Something is rotten in the United States. It is the stench of moral decay. It reeks of degraded principles, of hyporcrisy, and of ethical stagnation. There is also more than a whiff of fascism.Three detainees died yesterday at the Guantanamo Bay camp, two Saudis and a Yemeni. They had apparently committed suicide by hanging themselves with clothing and bed sheets. All three had been held in the camp for years without charge. This had hardly been an isolated incident either. Since January 2002, Guantanamo officials claim that there have been 41 suicide attempts though defence lawyers believe that number to be much higher.
Amongst renewed criticism by both international and domestic US parties for the camp to be closed, the commander of the camp, Rear Admiral Harry Harris Jr. had the audacity to state:
“I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”
How dare he reframe this tragic situation to make the United States the victim and the detainees the aggressors? It is offensive and absolutely disgusting. If the United States military upheld any sort of moral principle, it would repudiate these odious comments immediately and censure Harris.
The reasons why these three men were driven to suicide is not a mystery. There is no hidden reason or greater plan. As per Kenneth Roth, head of the Human Rights Watch in New York:
“These people are despairing because they are being held lawlessly … There’s no end in sight. They’re not being brought before any independent judges. They’re not being charged and convicted for any crime.”
As before, there should really be no reason why this turn of events was unexpected. There had already been 41 attempts of suicide previously and an unsuccessful attempt should be taken just as seriously.
This article has been republished on the mixeye website, and is available here.
Source articles:
Yahoo! News: DOD identifies 3 Guantanamo suicides
Yahoo! News: U.S.: 3 Gitmo inmates hanged themselves
BBC News: Triple suicide at Guantanamo camp
BBC News: Guantanamo suicides ‘acts of war’
8 comments:
A senior US official has apparently distanced himself from the early witless statements of Rear Admiral Harry Harris. Needless to say, these remarks from the Admiral which had been parroted by the Administration were condemned internationally.
I particularly like what The Guardian had to say:
"The left-leaning Guardian described Admiral Harris's remarks as "cold and odious." "The demented logic of Dr Strangelove hung like a ghost" over the U.S. response to the suicides, it said."
It would be funny if this ghastly scenario was fiction.
Yahoo! News: US steps back from Guantanamo suicide comments
Regards,
Michael Tam
A blog from AlterNet:
It takes years of delusion at one of the Global War on Terr's headquarters to build up such a capacity for delusion to imagine that prisoners couldn't have legitimate grievances about their treatment. Harris displays that capacity in spades. Imaging seeing every act of protest as terrorism... and that frame of mind brings us to the same thinking as the folks who see public dissent as those who hate America and appease the terrorists.
Absolutely.
The thing that is interesting to me is that this level of "delusion" must be so ingrained in the culture of the US Administration and Military that no one thought to STOP this mind-numbingly stupid thing to be stated / reported.
Regards,
Michael Tam
Yeah this reeks.
Have you read about ARDA? & MySpace & my theory of Six Degrees of IN-Separability?
http://thiscanadian.typepad.com/this_canadian/2006/06/new_scientist_t.html
seriously. you should take a look a what these dudes are about these days...
how long until WE are targetted?
Namaste
BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @ ThisCanadian.com
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
Michael,
You are becoming too strident in your condemnation of America.
While I would agree the war in Iraq, while not completely wrong, was most certainly stupid, I disagree with any who claim we do not have the right to detain Prisoners of War.
So some of these Prisoner's of War will commit suicide? Who cares? I don't. My own society teaches that the soldier who collapses himself on the grenade to save his fellow soldiers is a saint.
Their society teaches that the one who flies a jetliner into a building crowded with innocents is rewarded with virgins for his deeds.
America has the right to detain combatants. These combatants should be treated like Prisoners of War. But even thus treatment will not evidently make you happy.
We're dealing with unreasonable people. Or will you call the actions of the "combatants" on 9-11 reasonable?
Even back in WWII POW's faced uncertain times in stockade. They would be locked up for duration. If they resorted to suicide during this duration they would not have gained any sympathy.
Let all of them commit suicide. I would rather they commit suicide in a cell block then commit suicide in the middle of the twin towers.
You need to grow up young man.
Surely innocents are detained at Gitmo. We've tried releasing the "most innocent" and found some of them returned to hostility.
Instead of trying to prevent suicide we should equip each cell with a noose and invite them to go get their virgins.
Perhaps if they are Pedophiles we should promise them they will get 70 young children when they get to heaven?
Perhaps that last statement was a little "too far", but would it be "too extreme" a statement if you were a female expected to live within the society our enemy wants to impose upon us?
Michael, I praise your willingness to stand up for human rights. But I challenge you to question whether those you defend stand there with you.
While I would agree the war in Iraq, while not completely wrong, was most certainly stupid, I disagree with any who claim we do not have the right to detain Prisoners of War.
I believe you are proving my point.
So some of these Prisoner's of War will commit suicide?
They are not held as prisoners of war. That my dear fellow, is the whole problem.
Regards,
Michael Tam
While Dubyah Bush insists on labeling those detained as "illegal combatants" they are being treated as Prisoners of War.
Those being held within common American prisons would wish they were held under the same circumstances.
This is not unusual. During WWII American POW camps holding German prisoners within Texas were known as the Fritz Ritz because the conditions were pampered in comparison to common prison conditions.
What conditions are the prisoners subjected to that do not conform to the Geneva Conventions on detention of Prisoners of War? That is other then unreasonable requirements like providing every prisoner with his own personal laboratory?
What conditions are the prisoners subjected to that do not conform to the Geneva Conventions on detention of Prisoners of War?
Google is your friend.
Here, here, and here.
That was just a few of the relevant pages from a search of "guantanamo bay geneva conventions" in Google.
We are not just talking about the physical conditions (which by the way, are not great - David Hicks has been held in solitary confinement for hundreds of days), rather, their rights under the Convention.
Your argument is frankly a little bit odd. The international community has been so highly critical of the Guantanamo Bay camp expressly because the Geneva Conventions are not being upheld. Bush would solve the problem quickly if he declared them all POWs and gave them their rights under the convention (which would actually also entail releasing the vast majority of detainees).
Michael, I praise your willingness to stand up for human rights. But I challenge you to question whether those you defend stand there with you.
That unfortunately is what is wrong with the entire mentality of the US military. Thankfully your courts are still rational.
It is irrelevant where they are nasty people or not. They should still be treated as human beings with certain "inalienable human rights" (sounds familiar?). The Geneva Conventions simply outline the minimum standard, something which the US has not upheld.
If someone is charged with being a paedophile, that person still has a right to his or her day at court and to have a fair hearing. I believe that the Western world have gone past the days where we simply stone these people to death at the city gates.
In any case, this was not even really the issue of the original article. The article was about the suicide of the three detainees and the subsequent US miltiary and administration spin. The recurrent suicide attempts are not a "PR" act on the part of the detainees. They are a sign that many of these detainees are so distressed that they feel that their only escape is through death.
Regards,
Michael Tam
At least one of the articles you linked to is rather old. It decried the use of temporary cages, which were only used until permanent structures could be completed.
One of the others decries Dubyah administration descriptions of the Geneva Convention requirements as "quaint". This description (by the Dubyah administration) is true in some regards. For example, the requirement that every prisoner must be provided with laboratory equipment. Perhaps if one of the prisoners was a Doctor, for example, and was attempting to practice medicine amongst his fellow prisoners this would be appropriate. But there is no reason that laboratory equipment must be provided to a truck driver for example.
I have heard several discussions of this issue on NPR (the issue of conditions under which they are held). Even lawyers for those detained have acknowledged, that in comparison to "normal" US prisons, the conditions the detainees are being held under are satisfactory. Or do you think they must be held under conditions that rivals the Four Seasons?
I do agree that the Dubyah administration is wrong in not declaring the prisoners are POW's. However if they did so that does not mean "which would actually also entail releasing the vast majority of detainees" as you stated.
As for the original intent of the article, OK. Personally, I think the prisoners should not, for example, be force fed. If they want to go on a hunger strike, they should be allowed to do so. Should they be allowed to end their life by other means? Well, in my opinion, yes they should. You see, I believe in the right to die. If they want to commit suicide, I would say go ahead, as long as you do not harm anyone else while doing it.
Of course, I can already hear the objections to this. "The only reason they would want to commit suicide is because they are mentally ill and you must provide psychiatric treatment."
To which I would reply: If the detainees desire psychiatric treatment we should provide it, but if they desire suicide we should provide them with the noose.
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