Whistleblower recounts dilemma in turning over Abu Ghraib photos

[Rose Siding]

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (CNN) -- The young military policeman who blew the whistle on Abu Ghraib testified Friday he waited a month to turn over incriminating photos to investigators because it was "a hard call" to send his own friends to prison.

Sgt. Joseph Darby said he finally acted because he was shocked by the photos and worried that the abuse was about to resume.

"It violated everything I personally believed in and everything I had been taught about war. It was more of a moral call than anything," Darby testified.
...
In Friday testimony, Darby said he got the photos on a computer disc from guard Charles Graner in early December last year. Darby finally turned them over to investigators at the prison in mid-January, just before Graner was due to return to duty in the high-security area where the abuses had taken place.

"I was concerned it was going to start again," Darby testified.
more....

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/06/lynndie.england.hearing/index.html

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

1. This guy is gutsy.

I admire him.

[leetrisck]

2. I read somewhere that there were threats

against him and his family after this happened. - more than against those who did it.

[movonne]

3. Just goes to show how corrupt the Repugs are getting....

[TahitiNut]

4. This guy is fucked for life.

Any time he applies for a job, they can search and find this background. Corporations detest whistle-blowers - of any kind. While we laud him here on DU, we have nothing close to the kind of "whistle-blower protection" in this country to overcome the disaster these people face in their attempts to obtain employment. (Not everyone is able to go it alone - so-called entrepreneurs.)

Corporations avoid hiring: (1) the unemployed, (2) people whose credit ratings have been nailed by unemployment, (3) boat-rockers and whistle-blowers, and (4) anyone on record as suing a company.

With the Internet, background investigations (both formal and informal) are made one helluva lot easier for hiring managers and personnel departments. Newspapers on-line add to the easily-available record.

[Triana]

6. blacklisted...

...I know of someone who reported discrimination to the EEOC and they investigated the employer who was doing it. Though the employer was found guilty, that person has been blacklisted ever since.

Even outside background checks, employers, corporations, and personnel departments and the various bigwigs involved have codewords, and key words they use to refer to potential employees verbally or in writing that 'flag' them for not being hired. These words and phrases are simply known in the industry - they are NOT discussed or written anywhere or documented anywhere. They're simply understood as red flags to indicate 'nohire'...

[KansDem]

5. Charles Graner is Lyndie England's fiance and father of her baby...

In Friday testimony, Darby said he got the photos on a computer disc from guard Charles Graner in early December last year. Darby finally turned them over to investigators at the prison in mid-January, just before Graner was due to return to duty in the high-security area where the abuses had taken place.

"I was concerned it was going to start again," Darby testified.

Graner, a former prison guard in Pennsylvania with a history of domestic violence, has been identified as a ringleader of the physical abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners kept at Abu Ghraib. He is awaiting court-martial in Baghdad.

and...

A Rabble not a Unit

Long ago, in a galaxy far away, when I was an active duty US Marine Corps officer, I had a few interactions with US Army reserve units. While there are doubtless exceptions, I generally found the officers of such units to be buffoons and the troops an undisciplined rabble. Consequently, I wasn't surprised to learn that Abu Ghraib prison, where the abuse of Iraqi prisoners occurred, was manned by US Army reservists.

Here's an example of the kind of soldier (and I use that term in the loosest possible manner) who comprised the 372nd MP Company at Ghaib:


Specialist Graner, who wears a Marine Corps eagle tattoo on his right arm, served in the corps from April 1988 until May 1996, when he left with the rank of corporal, according to military records. He went to work immediately at the State Correctional Institution Greene, in southwestern Pennsylvania, where he has held an entry-level corrections officer position ever since.

Eight years on active duty and he never rose beyond the rank of corporal. That is one seriously sorry-assed Marine.

Here's another:


Pfc. Lynndie R. England, who was married and divorced before she was 21, worked at a chicken-processing plant in West Virginia.

England, 21, was born in Kentucky and moved with her family to a spacious trailer in Fort Ashby, W.Va., after her father, a railroad utility worker, was transferred. Briefly married to longtime friend, she was divorced before she left for Iraq last year.

Private England, 21, may have frequently visited the prison because she was romantically involved with Specialist Graner. They say she is pregnant and has been sent to Fort Bragg, N.C., where she continues to be questioned by investigators. Her parents said she had not told them she was pregnant.

http://gweilodiaries.com/archives2/cat_iraq.html

[lottie244]

7. The Swiftboaters will be after him soon. They anyone telling the truth

about the ubliness of war and what some of our troops really do during wartime.

[Rose Siding]

8. He phoned in his testimony like others but

they don't say where he is. For others who phoned in, at least their base of location was available in the articles. Maybe that's for his safety.

It made me wonder: Don't military courts afford the accused the right to face their accuser?