Jury told Abu Ghraib Abuse Was "Just for Laughs"

[corksean]

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - Military jurors began deliberating the fate of Spc. Charles Graner Jr. on Friday after a prosecutor told them that the defendant and other Abu Ghraib guards beat up and humiliated detainees at the Baghdad prison simply for the fun of it.

In his closing argument, Capt. Chris Graveline, one of the prosecutors, recounted incident after incident of alleged abuse, buttressing many with photos and video taken inside the prison in November 2003, to make the case that Graner was a sadistic soldier who took pleasure in seeing detainees suffer.

The panel of four Army officers and six senior enlisted men began their deliberations at late morning. On each of the five charges, seven of the jurors must vote to convict for Graner to be found guilty in the court-martial.

``It was for sport, for laughs,'' Graveline told jurors. ``What we have here is plain abuse. There is no justification.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4733300,00.html

[trotsky]

1. So even the lamest right-wing "justification" -

namely, that by torturing these poor people we'd somehow get valid information out of them - is utterly wrong.

It sure would be nice if we had something like a "liberal media" that could throw that back in their faces.

[0007]

9. In other words this was a carnival

Would the media find this funny?


Shucks we missed the dog act, bet that was funny

[bemildred]

2. Good. Now let's withdraw from Iraq "just for laughs" too.

For sport, you know?

[bloom]

3. They should read the WSJ

they had all kinds of justifications for it.... Or the memo - didn't they get the memo?

[Desertrose]

4. bet he wouldn't be laughing it it was him in the pyramid

they should make these guys go trhough the same experiences they inflicted on others and then ask if it was torture or for laughs.

I don't understand how some can be so unhuman...less than human...subhuman. What is WRONG with these people that they can do these things and then think they can justify it?

We are so f*ed as a country.....

[NYC]

6. Believe it or not,

many years ago, I read an article in The New York Times that described how "normal people" can become torturers when they are convinced the torture is for a worthy cause.

I still don't believe that absolutely everyone is capable of becoming a torturer.

Read Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram. Excellent book, though it does not deal with what enables "normal" people to become torturers.

[Moderator]

5. Please edit your post subject

Please edit your post subject, make it match the actual article title "Jury Told Abu Ghraib Abuse Was for Laughs", per rules for Latest Breaking News.

Thank you

[corksean]

8. Done. Good Point, well made.

[Moderator]

10. Thanks! n/t

[asjr]

7. The hiprocisy off this trial is glaring. As bad as Graner is, why

don't they go to the birth of this torture method? It came from the top. Bush, Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Cheney are the originators of this. The memo by Gonzales gave the soldiers the right to use torture. Yes, this is all rhetorical--the top stays on top.

[RT Atlanta]

11. Shits and giggles

Bushco's favorite form of torture. Animals... all of 'em.

You reap what you sow and this will come back to them one way or another.

[TahitiNut]

12. We're in Bizarro World.

We have a regime that's eager to prosecute a grunt for behavior that the very same regime claims is lawful!

[Solly Mack]

15. Precisely

[VegasWolf]

17. Exactly, unfuc*ing believable.

[Minstrel Boy]

13. It was not done for "laughs." The laughter was just a benefit of the job

for Rumsfeld's henchmen.

[rocktivity]

14. And aside frim that, they asked for it...

:eyes:
rocknation

[pathologistD]

16. That's what Lynndie England

told the investigator also. She said they were bored and it was really funny. Her lawyer has since tried to get her statement thrown out but the judge said it's coming in!

[Desperadoe]

19. That's what was left in the report

I would be much more interested to see what statements by England were omitted from this so-called "investigator's" report.

These trials are nothing more than a cover up for the upper echelon of the military. The DOD is the most corrupt department in the most corrupt administration that this country has ever produced.

Foxes investigating a hen house murder.

[MadisonProgressive]

18. So funny I split a gut!

Or was that the dog that split my gut?

[Bat Boy]

20. Oh. Well that's okay then.

As long as you weren't serious about it.

Move along. Nothing to see here..