Lawyers for Specialist Graner have said the soldiers were following orders from military superiors who were under pressure to obtain better intelligence from the detainees. Guy Womack, his civilian lawyer, said he would provide taped testimony on Wednesday from a detainee who will say that military interrogators gave Specialist Graner orders to rough up prisoners. An Army major, Mr. Womack said, will testify that there was pressure from superiors.
Once again, the "we did as we were told" defense. Am I incorrect in thinking that soldiers have the right to refuse a clearly illegal and sadistic order?
But several military investigators and the detainees themselves testified Tuesday that the detainees in the photographs were at most common criminals, not suspected terrorists, and none were interrogated by military intelligence
"No one questioned us," said Mr. Mutar, who said Iraqi policemen had taken him at night from his house in Baghdad because they believed he had stolen a car, then transferred him to the Americans. "They took us and tortured us."
It gets better.
The other detainee, Ameen Said Al-Sheikh, a Syrian who said he had come to Iraq to fight the American forces in 2003, testified, "Graner was the primary torturer." Mr. Womack asked him if Specialist Graner had been acting under orders. "Perhaps," Mr. Al-Sheikh said, "but it is his nature. He is an aggressive man."
Mr. Womack suggested that Mr. Al-Sheikh was an unreliable witness because he had exchanged gunfire at Abu Ghraib with American soldiers, using a gun that was smuggled in to him by an Iraqi guard. Mr. Al-Sheikh said the guard had given him the gun after he expressed fear for his life.
He said Specialist Graner once jumped on his leg, already wounded by gunshot, so hard that it failed to heal straight. The soldier then beat it with a collapsible metal baton, Mr. Al-Sheikh testified.
"He handcuffed me to the door for eight hours and the next day I had a dislocated shoulder and they took me to the hospital," he said. Specialist Graner watched as another soldier urinated on Mr. Al-Sheikh, the detainee testified, and Specialist Graner made another detainee eat from a toilet. He threatened to rape them and their wives, and made them eat pork and make statements against their Muslim faith, Mr. Al-Sheikh said.
"Graner told me to thank Jesus for keeping me alive," Mr. Al-Sheikh said.
Don't get me wrong. I don't expect soldiers to coddle thugs who are trying to kill them as Al-Sheikh was by definition. Even killing someone caught red-handed making or planting an IED is not too far beyond the pale, given the circumstances.
But this was sadism, pure and simple. These are the kids who got off on killing the cats in their neighborhood, all grown up.
Abstract issues of ethics and angels-dancing-on-a-pin questions of what constitutes torture aside, the practical fact of the matter is that it just takes one instance like this to undo a hundred repainted schools, a thousand candy bars handed out to kids. Not to mention what's going to happen to a US soldier who gets captured by these fuckers.
Hearts n' minds, people.
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