Posted on 06/10/2006 4:24:14 PM PDT by new yorker 77
"Today's reported suicides of detainees in Guantanamo should serve as a wake up call to President Bush and his administration that Guantanamo is not just a public relations problem, but instead an indictment on its deteriorating human rights record."
How so? Don't they have the right to commit suicide, if they want?
These scumbags are willing to blow themselves up in order to kill innocent civilians. Is THAT an "extreme measure they are willing to take"? Amnesty International is a joke.
Gravity, eh? Hmmmmm. You sure you don't mean "gravitas?" Was Dick Cheney involved? Stop the presses! We got a new lead!
I'm a little puzzled over these suicides. It was my understanding that suicide was absolutely forbiden in Islam. The imans have made an exception for suicide bombers though. BTW, good riddance to these.
Maybe we should just send all the detainees over to live in Jumana Musa's house and hold him responsible for all of their actions.
The day Amnesty Internation criticises Castro the same way they hammer away at the U.S. I might pay a little attention to what they say!!
;)
My response is three less mouths to feed and three less Islamists to kill later.
These appeals are based on material researched independently by Amnesty International’s International Secretariat. Their translation and distribution are made possible by a grant kindly donated by the Soros Foundation in New York
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engEUR600062002?open&of=eng-392
If I had to read much more of their drivel, I might consider suicide myself.
Amnesty’s ‘Gulag’ Nonsense
Amnesty International’s virulent anti-Americanism has been garnering media attention lately. At TCS Daily today Melana Zyla Vickers here cites our May report (“Amnesty International’s Gulag Confusion: Political Left vs. Human Rights,” by Alex Svetlicinii) from Organization Trends.
In “Shamnesty Rides Again,” Vickers writes about how the current leadership of Amnesty International has turned the once-credible international human-rights watchdog into a mouthpiece for the anti-American left. AI has become “a two-trick pony whose main concerns are opposition to the Bush administration’s war in Iraq, the war on terror, and free markets, as well as the downplaying of human-rights violations by leftist regimes.”
“Amnesty International’s leftward leanings are not new. But until recently it still played a role in the important work of defending those who could not defend themselves. These days, the more the group's leaders abandon the human-rights agenda in favor of their petty concerns, the more Amnesty looks like an American anti-war group instead of a watchdog for the world. And the closer Amnesty gets to becoming old, blind, and forgetful, and to signing forgotten political prisoners' death warrants,” she writes.
As Svetlicinii wrote in Organization Trends, AI Secretary General Irene Khan invited well-deserved ridicule last year when she branded the U.S. military’s prison camp at Guantanamo Bay “the Gulag of our times.”
“Although Khan’s obscene statement shocked many, to anyone who has watched Amnesty International in recent years it came as little surprise. Indeed, the ‘Gulag’ remark was just the most egregious example of AI’s transformation from a respected human rights advocate to simply another left-wing organization with an anti-America bent,” Svetlicinii wrote.
Vickers notes at TCS that although AI’s most recent report leaves out the “ridiculous gulag comparison,” it shines a spotlight on what Khan calls “grave abuses in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Khan identifies as “the world’s biggest problem…counter-terrorism legislation Tony Blair introduced after London subway bombers killed 52 people and injured 700 in July 2005,” while downplaying North Korean, Cuban, and Belarussian human-rights atrocities.
--this blog post written by Matthew Vadum, editor of CRC’s publication, Organization Trends
http://www.capitalresearch.org/blog/default.asp?archiveID=461
But highly improbable!
Three less scumbags to feed.
What American Forces Press Service http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2006/20060610_5379.html says about it
Three Guantanamo Bay Detainees Die of Apparent Suicide
By Sgt. Sara Wood, USA
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 10, 2006 – Three detainees at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, died of apparent suicides early this morning, military officials reported today.
Two Saudis and one Yemeni, all located in Camp 1 of the detention center, were found unresponsive and not breathing in their cells, Navy Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, said in a news conference. The first detainee was found shortly after midnight, and the other detainees were found within minutes, Harris said.
Medical teams responded quickly and all three detainees were provided immediate emergency medical treatment in attempts to revive them, Harris said. The three detainees were pronounced dead by a physician after all lifesaving measures had been exhausted, he said.
Harris, who arrived on the scene shortly after the detainees were pronounced dead, said the guard force and medical personnel acted in a professional manner and did everything they could to save the detainees' lives.
"I could see on the faces of the doctors, nurses and corpsmen that they were mourning the loss of a patient," Harris said. "They did exactly what they were trained to do."
The names of the deceased are not being released pending an investigation, said Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, commander of U.S. Southern Command. The U.S. State Department is in ongoing discussions with the governments of Saudi Arabia and Yemen in regards to the handling of the detainees' remains and notification of next of kin, he said.
A cultural advisor is assisting Joint Task Force Guantanamo to ensure that the remains are handled in an appropriate cultural and religious manner, Harris said. The bodies will not be buried within 24 hours, as per normal Islamic law, because autopsies must be performed, he said, but Joint Task Force Guantanamo has a religious fatwah, or law, from a reputable imam allowing for delays when the cause of death is uncertain.
The U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service has initiated an independent investigation to determine the cause and manner of death, Craddock said.
The detainees appear to have hanged themselves with nooses made from clothing and bed sheets, Harris said. The three detainees' cells were on the same cell block and were near each other, but not next to each other, he said.
Harris said the joint suicides were clearly planned by the detainees as a way to advance their cause in the war on terror.
"I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare aimed at us here at Guantanamo," he said. "We have men here who are committed jihadists. They are dangerous men and they will do anything they can to advance their cause."
The three detainees who died had all participated in a hunger strike at one time, Harris said. The Yemeni detainee was a long-term hunger striker who had begun his strike in 2005 and just ended it last month, he said. The other two detainees participated in one hunger strike in 2005 and another short one this year, he said.
The three detainees were not charged under military commissions and were not being actively interrogated, Harris said.
None of the three detainees had attempted suicide before, Harris said. Craddock added that all three had gone through combatant status review boards and administrative review boards, and none were on medication or had any indication of mental illness.
Harris said he believes the detainees were acting on a rumor circulating in the camps at Guantanamo that says three detainees must die for all the detainees to be released. This rumor has no basis and is not encouraged by the guard force, he said.
The suicides are not thought to be linked to the June 8 death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, Harris said, because the detainees at Guantanamo do not yet know of his death.
All three detainees left suicide notes in Arabic, which are being included in the investigation, Craddock said.
The servicemembers at Guantanamo Bay are dedicated and, together with Joint Task Force Guantanamo leaders, have worked hard to ensure the conditions don't exist to allow for suicides, Harris said. However, the enemy combatants at Guantanamo are a determined group that will do anything they can to advance their cause, he said.
"These are dangerous men, and they're not here by accident or happenstance," he said.
Joint Task Force Guantanamo leaders are already reviewing procedures to look for ways to ensure things like this won't happen in the future, Harris said. For example, the guards have begun taking bed sheets away from detainees in the morning and giving them back at night, he said.
"We remain focused on our mission; it's a vital mission in the global war on terror," he said.
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