Mon 12 Jun 2006
New threat: suicide hangers
Posted by shelbinator under (In)security, Politics, Rant
How long before Faux News starts calling them “homicide hangers?”
The suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amount to acts of war, the US military says. … The men were found unresponsive and not breathing by guards on Saturday morning, said officials. … They hanged themselves with clothing and bed sheets, camp commander Rear Adm Harry Harris said. … “I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us,” [said Rear Adm. Harry Harris, GITMO camp commander].
Heavens to betsy, they’ve finally found our weakness. If the liberal media lets it get out that we have no defenses against Middle Easterners hanging themselves — and you know they will, because every MSM outlet but Faux News is a terrorist sympathizer — by God we’ll be up to our eyeballs (or even higher, depending on the noose) in swinging, dead jihadists. And then where will we be?
Wait a second. Hmm.
Anyway, this is just another example for those who don’t understand why the left of us are starting to look like children clapping our hands to our ears and chanting “LA LA LA LA LA I DON’T HEAR YOU LA LA LA.” When the people who ostensibly “represent” us in the War on Terror continue to speak in such outrageous distortions, do we have any reason to believe they are ever going to speak the truth about diddly squat? If this is their new “act of war,” how are we supposed to interpret things like “this is not domestic spying?” Methinks the phrase the Admiral was looking for was “act of murder.” Perpetrator: GITMO.
I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything better from a guy whose parents hated him enough to call him Harry Harris, but he’s really casting a shadow on the Navy my grandfather and uncles served so proudly, just like the one his whole farce of a prison camp is casting on this nation.
Hat tip to Tamara.
Read more filed under (In)security, Politics, Rant
June 12th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
William Goodman from the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights told AFP news agency the three dead men were “heroes for those of us who believe in basic American values of justice, fairness and democracy”.
… WHAT?!?!? No more crack for that guy.
While I agree that calling these suicides an act of war is ridiculous, I am also not buying that they were an act of desperation. Unless we are talking about desperation born out of the humiliation of being denied the opportunity to be a martyr for their cause. I don’t suppose we’ll ever get the whole story.
June 12th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Yeah, that is pretty cracked out, too, isn’t it? It must be a product of the 24 hour news cycle and the 24 nanosecond attention span of the average American viewer: people don’t seem to find value in crafting clear, articulate messages, and so in the interest of getting the most sensational spin on their talking points, namby-pambies like Goodman blurt out “They’re heroes!” and make us all look like dingbats. But still….
Act of war? Silly. Act of desperation? Or maybe just the next step in the acts of protest? Perhaps it’s the desperation of believing you’ll be locked in this prison camp for the rest of your life without any kind of legal review whatsoever. Might as well end it now, no? Hunger strikes don’t seem all that out of the ordinary these days, so why not kick it up a notch, especially if you were ready to die for your cause anyway. It’s not like hunger strikes draw much attention to permanent-detention-without-law anyway (you’ll only ever hear about them on Air America). And even at that, the government seems to have been given permission by the federal courts (one in particular that I find very disappointing) to forcibly tube-feed any detainee who is on hunger strike to protest their legal status.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for locking up al Qaeda types and throwing away the key. But keep in mind that all you know about the detainees is that some blowhard in a uniform with poor communication skills has told you they were Saudis and a Yemeni and that they were “committed.” We picked up scores of random fighters in Afghanistan and I imagine the same from Iraq. Who’s to say these three guys were either top al Qaeda-type terrorists with a lot of blood on their hands, or a few random schmucks who are petty guns-for-hire who dislike Western invaders and have the same name as someone on a list we’ve cooked up (intelligence brought to you by the same people that gave you the Iraq War)? You’ll never know because they were never going to tell you. It’s a secret. Just trust them. They know what they’re doing.
Mm-hmm.
June 13th, 2006 at 11:39 am
I think the suicides were probably acts of desperation. Years in prison w/no trial and no way out… and there may also have been torture involved.