suicide = good PR move

bruno

est malade
on the suicide of three guantánamo inmates, from the guardian:

"It does sound like this is part of a strategy - in that they don't value their own lives, and they certainly don't value ours; and they use suicide bombings as a tactic," Colleen Graffy, the deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told BBC's Newshour yesterday. "Taking their own lives was not necessary, but it certainly is a good PR move."

On Saturday, the camp's commander, Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris, said the suicides were an al-Qaida tactic. "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," he said.

it's a cold world.
 
Last edited:

alo

Well-known member
Yeah: Cannot fucking believe this. :mad:

Maybe they killed themselves because of the numerous torture techniques employed to get a legally binding admission of guilt? Still, great PR. Is Max Clifford taking notes?

Absolutely outrageous.

How is suicide bombing the same as committing suicide in a prison anyhow?
 

ripley

Well-known member
Yeah, absolutely disgusting how this is being spun.

Many of the 465 prisoners are innocent civilians turned in by bounty hunters who were paid a small fortune -- no questions asked -- for every member of "Al Qaeda" that they delivered to U.S. authorities. It's clear that many are people who have offended the authorities in the various countries involved: like the Pakistani comic who had offended local authorities with his satirical writing.

From National Public Radio's "This American Life" :

"Only 5% of our detainees at Guantanamo were “scooped up” by American troops, on the battlefield or anywhere else. Five percent. The rest? We never saw them fighting.

And here’s something else: Only 8% of the detainees in Guantanamo are classified by the Pentagon as Al Qaeda fighters. In fact, Michael Donleavy, head of interrogations at Guantanamo, complained in 2002 that he was receiving too many “Mickey Mouse” prisoners.

In 2004, the New York Times did a huge investigation, interviewing dozens of high level military intelligence and law enforcement officials in the US, Europe and the Middle East. There was a surprising consensus: that out of nearly 600 men at Guantanamo, the number who could give us useful information about Al Qaeda was “only a relative handful.” Some put the number at about a dozen. Others more than two dozen.

The Seton Hall study might help explain that; it revealed that 86% of the detainees were handed over to us by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance. And some were handed over to us by a new method – here’s [former prisoner] Badr [Zaman Badr].

BADR: Actually, in our interrogation, the American interrogators have been telling us they have paid a lot of money to those who handed over us to Americans.

HUTSON: The problem was, we were offering bounties, you know, $5,000 or $10,000 (Al Qaeda brought more than Taliban did) and so “ok, fine, here’s your money” and they take them to Gitmo.

HITT: That’s Rear Admiral John Hutson, the Navy’s top lawyer. He was judge advocate general until 2000. He says, essentially we bought Badr, and a whole lot of other prisoners.

HUTSON: And when you look at the economy at that part of the world, you know, that really is kind of a king’s ransom."


While President Bush continues to refer to them as "terrorists" and cold blooded killers, the fact remains that over 200 prisoners from the U.S. Facility at Guantanamo Bay have been released. Yet at least one prisoners is still in detention, despite the fact that the government's own files indicate that he is innocent. (Those files have since been re-classified.)

Again, from 'This American Life' :

AZMY: They were each appointed a personal representative who’s a military officer, um, who in my case met with my client the day before for 15 minutes, sat silent and failed to present all of the exculpatory evidence in his file, which, of course, any lawyer would have done. Not the personal representative.

HITT: And as for confronting the evidence, consider the case of Azmy’s client, Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen raised in Germany. The Pentagon accidentally declassified the file with all the secret evidence against him. And here’s what’s in it: nothing.

AZMY: The classified file contains – the Washington Post wrote about it – six statements from military intelligence. That’s really what the classified file is. Memos saying “this person was here” or “so-and-so witnessed him…” In Kurnaz’s case, there are five or six statements saying, “There’s no evidence of any connection to Al Qaeda, the Taliban or a threat to the United States. The Germans have concluded he has got no connection to Al Qaeda. There’s no evidence linking him to the Taliban.” Over and over and over again.

HITT: But here’s the thing: At the hearing, nobody talks about any of that. His personal representative doesn’t bring it up. The tribunal doesn’t consider it. And Kurnaz himself doesn’t even know about it. He’s declared an enemy combatant; he’s still at Guantanamo today.

But wait. There’s more. The reason they give for holding him? A friend of his named Selcuk Bilgin blew himself up as a suicide bomber in Turkey in 2003. That’s 2 years after Kurnaz got picked up.

AZMY: So, setting aside the sort of remarkable legal proposition that one could be detained indefinitely for what one’s friend does, it’s actually preposterous in that a simple Google search or a call to the Germans would have revealed that his friend is alive and well, and under no suspicion of any such thing.

HITT: You heard that right. Kurnaz is in Guantanamo because two years after he got picked up, a guy he knows became a suicide bomber. Except that he didn’t become a suicide bomber and is currently living in Germany.

AZMY: Yeah, he’s walking around in Germany; I’ve met him."

Here's a PDF file of the entire transcript:
http://thislife.org/pdf/310.pdf
 

rewch

Well-known member
absolutely astounding orwellian nightmare scenario... 'part of a strategy' indeed but not on their part one suspects...
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Hmm I was shocked when I heard the US military's response too, however, this may be one of the few things which will actually lead to Guantanamo being shut down. I ponder as to whether that might have been another inducement to the three men who committed suicide, along with the fact they were stuck in a Kafka nightmare of meaningless persecution and incarceration.
 

Eric

Mr Moraigero
Here is a nice extension of the argument.

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2006/06/pr_and_suicide_.html

Since the Bush administration is having PR problems, wouldn't a few suicides help things? NO, forgot, the Bush administration values human life, as we all know. Sigh. These people are really pretty disgusting. I had the feeling that the original quote (asymmetrical war business) was heartfelt as well, which is even more scary than the spin.
 

corneilius

Well-known member
Warlords and robber barons

As someone who has attempted to end my life, due to difficult circumstances in my youth, as one who has seen others go through the same experience, I am appalled at the arrogance and crass stupidity of the sloppy non-thinking that lead to official claims that the deaths occurring in a torture prison, recently, are an attempt by the deceased to gain pr coverage. Thus in some peoples terms any life has a price, and the price of a shackled, hooded non-combatants life is a glib lie. Is this value-for-money press, tv and media coverage to allow such a statement to go unchallenged?

Understanding their emotional blindess is the key to understanding what they are doing, how we are complicit and how we can disengage from them, and reclaim our independence and interdependence in place of their power and abuse of us. That and protesting, civil disobedience and local networking of community activism .... and much else besides.......

But getting too caught up in their logic of denial, which is what the media is doing (it's a head-phuck really, innit?) tends to block access to the logic of resolution ..... treat it as observing a dysfunctional liar in operation ....one who knows to give enough of the truth to say it has been referred to, yet not enough to get to the heart of what is hidden in the small print, the layered nuances of a lawyer who lies ..........
 

bruno

est malade
these people could have endured their unjust detention writing books about their experience, or drawing. or reading the stoics. instead they take their own lives? shame on them.

recently there was the case of a man in india who had spent the better part of his life incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit. do you think he protested when released? no. that's the spirit!
 
bruno said:
these people could have endured their unjust detention writing books about their experience, or drawing. or reading the stoics. instead they take their own lives? shame on them.

There's a Library at Guantanamo, complete with classic texts, drawing instruments, writing instruments, maybe some laptops too? Umberto Eco would love that.

bruno said:
recently there was the case of a man in india who had spent the better part of his life incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit. do you think he protested when released? no. that's the spirit!

No, of course not, but his release was made possible as a result of his earlier protests. Not that Gandhi or Mandela
gandhi.jpg
in their political innocence would have known anything about that.
mandela.prison.jpg
 
Last edited:

bruno

est malade
in what other detention centre do they whisk you around like this? they've never had it so good.

guantanamo.jpg


just testing your humour, 100,000,000. no, i don't suppose they have access to laptops.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I had the feeling that the original quote (asymmetrical war business) was heartfelt as well, which is even more scary than the spin"
I agree with you on both counts here - I think he actually meant it and I think that means that he is very twisted. Thing is, once that idea has been suggested people start repeating it, here is a comment from a blog reprinted in the Guardian yesterday:

"Those three dead at Guantanamo were jihadis committing an act of agression against the United States. Their suicide should properly be regarded as a terrorist assualt against America."
nomoreturningleft.blogspot.com

That conclusion is so weird that I can't believe two people would come to it independently. Once it's said though it's become some kind of legitimate response. I really feel sorry for someone who thinks like that.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I can't listen to this at work. Is there a transcript or can someone give a brief summary? In a perverse kind of way I love hearing this stuff.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Look, it's taxes from my work that pay for these freeloaders to live in luxury in Guantanamo Bay and launch their attacks on the free world (or it would be if I lived in America) so I think I should have the right to hear the damn video.
 
Top