Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr.

    In January 2005, Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. was seen in various photographs with a grin on his face while the prisoners in Iraq were being humiliated by the rest of the soldiers. These Iraqi prisoners had to endure degrading behaviors such as being stacked on top of each other to symbolize a human pyramid and being forced to masturbate, it was very funny to the soldiers so they decided to take pictures of the Iraqi prisoners, just to show that they were less than human beings. Graner was also accused of punching one of the in the head and knocked him out. The reasons why Charles Graner Jr. allegedly did those horrible things to those men because he was ordered by his superiors to abuse them, in order to interrogate these men so they can tell them what they wanted or needed to hear. He claimed that he thought it was right or lawful to mistreat the Iraqi prisoners and he had to follow orders, or else he would get into serious trouble. After all of these incidents occurred, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison when he court-marshaled. I agree with the sentence because he should not have treated those men in a negative way, even though he was following orders at that time. It did not seem like Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. was very remorseful when he was abusing the Iraqi prisoners and having a grin on his face. Graner should have used more common sense in the way he treated those men if he wanted to get some useful information from them.

    Graner might have thought at the time of the scandal that he was just simply following orders from his superiors, however; deep down inside he knew what he was doing was wrong and he did not question the superior officers. Maybe they thought that it would be very amusing for them as well to abuse the Iraqi prisoners. As a result of following those inhumane orders, Charles Graner Jr. had to be sentenced to 10 years in prison, being dishonorably discharged, demoted to private, and he has been ordered to to give up all of the money he earned and his military benefits. Even though Graner has to do time in prison, I do not think that it was fair for him to go to jail and the rest of the soldiers who also participated in this abusive behavior towards the Iraqi prisoners should have received the same punishment as well as the superior officers who authorized this kind of treatment. If one person has to be punished for what they did to those prisoners, then so should the rest of the people that were involved in the scandal.