like so many others they hope we won’t find out about?

  • http://www.sigzone.blogspot.com MG

    Charles Gittins, a lawyer who represents Charles Graner, the ringleader of the guards who is serving a ten-year sentence, said that the memos proved his long-held contention that Graner and the other defendants, including his former lover Lynndie England, could never have invented tactics such as stress positions and the use of dogs on their own.____________________________^ a long sentence that contains one part hideousness and one part hilarity”his former lover Lynddie England”^ I never wanted to read that phrase in my life. End of.”could never have invented tactics such as stress positions and the use of dogs on their own.”^ No shit. I’m certain that sometimes respiration is probably beyond their cognitive abilities, as well.

  • http://www.xkcd.com/ ∇•B=0  Silly Ratfaced Git  ∇•D=ρ

    I am a bit baffled by the use of “ringleader of the guards” attached to Charles Graner. It appears that he was “ringleader of the guards” in the exact same way that Gen. Patton was “ringleader of the U.S. Third Army” by being its commanding officer.I look forward to calling Cheney the ringleader of the war crimes criminal conspiracy.

    “What we know is that we had at the time a rogue government that created an environment where this sort of conduct was condoned, if not encouraged,” he said.

    British understatement. The ‘rogue’ government was an outright criminal conspiracy.I should point out that I agree that these people should have an appeal based on BushCo withholding pertinent evidence. However, these people should have refused to follow orders. If I had been a commissioned officer, I would have resigned my commission and reported the unlawful orders to the JAG.Armed services field manuals clearly state that unlawful orders should not be carried out. It is an actionable offense for an officer to give unlawful orders.

  • http://tarackian.deviantart.com J M Ashby

    Yeah my first thought when this all came out was what about those guards who are in prison when it was Rumsfeld issuing the orders.Maybe Obama should pardon these 2 soldiers.

  • http://tarackian.deviantart.com J M Ashby

    Git – In part I agree about the not following unlawful orders but thats pretty black and white.If you think about it a little more in depth you have to consider that they may not have even known it was unlawful. I mean if you’ve got the secretary of defense giving you orders on what to do, then they probably didn’t assume the secretary of defense was violating the law. They were over in Iraq, probably thinking that they were defending the country somehow, and got orders straight from the top brass…. so they followed them.Years later now we all know conclusively that it was BS but at that time those soldiers probably didn’t know any better.

  • http://www.osborneink.com Matt Osborne

    Why didn’t the Bushites support our troops??

  • Hugh Jass

    I would be for taking it easy (er) on the guards if it meant the architects who planned these acts faced justice.

  • http://www.below-the-fold.com EriktheRed

    Fleetwood Mac – Rumours…Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon…Pink Floyd – The Wall

  • http://www.below-the-fold.com EriktheRed

    Ah crap, sorry folks!Thought I was posting the above in the Saturday Night Music thread.