So 3 detainees commit suicide in the prison. What next?
(I’ve no link yet because I’ve just seen the info no Sky News)
We collectively shrug our shoulders. Assuming they even really commited suicide; we might have just killed them to cover up evidence, like them being completely innocent, for example.
:rolleyes:
I don’t see killing them because of a cover-up, but it’s possible they were accidentally killed and suicide is the cover story.
Anyway, presumeably there’s going to be an investigation.
There’s as much a chance they were killed by fellow inmates. Prison is, after all, prison.
:rolleyes: Since we’ve already released a few folks from Gitmo because they WERE found to be completely innocent, wouldn’t this be a bit like closing the barn door after the horse was stolen?
I’ll await further developments…its a bit early to tell what may or may not have happened. Unless your Der Trihs of course…then you always know that its the worst possible thing you can think of, and that you are probably underestimating things at that. Its Bush and America after all…the REAL Axis of Evil™!
-XT
And we were embarrassed by it; perhaps the Administration doesn’t want a repeat.
Why is it so strange to think that people who don’t care if they torture innocent people will kill them afterwards ?
Kill them…because they are innocent? Why would they take the risk of being caught? Its not like we don’t all know about all the OTHER scandals, things like AG and torture. Unless they are complete morons (granted, its a possibility), they have to know that the risk of being caught is defintely there…and for what? To make sure we don’t know that these folks are innocent?
How does this make even the remotest sense to you? Its so far off my own Occams Razor scale as to nestle among ‘Aliens killed them’, or perhaps ‘The Goat Sucker got them’.
Again…I will await, with bated (or is it baited 
) breath further revelations. I’m still holding out for the goat sucker…
-XT
FYI, here is a link to the story and whats known so far.
Here is an interesting side note though:
If true this is exactly my own desire on this issue. Close down the camp and try those inside, giving them full due process…even if its before a military court. Convict them if possible or set them free if not. Resolve the fucking issue one way or the other.
Maybe the administration is FINALLY starting to see the light. Enough people have been hammering on their stupid block walls now that maybe some sun light is starting to shine in…
-XT
I’m agree it’s highly unlikely they were deliberately killed, even if they are innocent (remember, just because they authorities have released a small number of innocent prisoners doesn’t mean there aren’t lots left). However, I think it is not outside the range of possibility that they were accidentally killed, most likely while being tortured (oh, whoops, abused. Or is it intense interrogation this week?) and that a suicide story is better than admitting that the US again broke its own rules and was incompetent enough to murder one of the “detainees” in their own version of the gulag (anyone remember an certain Iraqi general?).
On the other hand, I don’t think it’s that likely- because considering that the entire world already knows about the flagrant human rights abuses in Guantanamo, and that no-one seems willing to even slap America on the wrist for them (not even the American public. Not even the Democratic party, which I had been informed were not particuarly pro-torture and illegal detention, but what do I know?), I can’t think of why the camp authorities would bother with a cover-up when they noone gives a rat’s ass either way.
Why have they taken the risk before, and when have they paid a penalty for getting caught ?
Why not ?
And again, given what they have already done, why is it so strange to think they would do such a thing ? I’d expect them to kill an innocent man as casually as I’d scratch an itch, and with as little guilt.
Hmmm… We know what, exactly? The USA detains people for unknown reasons, in poorly known conditions, abduct people, including citizens of allied countries or people in allied countries, for still unknown reasons, detain them in secret prisons, don’t even tell who they are, etc, etc…
Given such conditions, how would you know nobody is deliberatly killed in the process? How would it be so obvious that such a thing can’t happen that it deserves rolleyes?
The USA doesn’t seem to respect any generally accept principles. Arbitrary arrest, arbitrary detention, secret arrest, secret detention, no charges, no access to the inmates, no lawyers, no list of prisonners, no nothing. When you’re operating using such methods, there’s absolutely no guarantee of anything. There’s no way to know whether or not people are tortured, shot in the head and burried behind the jail for intance. Just rolling eyes or stating “they would never do something like that!!!” isn’t enough.
That’s precisely why usually people are arrested for a known cause, their identity isn’t secret, they can communicate, etc… That’s the only way we can know that nobody awful is happening. Here, we don’t know anything except that any basic principle is completely ignored, so any kind of suspicion is perfectly allowable and justified. That’s a direct and unavoidable consequence of the current tinpot dictature-like behavior of the USA. When your services behave exactly as they do in a random dictatorship, you deserve the same level of suspicion. Why should I feel compelled to believe one word from the CIA for instance when there’s no way to check anything, except precisely that said CIA doesn’t seem to follow any rule?
I’m sorry, but if you personnally abduct random people for unknown reasons, I’m not going to take your word for it if you tell me that you did so for a good cause and that they’re well treated. I would just expect you to be arrested, tried and sentenced for what is, in fact, a crime. And then only we would know if the people you kidnapped are actually safe (and if they’ve found “suicided”, you’ll have some spalining to do). American operatives doing the same thing are in my mind, exactly the same as you would be : criminals. And I’ve no reason to trust criminals and people giving orders to criminals.
I would finally add that if someone is arbitrarily detained without cause, without trial, without any hint about when he will be freed and as a result commits suicide, whoever decided to detain him is responsible for his death. And I don’t mean “vaguely morally responsible”. I mean criminally responsible. He should end up in front of a court of law (assumedly, he at least will be lucky, and the rule of law will apply to him).
Though I’m sure you don’t see it, there is a substantial difference between torturing a terrorist suspect for information that may be useful in preventing future terror attacks, or in tracking down OTHER suspected terrorists or terrorist cells (I’m sure you feel we torture these guys for laughs), and killing civilians we KNOW are innocent…killing them BECAUSE in fact they are innocent and we don’t want anyone to find out.
Leaving aside the moral rights and wrongs and looking at it coldly, killing innocent civilians you know to be innocent because you want to prevent people from finding out they are innocent is, well, fucking stupid in the extreme. Because, you know, we will find out not only that they were killed deliberately but killed because they were innocent…so you get a double whammy when a single whammy was what you WOULD have gotten (if that…we ALREADY know that some of the detainees there are innocent, or at least can’t be proven to be guilty…so in essences you’d be killing these folks and taking the risk of exposuer FOR NO GOOD REASON!).
Slightly more probable is what a few other posters have said…that they were accidentally killed during interrigation and that there is a cover up going on. Again, its not like these coverups have been singularly successful in the past…I don’t know of a single one that has actually managed to cover up ANYTHING yet.
As to clairobscur’s statements, he would know…being French and all.
-XT
Wait, what?!
Translation: “What we really want is for Guantanamo to be shut down. You can all blame the Supreme Court for not opposing me when I wanted it set up in the first place. Now I’m goint to tap my foot, roll my eyes, and scoff like Al Gore in the 2000 debates until they excercise their ability to restrain my power. What a bunch of lazies.”
Do you still have faith in the myth that torture gets us true and useful information?
No wonder GW was reelected.
Because it’s profoundly stupid to assume that the US military guards and administration of the prison would allow the prisoners who’d been declared innocent or awaiting trial to be summarily executed for no apparent reason.
If Guantanamo prisoners were executed, word would get out alot quicker than what we’re seeing. Since that isn’t the case, I can safely assume that no one is being automatically condemned to death for no reason.
But it was legal (read the Geneva accords) since none of the combatants belong to a state, only an organisation dedicated to bringing destruction to anyone who opposes them.
I’m not here to convince, frankly I couldn’t care less, however on what Xtisme said, with what, Abu Gharib and other scandals, I don’t think the Administration is going to go to such lengths of actually killing the prisoners with no just cause for the sake of it, even if you hate the administration, you’ve got to admit it’s stretching it a bit thin when flights of fancy such as what Der Trhils said are being considered as gospel.
All I read was a bunch of slogans combined with faulty logic, sometimes, when the Government says they committed suicide, they actually did. Besides, even if they were killed, their bodies would have to be returned, and the subsequent law suits and trials trying to bring the truth of what happened would eventually come out. So what would be the point in executing people who are possibly innocent when you can execute them legally in a court of law if found guilty?
All the Guantanamo prisoners are citizens of one state or another (unless there’s a Palestinian in there somewhere), and how do you know any of them are members of any organization? Or that they ever were “combatants,” for that matter? :dubious:
That’s the legal mumbo jumbo givin’ the reasons as to why they’re there under military rules and conditions.
Both are barbaric; I see no difference.
Bolding mine; the Bush Administration in a nutshell.
By definition, if it succeeded we wouldn’t know.
And since when have they looked at prisoners, innocent or guilty, as anything other than victims to be brutalized ?
Legal or not, it’s still barbaric and there’s no evidence that a signifigant number were guilty of anything.