Assignment 7

Part I: Due: Sunday May 19

What are Jackson’s arguments in support of the charter of London?

What are Wyzanki’s arguments against the legality of the charter?

Part II: Due Sunday May 19

In January 2005, Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., who grinned in photos of Iraqi prisoners being sexually humiliated but told jurors, “I didn’t enjoy what I did there,” was sentenced to 10 years behind bars in the first court-martial stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Graner, labeled the leader of a band of rogue guards at the Baghdad prison in late 2003, could have received 15 years. Asked if he felt remorse after the sentence was handed down, Graner said, “There’s a war on. Bad things happen.” Graner will be dishonorably discharged when his sentence is completed. He also was demoted to private and ordered to forfeit all pay and benefits. Graner was accused of stacking naked prisoners in a human pyramid and later ordering them to masturbate while other soldiers took photographs. He also allegedly punched one man in the head hard enough to knock him out, and struck an injured prisoner with a collapsible metal stick. Graner did not testify during his trial, but during the sentencing phase he took the witness stand to repeat the defense claim that the jury clearly rejected: that he had been ordered by intelligence agents at Abu Ghraib to abuse the prisoners to make them easier to interrogate. He said he initially resisted pressure to mistreat prisoners, but his Army superiors made it clear to him that he was expected to obey the commands of the military and civilian intelligence agents who ran his part of Abu Ghraib. Graner said a lieutenant in his unit told him: “If (military intelligence) asks you to do this, it needs to be done. They’re in charge, follow their 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. Do you agree with the sentence or do you think there was any merit to his defense that he was following orders?

Part III: Wednesday May 22

Please comment on two of your classmates’ responses to the Abu Ghraib case.