longjack
Posted on 01/10/2005 5:15:43 PM PST by mhking
Forcing naked Iraqi prisoners to pile themselves in human pyramids was not torture, because American cheerleaders do it every year, a court was told today.
A lawyer defending Specialist Charles Graner, who is accused of being a ringleader in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, argued that piling naked prisoners in pyramids was a valid form of prisoner control.
"Don’t cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year. Is that torture?" said Guy Womack, Sergeant Graner’s lawyer, in opening arguments to the ten-member military jury at the reservist’s court martial.
Sergeant Graner and Private Lynndie England, with whom he fathered a child and who is also facing a court-martial, became the faces of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal after they appeared in photographs that showed degraded, naked prisoners.
The prosecution showed some of those pictures in their opening argument, including one of naked Iraqi men piled on each other and another of Ms England holding a crawling naked Iraqi man on a leash.
Mr Womack said that using a tether was a valid method of controlling detainees. "You’re keeping control of them. A tether is a valid control to be used in corrections," he said.
Pictures of the humiliating treatment of the prisoners at the prison outside Baghdad prompted outrage around the world, and further eroded the credibility of the United States, already damaged in many countries by the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Apart from arguing that the methods were not illegal, Graner’s defence is that he was following orders from superiors. Mr Womack said: "He was doing his job. Following orders and being praised for it."
The chief prosecutor, Major Michael Holley, asked rhetorically,"Did the accused honestly believe that was a lawful order?"
The Bush Administration has said that the actions were those of a small group and were not part of a policy or condoned by senior officers.
But investigations have shown that many prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba also suffered abusive treatment after the Government considered ways to obtain information in the war against terrorism.
The trial of Sergeant Graner, a 36-year-old former Pennsylvania civilian prison guard who chatted and joked with his defence team before the hearing opened, was expected to last at least a week.
He faces up to 17 years in prison on charges that include mistreating detainees, dereliction of duty and assault. He has pleaded not guilty.
Four of seven accused members of Sergeant Graner’s unit have already pleaded guilty to abuse charges and three have been sentenced to prison.
Meanwhile the first court martial of a British soldier accused of mistreating Iraqi prisoners was getting under way today at a military base in western Germany.
Fusilier Gary Bartlam, 20, who serves with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, is accused of the ill-treatment of Iraqis detained by British forces in May, 2003.
Evidence about the alleged assaults and indecent assaults of the Iraqis were heard at a court martial taking place at a British Army base in Hohne, Germany.
Judge Advocate Michael Hunter banned any further reporting of the details of the hearing for legal reasons.
Prisoners were often eliminated with a bullet to the head, but one witness told the London-based human rights group Indict that inmates were sometimes murdered by being dropped into shredding machines. Some prisoners went in head first and died quickly, while others were put in feet first and died screaming. The witness said that on at least one occasion, Qusay supervised shredding-machine murders.Oh wait ...., that was BEFORE we went in. Never mind.On another occasion, a witness said, an inmate's foot was cut off in a prison torture room while Qusay was present.
"The amputation had been carried out with a power saw during his torture under the direct supervision of Qusay ," the witness told Indict.
There WAS genuine torture going on in Abu Ghraib prison and there IS video of it. It dates from the era of Saddam Hussein...
longjack
Some of our captive soldiers had their pants pulled down and were killed BEFORE we had control of Abu Ghraib.
Why is there no justice for our POWs?
Do you recall the name of the other longtime antiwar nut who leaked the photos to CBS?
There's the theory that the highest decorated member of the US military had them sent to his website and then he gave them to Mary Mapes...not naming names here, 'cos there's no proof.
I always thought you'd probably see a lot worse than that on any weekend at the Kennedy Kriminal Kompound.
Abu ghraib was not torture. What Jack Bauer to the interrogation suspect on Sunday's "24" was far worse than anything even alleged against any Abu Ghraib defendent. throw them out of the service, sure, because they are perverts and are more suited to be key grips on the "Girls Gone Wild" set, but they shouldn't serve one day of prison time. Ridiculous.
Better yet, why did the London Times decide to promote this guy to Sergeant?
As for the pyramid argument, it was pretty good for a turd shining effort.
Sorry, I don't.
That one gentleman seems to be enjoying the view.
Go Buckeyes!
Seymour Hersh had them first.
What an idiot. Someone needs to tell this guy it doesn't pay to insult the intelligence of a military jury. Unles maybe he's TRYING for an incompetent counsel appeal...
OK, Graner's officially toast, if for no other reason than he drew an incredibly inept lawyer. (BTW, from what I've read, Graner was the real rotten egg in this scandal).
So when he and his girlfriend were creating their own little pornographic movies in front of the inmates, let me guess, he was ordered to do that too right?
I bet Rummy himself sat down with Graner and England and ordered them to set up their own little version of the Playboy mansion...
/roll eyes
Well, the guy that shot the terrorist pretending to be wounded in the Mosque or the other that put a burning terrorist out of his misery with a quick bullet were one thing, and it is shameful that the military is not giving them more support...
But these two clowns deserve to have the book thrown at them.
I've seen the name of the man who helped coordinate the press for the story. He worked with one of the accused and CBS.
It just escapes me for the moment. It is no "theory", there was an article about his involvement.
There was another trial in an unrelated case last week and the soldier got a slap on the wrist (the press did not seem too happy). The jury gave him minimal sentencing.
I just want to see the trial of Sgt. Akbar get at LEAST this much publicity since he murdered several US officers back in 2003 and wounded over a dozen more. The men he killed are on the Washington Post's "Bush Lied, Men Died" list which has to be among the biggest insults. (Note: the WP may not refer to the list as such but other antiwar agit prop sites do and we all know the purpose; were were their death tolls in Clinton's wars?).
Depends on how high the pile is; pressing under heavy weights was a common medieval torture. That said, most of what's been described looks more like small-minded bullying than torture and makes us look, not brutal, but petty.
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