Graner Guilty

Army Spec Sgt Charles Graner of Uniontown PA, was convicted Friday on all five counts he face in his involvement in the Abu Gharaib prison scandal. The charges included assault (downgraded to battery), conspiracy, maltreatment of detainees, committing indecent acts and dereliction of duty.

In his civilian life he was a guard at a Pennsylvania prison. A senior guard at the prison, Michael Zavada, described his work as excellent and very disciplined, doing every thing by policy. Zavada praised his restraint in dealing with prisoners and his ability to follow orders. That might be the problem.

I work in a prison. Granted, it's a juvenile prison and things are much different than in an adult prison. But all guards, or Corrections Officers as they sometimes like to be called, know or should know, that if they are given an order that can be considered abusive or illegal, they don't have to follow the order. They can to "go up the chain" and question the order.

Now, I will be the first to admit that this can have consequences, such as retailiation. But, each and every human being, whether a prison guard or not, has an inner voice telling them whether something is right or not. When it's wrong you have two options. You can either shut down the volume on the voice that's screaming "this is wrong!" and follow the order, or you can listen to the voice and take the consequences of questioning the order.

Graner may never have stepped over the line in his civilian job. He may have been a paragon of virtue and the prime example of what a prison guard should be. But, when he went to Iraq, things were different. He may say he was following orders. If so, I think he knew these orders were wrong, and may even have resisted for a time. I'd be willing to bet that this prison environment, possibly being told that he can save American lives, and being in a totally different culture changed his value system. In any case, he shut down the inner voice telling him not to do this. I wasn't there, I don't know why Graner did what he was convicted of doing.

This is where I would ordinarily say it's all about character, and it is. But, I also won't say that I could retain my value system in an environment where I knew that the inmates I was guarding could have information that would save American lives. I don't know that I could have resisted if a CIA agent told me that this is what we needed to do to get that information. I'd like to say that if Graner had the character that he showed in his civilian job, he might be hailed as a hero now instead of facing time on the other side of the bars. And I could take the high and mighty road and say just that. But I won't.

He committed the crime. He's been convicted. He's going to do the time. Now he has the choice of pointing fingers and whining that he was only following orders, or taking responsibility for his own actions. Now is when his character will show through. And now is when I will say it's all about character.

Update: Graner got 10 years. From what I read on various news sites, he whined that he was only following orders. He said "he now knows that those orders were unlawful, but "at the time my understanding is that they were (lawful), or I wouldn't have done them," he said." and that "I didn't enjoy what I did there. ... A lot of it was wrong, a lot of it was criminal." He spoke for nearly three hours in an unsworn statement, which was not subject to cross-examination by prosecutors. Graner should hope his jailers know what's lawful and what's not.