Opinions vary on prison life, call for troops

EDITOR’S NOTE: A story about prison life for those accused in the Kimberly Cates murder and a letter criticizing the president for not responding quickly to a general’s call for more troops in Afghanistan generated a lot of online comments this week.

HEADLINE: Inside the cells of murder suspects

SUMMARY: Steven Spader, William Marks, and Christopher Gribble have been at the Hillsborough County Department of Corrections in Manchester for 34 days and counting. Except for a fraction of that time, they’ve spent their days in nearly identical 11-foot-4-inch by 6-foot-4-inch cells, “sight and sound separated” from one another, per Judge Martha Crocker’s orders. Brookline residents Spader, 17 and Gribble, 20, along with Amherst resident Marks, 18, are three of the four people charged in connection with the Oct. 4 murder of Kimberly Cates and the attack on her daughter, 11-year-old Jaimie Cates. (Nov. 9)

COMMENTS: 82

“Awww . . . they’ve had trouble adjusting to institutional life. Poor widdle babies! Meanwhile, the Cates family has to adjust to life without Kimberly, and Jaimie has to recover from her horrible injuries. Yeah, I feel soooo sorry for those pieces of excrement.” (Diane)

“What a waste of their own lives for these young men. Glover and Marks were seniors in high school and would be in college or the service or working a year from now. Instead they are in prison, where they should be, and hopefully will be for decades if not the rest of their lives.” (seamusnh)

“What is the purpose of this article???? What is the purpose of this article other than to make anyone reading feel bad for these ‘poor’ kids??? I know I sobbed my eyes out. So the next time a couple Nazis kill a single mother and attempt to kill her 11-year-old daughter, we should put them up at, ohhh I don’t know, the Marriott at Copley Place???? Nahhh, too ratty. Any suggestions for a nicer hotel e-mail them to The Telegraph. I’m sure they’ll love your ideas.” (zach33)

“Zach33, you ask what is the purpose of the article. I believe, unlike you apparently do, that it was to impress upon the reading public that these young men are NOT getting an easy ride in jail. There are people that will never be happy over any sort of humane treatment for them, but what they are receiving is, IMO, humane but not pleasant. Another reason I believe this article was written that might not be too apparent right now. If ONLY ONE young person reads this, sees how unglamorous and how soul-destroying prison will be, perhaps they will decide that doing what is right is better than doing what is going to get them into this situation these 3 young men find themselves. Life, or almost all of one’s life, spent in jail should be a deterrent to any young person who might secretly think that these young men are ‘cool.’” (sajwert)

HEADLINE: No good reason to delay general’s call for troops

SUMMARY: How much longer is President Barack Obama going to delay his general’s request for more troops in Afghanistan? Waiting for results of an election is not good enough. For the Americans who have family dying every day, I would be outraged at this president’s delay. Where is the liberal media reporting on the daily casualties of this war? Of course, those reports would be negative for this administration. (Nov. 11)

COMMENTS: 183

“Let see . . . First Obama said we would get all out troops out of Iraq in 16 months. Now we will leave troops there indefinitely. Now, 9 months in he still has not made a decision on what to do in Afghanistan. He has a total of 25 minutes talking with the Afghanistan theater commanding general.

But has had time for: 24 rounds of golf, 28 fundraisers, 1 failed Olympic bid. But only 25 minutes for the top commander of our forces in Afghanistan.” (JD)

“Please don’t try and say the president is doing nothing and abandoning the troops, JD, that is just silly. I have two words for you: Crawford, Texas. Can you really write a comment like that with a straight face?” (baseballnh)

“There’s one very compelling reason why the president doesn’t just give the general what he wants on demand. The general is a strategist, not a policymaker. The decision to escalate is a policy decision first, and only a strategy decision relative to that. We are still trying to recover from a severe deficit of policy over the course of these ‘wars.’ We are not going to do that with yet another panic-button reaction. If you haven’t read tomgnh’s Clark Clifford discourse in this thread, do so. Excellent picture of why we need real policy before we give in to any more knee-jerk.” (SongbirdinNH)

“Awfully long knee-jerk reaction. If the president doesn’t trust his general’s judgment, why send him over to perform an analysis on the situation? If he disagrees with his assessment, send another general over to assess it. These troops have earned the right to be supported by their Commander in Chief. So the solution is: a) send over additional troops to support and relieve the troops currently in country or b) sign the order of withdrawal and bring them safely home. What the ramifications are to Afghanistan are not worth wasting the lives on our military personnel, because we can not supply them with the resources to perform the task at hand. If we are unable to provide the proper resources for the task . . . change the task.” (USMC_04)

You Said It, a collection of online reader comments to stories published during the week, appears Saturdays in The Telegraph.