Guilty 9X

"Army Reserve Spc. Charles Graner Jr. took the stand Saturday and said he did not relish doling out what he described as "irregular treatment." - CNN.com

So, he's busted, found guilty and the evidence that he did enjoy this is out.. But he did not "relish" it? Oh, so the emails he sent to friends back home of the inmates he beat weren't fun for him to do? If he was so concerned about this why not email those pics to a news agency when the torture began and he started taking those sick photos?

"His mother, Irma, her voice raspy from bronchitis, testified, "I love my son."

"I never had an ounce of problems with him as a child. He's kind, gentle, will do anything for anybody. He's not the one that he's being made out to be."

She said she has received phone calls from people who believe he's a hero.

"To me, he'll always be a hero," she said." - CNN.com

A hero?! A bleeping HERO!?!? He's not a hero. He's a war criminal. A hero wouldn't have said this about why he was smiling in photos of the abuse: "There were a lot of things we did that were screwed up. If you didn't look at it as funny, you couldn't deal with it."

Orders or not. He says he was ordered to do this. Ok, the testify who gave the orders. The "just being a good soldier and obeying orders" crap doesn't cut it. He was sentenced today for 10 years and being demoted to private and dishonorable discharge. That's a slap on the wrist compared to some war criminals.

This whole thing is just another way America is losing respect from the rest of the world. We're part of a global community, occasionally we should consider acting like it.

This last bit says it best for this administration's view of the world: "In dramatic closing arguments before the jury, the prosecution showed video and photographs of alleged abuses by Graner.

"What we have here is plain abuse, no doubt about it. There is no justification," said prosecuting attorney Capt. Chris Graveline.

But Graner's defense attorneys argued the images in the photographs were not as horrible as the prosecution made them out to be."

When beating someone until you can't recognize their face because of the amount of blood, stacking someone naked against their will in a human pyramid, and violating the Geneva Convention you probably shouldn't say something as completely stupid as "the images... were not as horrible as... made them out to be."