Sunday, June 11

Bold Acts of War at Gitmo?

"Three detainees being held at the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, committed suicide early on Saturday...
"The three detainees were not identified, but United States officials said two were from Saudi Arabia and the third was from Yemen. Military officials said that the three hanged themselves in their cells with nooses made of sheets and clothing and died before they could be revived by medical personnel.
"They are smart, they are creative, they are committed," Admiral Harris said. "They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."
Does anybody really believe such nonsense? Let me see if I can understand the rationale. Acts of war are perpetrated upon an enemy in order to inflict damage on that enemy. I guess those guys really showed us. The organized suicides will teach us the painful lesson that if we indefinitely hold people without hope of any legal process they will unite to deprive us of the pleasure of killing them. And we continue to be the victims of those who hate us because we're so righteous and free.
"All three men left suicide notes in Arabic, officials said. One of the detainees was a mid- or high-level Qaeda operative, another had been captured in Afghanistan and the third was a member of a splinter group, Admiral Harris said, in an account by The Associated Press. He said all three had participated in hunger strikes at the detention center.
"He said the acts were tied to a "mystical" belief at Guantánamo that three detainees must die at the camp for all the detainees to be released. There have been 41 suicide attempts by 25 detainees since the facility opened, officials said."
41 suicide attempts? That couldn't possibly be a symptom of the hopelessness and despair of men who have no recourse to plead their case. This is obviously the handiwork of an idle mind (the devil's workshop) which seethes with nothing but hatred for what is clearly the most benevolent nation in the history of the world. I think I'm starting to get the hang of neocon logic. It comes pretty easily once you accept that we have God on our side, therefore we can do no wrong. Haditha is another example of insurgents dying to make us look bad.
"Lawyers for the detainees, human rights groups and legal associations have increasingly questioned whether many of the prisoners can even rightfully be called terrorists. They note that only 10 of the roughly 465 men held at Guantánamo have been charged before military tribunals, and that recently released documents indicate that many have never been accused even in administrative proceedings of belonging to Al Qaeda or attacking the United States."


Monday, June 5

Does He Really Believe What He Says?

George "Two Tongue" Bush says what we all believe in the land of the allegedly free. Yes the people should make the decisions that determine the course of their lives. The problem is that he says these things to justify changing the Constitution in a way that would restrict the rights of a minority of our citizens. The ammendment would put the decision making power one step farther away from the people, by moving marriage from State jurisdiction to Federal jurisdiction.
The Constitution was designed to protect unpopular minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Bush wants to continue to emasculate the system of checks and balances in order to further strengthen the Imperial Presidency . He really needs to be impeached!
The truth is that GW knows that the ammendment doesn't have a snowball's chance in Phoenix of passing. The cynical calculation is that he needs to get the Holier-Than-Thou crowd and the gullible majority to get riled up in order to get them to vote Republican in November.

Don't get fooled again!