Oh. Right. OK.

[djm4_lj]

Abu Grahib soldiers did not abuse prisoners. They used 'valid control techniques'. Yes, they kept them on leashes, but parents at airports do that to toddlers, so that's OK. Yes they stacked them into naked human pyramids, but cheerleaders all over America form pyramids (I admit it's news to me that the cheerleaders in question are naked and being pointed at and laughed at, but I suppose it's possible), so that's OK, too.

Context, guys, context.

If I recall correctly, they got some of the prisoners to simulate masturbation. I suspect this is going to be pronounced OK because we do it to pigs. In other news, rape is a valid control technique because married couples have sex occasionally, and sticking a prisoner's head in a bucket of freezing cold water until they're half drowning is only like baptism.

The line about "In Texas we'd lasso them and drag them out of there," doesn't surprise me as much as perhaps it should, either.

Comments

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

My god. I cannot believe the defense is actuallly trying to peddle that line of bullshit (I cannot call it "reasonable defense").

[djm4]

Yes. I'll be more worried if anyone much takes it seriously. At the moment, I'm reading it as a lawyer who's thinking 'OK, we're screwed, so I might as well try anything.'

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Yes, but in England, there are bad arguments, and then there are arguments that are so appallingly bad that you have a duty to the Court not to run them. If your client insists that you run them, you return the brief on the grounds of "professional embarrassment". I'd have no trouble categorising this as one of the latter. But then, as I said this morning, I'm having trouble believing that this guy and I are from the same planet.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I believe that in a court martial setting, the attorneys can be prosecuted themselves for tossing off an asshat of an argument (however that is said in military judicial language).

[rosefox]

...

Ugh.

[rosefox]

Also:

The soldier, who was pictured smiling in a number of the Abu Ghraib pictures, denies assault and conspiracy to mistreat prisoners.

[...]

"Whatever happens is going to happen, but I still feel it's going to be on the positive side and I'm going to have a smile on my face," Spc Graner said last week.

I think that's the cattiest phrasing I've ever seen from the BBC. Subtle, but clearly a sneer.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

So basically he and his lawyers aren't denying that he did these things, just that they constitute abuse/torture?

I think the Geneva Convention is pretty clear on that sort of thing, actually.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

But in George W. Bush's America, the Geneva Convention doesn't apply. Just ask his nominee for Attorney General.