Suicides renews criticism of Guantanamo

[leftchick]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060611/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/guantanamo_suicides

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A "stench of despair" hangs over the Guantanamo Bay prison where three detainees committed suicide this weekend, a defense lawyer who recently visited the U.S. jail in Cuba said as calls increased Sunday to close the facility.

No other detainees had tried to commit suicide since U.S. military guards found two Saudis and one Yemeni prisoner hanging by nooses made from sheets and clothing early Saturday, Army Lt. Col. Lora Tucker told The Associated Press on Sunday.

While U.S. officials argue the suicides were political acts aimed at hurting American standing in the world, human rights activists and former detainees say prisoners are desperate after years in captivity and view suicide as the only way out even though Islam forbids it.

A European official urged that the widely criticized prison be closed, and two senior U.S. senators expressed concern that most of the prisoners have not been charged with any crimes. A Saudi Arabian human rights group called for an outside investigation of the deaths.

[PSPS]

1. "political acts" again

> U.S. officials argue the suicides were political acts aimed at hurting American standing in the world

This is the old "it isn't bad that we torture people, it's bad that anyone find out" argument, and I've long since had enough of it.

The thinking here goes this way: It's no problem that we dehumanize and torture these people. It's only bad that the results of our crimes against humanity cause something (suicides) that gets into the press.

In other stories, I've read the claim that these are the "first deaths" in the Gitmo Concentration Camp. I'm almost certain that there were other deaths reported in the past, as well as attempted suicides and, of course, the hunger strikes.

Why aren't these people swinging from lamp posts?

[sweetheart]

2. land without justice

Oh land injustice, safely off the shore,
packed lost enslaved muslim living dead,
a muslim is a slave says the bushian lore,
locked away so safe in the new refurb'd clubmed.

Justice is the crime, where no knows no law,
wasting long away, tortured in the head,
freedom's sacred dream, dying wishes flaw,
rotting bodies tell, where the evil lead.

Allah holds them now, in the great beyond,
shagging fetish virgins on the giant bed,
praying for the whip tortured soul so fond,
moral ground be lost, defended so they said.
Inhuman horror prison bully rape enslave,
human justice cheated, buried in a grave.

[Catch22Dem]

3. "a Saudi Arabian human rights group..."

That phrase speaks volumes about our actions doesn't it?