Target Centermass

Day: January 15, 2005

  • Soldier Gets 10 Years in Iraq Prison Abuse

    Abu Ghraib continues to take its toll. This time, however, the cost is finally being borne by one actually responsible.

    Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., who grinned in photos of Iraqi prisoners being sexually humiliated but told jurors, “I didn’t enjoy what I did there,” was sentenced Saturday to 10 years behind bars in the first court-martial stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

    Graner, labeled the leader of a band of rogue guards at the Baghdad prison in late 2003, could have received 15 years.

    Asked if he felt remorse after the sentence was handed down, Graner said, “There’s a war on. Bad things happen.”

    Graner will be dishonorably discharged when his sentence is completed. He also was demoted to private and ordered to forfeit all pay and benefits.

    A day after convicting him, the jury of four Army officers and six senior enlisted men deliberated about two hours to determine Graner’s sentence. He could have received 15 years.

    Graner, who had been free prior to trial, was taken into custody after the sentence was read. He gave his mother, Irma, a big hug and his father, Charles Sr., a firm handshake before the jury foreman read the sentence.

    “He’s scared to death,” Irma Graner said later.

    Graner was accused of stacking naked prisoners 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.

    Defense lawyer Guy Womack said his client and the six other Abu Ghraib guards charged with abuses were being scapegoated, but added that he thought the jury did its job well.

    “I firmly believe there should have been reasonable doubt, but we respect their decision,” he said outside the courthouse. He added that he had feared Graner could have received a harsher sentence than the 10-year term.

    Prosecutors Maj. Michael Holley and Capt. Chris Graveline would not speak to reporters, but they said in a joint statement, “We think it is important that the world was able to observe this court-martial.”

    The exact scope of the abuse scandal has been hyped to hyperbole by those thirsting for ratings or with an axe to grind or on a political headhunt. Screams for heads to roll, no matter how distant and uninvolved those heads were, echoed loudly but luckily to no avail.

    What happened at the prison was a crime, actually a fairly minor one in relation to the harm it was allowed to wreak on U.S. efforts, and now the criminals are beginning to find justice. That is as it should be; however, when all the dust settles, will those who contributed to the international circus ever look back and realize the damage they willfully perpetrated against the U.S. and the harm done to fighting Islamist terror?

  • Hitler ‘Ordered Pope Kidnapped’

    Interesting.

    Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler gave one of his generals a direct order to kidnap Pope Pius XII during World War II but the officer did not obey, Italy’s leading Roman Catholic newspaper reported.

    Avvenire, which is owned by the Italian Conference of Roman Catholic bishops, said new details of the plot had emerged in documents presented to the Vatican in favor of putting the controversial wartime Pontiff on the road to sainthood.

    Elements of alleged plots to abduct the pope during Germany’s occupation of Italy have already emerged in the past from some historians, but Avvenire’s full-page report said its details were new.

    Avvenire said Hitler feared the pope would be an obstacle to his plans for global domination and because the dictator wanted to eventually abolish Christianity and impose National Socialism as a sort of new global religion.

    ….

    It said that in 1944, shortly before the Germans retreated from Rome, SS General Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff, a senior occupation officer in Italy, had been ordered by Hitler to kidnap the pope.

    According to the newspaper, Wolff returned to Rome from his meeting with Hitler in Germany and arranged for a secret meeting with the pope. Wolff went to the Vatican in civilian clothes at night with the help of a priest.

    The newspaper said Wolff told the pope of Hitler’s orders and assured him he had no intention of carrying them out himself, but warned the pontiff to be careful “because the situation (in Rome) was confused and full of risks.”

    ….

    Avvenire said the details of the plot are in testimony Wolff gave before he died in Germany to Church officials accumulating evidence to back efforts to have Pius eventually made a saint.

    But the reports of Hitler’s contempt for Pius have contrasted with other versions by historians and authors who have depicted Pius as being pro-German and have accused him of intentionally turning a blind eye to the Holocaust.

    The Vatican’s procedures to put Pius on the road to sainthood have not been slowed or shelved despite concerns from Jews, and they will enter a new phase in March when Vatican historians will begin discussing many volumes of documentation.

    The Vatican maintains that Pius did not speak out more strongly because he feared it would worsen the fate of Catholics and Jews, and that he worked behind the scenes to save Jews.

    Pius’s pontificate has been one of the trickiest problems in post-war Catholic-Jewish relations.

    In 1998, there was widespread Jewish discontent with a Vatican document called “We Remember, a Reflection on the Shoah,” which effectively absolved Pius of accusations that he facilitated the Holocaust by remaining silent.

    But the current pontiff, Pope John Paul, has strongly defended Pius and once called him “a great pope.”

    Not sure I believe much of it, but it is interesting.

  • Sorry For the Delay

    Ended up spending more time than expected working on this site’s template last night and, after a couple of hours, ended up with a look identical to how I started. I know that sounds like a waste, but I was able to test a few settings and have the template prepared somewhat for the next wave of changes.

    Today has been wasted on errands and installing a new laser printer. I much prefer to edit from hard copy. I know, I’m so old school — blame it on my journalism background back in the days when PCs were just crawling out of the technological primordial ooze. Now, armed with a clipboard and a pen, maybe I actually be able to improve my posting efficiency. I know I’ll at least feel more in my element. My only remaining excuse is that I’m still on dial-up at home, but hopefully that will be resolved soon.

    Well, now let’s go see what’s in the news.