But worry not a whit about terrorists.
It seem that frontpager Klueless Kos Kids have a lot in common with one of the local papers.
From georgia10 on the news of three detainees at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, Camp 1, killed themselves
Today’s news is sad, but not surprising. Â When man manufactures hell on earth, it is not surprising that death becomes a tempting avenue of escape.
Yes, she is describing Club Gitmo as “Hell on Earth”. Maybe nearbvy Havana could be described as such, but certainly not the tropical place where the prayer mats and halal meals are US Taxpayer funded.
The Seattle Post Intelligencer Editorial Board writes as follows
Colleen Graffy, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, was callous to term the suicides of three Guantanamo Bay detainees as “a good PR move to draw attention.” Sadly, she may be right.
That three young men would take their own lives rather than face another day in what Amnesty International calls America’s “legal black hole” offers damning testimony.
There have been more than 40 reported suicide attempts among the 460 or so men being held there. Less than a month ago, six prisoners were injured after jumping U.S. guards lured into a unit of the prison by an inmate who appeared to be about to hang himself with a bed sheet, which is how the three men killed themselves over the weekend.
The deaths will intensify the global attention on and criticism of the way the Bush administration has used the facility to deny basic legal and human rights.
The administration has applied a cruel Catch-22 at Guantanamo. Were the men there considered prisoners of war, their detention and treatment would be covered under the Geneva Convention. The president says they’re not prisoners of war but “unlawful combatants.” Were they criminals, they would be covered by U.S. and international criminal justice systems. But the president continues to hold them without charges.
Calls for the mere closure of Guantanamo miss the point. The problem lies not with the facility itself but with the political leadership that would allow it to be put to such use.
But, of course, if you ask any local leftist, the Seattle PI is just another cog in the Bush propaganda machine.
Those must be some goood drugs, man.
TO: [email protected]
Dear Ms. Graffy:
I am writing to you to remark upon the incredibly ignorant statement you made regarding the three recent suicides at Gitmo. The lack of knowledge about the causes of suicide which you demonstrated in your profoundly stupid remarks leaves me breathless for the sheer lack of understanding of an issue which is the 11th leading cause of death among Americans. (Anderson RN, Smith BL. Deaths: leading causes for 2001. National Vital Statistics Report 2003;52(9):1-86.), not to mention what incarceration without hope of release for charges unknown must do to a person. How would you like to be locked up without any knowledge of charges against you, in a land not your own, without any sense whether or not you would ever leave alive? Perhaps you should try it.
Annual rates of suicide in this country are over 30,000 per year, more than 650,000 Americans are hospitalized each year following suicide attempts, and over 116,000 are treated in hospital emergency departments for same. Among US males, suicide is the 8th leading cause of death for all US men and males are four more times likely to die from suicide than females. And this is not even beginning to quote numbers related to female and teen deaths. But don’t take it from me, Ms. Graffy, check out the website of one of your fellow-governmental agencies, the CDC–that’s the Centers for Disease Control in case you had failed to note its existence– http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm . There you will see a tidy introduction to a subject in which you are woefully ignorant and which all your degrees have obviously not prepared you to understand or speak about.
I come from a family which, in the last one hundred years, has experienced over a dozen suicides in its ranks. So, yeh, I tend to be rather sensitive to the issue. We are what you would call patriotic Americans, as a whole, and have done more than our share to contribute to the life of the nation in ways very big and small. To see you liken suicide as an act of warfare against the US would be funny if it were not so cruel and unfeeling. But then, cruel and unfeeling is probably how you have risen to the position you presently enjoy at State.
Do us all a favor, Ms. Graffy, and shut your mouth about subjects for which you are woefully under-qualified and under-experienced to comment. Step outside of your fishbowl of an office and limited circle of acquaintances, take a drive sometime and see the world beyond the Beltway. Touch base with reality. You are in many ways as imprisoned as the people you are verbally abusing at Gitmo.
Very Truly Yours,
Robert Pell-deChame