Whatever one thinks of the despicable attempt of the Bush Administration to deflect blame for the vile crimes at Abu Ghraib, Charles Graner is a piece of work.
The New York Times reported Friday that [Graner's e-mails to his family] included previously unseen photographs, including one in a message titled, "just another dull night at work" that shows a bound and naked detainee howling in pain as his leg bleeds.
Though you may not know his name, you will know his face. Graner is the mustached man who appears in many photographs with Lynnie England.
On Thursday, the defense rested. Today, closing arguments will be made and a jury of four officers and six senior enlisted men will begin deliberations.
Graner stands accused of being the "ringleader" of abuses at Abu Ghraib. Even the concept of a ringleader is ridiculous in a case like this, but that's how its being played.
Graner has had a history of problems in prisons. As you may know, many of the men running Abu Ghraib were also involved with the prisons industry in the United States, the MP unit there at the time being a Reserve unit. During that time he is implicated in several 'incidents', varying from placing Mace in another guard's coffee to planting razor blades in one inmate's food and then beating him. Most court cases involving these incidents were dismissed for various reasons (too late; plantiff vanished; etc) although two dozen guards at that prison were fired for similar reasons.
Graner is charged with offenses including conspiracy, assault and committing indecent acts and could get 17 1/2 years in a military prison.
Among other things, Graner is accused of stacking naked detainees in a human pyramid and later ordering them to masturbate while other soldiers took photographs. He also allegedly punched one man in the head hard enough to knock him out, and struck an injured prisoner with a collapsible metal stick.
This guy should be sent away. This is obvious. But we are left with a bit of a conundrum. In all likelyhood, he WAS following orders, as contended by his defense. And the Noise Machine will hype up his conviction as 'problem solved, we're so great because we fix our problems!'. You just know it. Where are the intelligence officers that should be on trial?
On Thursday, a former guard at the prison testified for the defense that intelligence officers wanted detainees roughed up ...
What about General Miller?
Yet Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who commanded the Guantanamo Bay prison from October 2002 to March 2004, insists there are differences. General Miller acknowledges urging the use dogs in Iraq -- to deter prison violence, he said at the time -- but has denied using dogs for interrogation purposes while he was in command at Guantanamo. The senior military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, however, swears that General Miller acknowledged doing just that at Guantanamo.
Last August, the Department ordered General Geoffrey Miller - then in charge at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay - to go to Iraq to find ways to improve the flow of intelligence from detainees, an investigation by Britain's Mail on Sunday newspaper has found.
General Miller certainly hasn't been in the news lately.
In an interview with BBC Radio, former prison commander Janis Karpinski claimed that Miller told her to treat prisoners "like dogs" in the sense that "if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them". Major General Miller denies that he ever made the comparison.
It's okay, though. We certainly won't forget. The Executive won't be Republican forever. And I don't think there's a statute of limitations for this.