Acts of Absolute Desperation

Good news for Liberal groups!

Three detainees at Gitmo committed suicide!

Naturally, they are exploiting the deaths in their campaign to get the facility shut down.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- One of the Guantanamo detainees who committed suicide had been cleared for transfer to another country, a second was involved in a 2001 prison uprising in Afghanistan where a CIA agent died, and a third had ties to al-Qaida, the Pentagon said Sunday.

The Department of Defense identified the three as Saudi Arabians Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi Al-Utaybi and Yassar Talal Al-Zahrani and Yemeni Ali Abdullah Ahmed. The two Saudis were also identified earlier by Saudi officials.

The three hanged themselves with nooses made from sheets and clothing early Saturday, bringing renewed pressure on the United States to close the prison on a naval base in Cuba where about 460 men are held, almost all of them without charge.

Inmates commit suicide in U.S. prisons. Students commit suicide on college campuses.

Why isn't there pressure to close U.S. prisons or universities because some individuals there choose to kill themselves?

The reason the suicides are getting attention is because they provide the Left with ammunition to attack the United States and the War on Terror.

...While U.S. officials argue the suicides were political acts aimed at hurting American standing in the world, human rights activists and former detainees say prisoners are desperate after years in captivity and view suicide as the only way out even though Islam forbids it.

"A stench of despair hangs over Guantanamo," said Mark Denbeaux, a defense lawyer who visited a client at Guantanamo on June 2. "Everyone is shutting down and quitting," said the law professor at Seton Hall University in New Jersey who along with his son, Joshua, represents two Tunisians at Guantanamo.

He said he was alarmed by the depression he saw in his client, Mohammed Abdul Rahman, who was "trying to kill himself" by hunger strike.

...Denbeaux said he had intended to cheer Rahman up by showing him a newspaper article quoting President Bush as saying he wanted to close the jail. But the lawyer said guards confiscated the article because detainees are barred from seeing news of current events.

"We wanted to say, 'We have some hope for you,'" Denbeaux said. "They wouldn't let us give him some hope."

Cue the violins...

No hope for the Gitmo detainee. Boo hoo.

I would expect Denbeaux's client to be depressed. Are most prisoners completely free of all psychological problems? Unless they're insane, I don't see how depression can be avoided.

I find it incredibly ironic that the lawyer mentions that the evil U.S. personnel at Gitmo refused to let him give his client hope by showing him a newspaper.

What cruel punishment!

How much "hope" did the people trapped on the top floors of the World Trade Center have when Islamic terrorists crashed planes into the towers?

What sort of "hope" did the passengers aboard the hijacked planes have?

Was it "hope" that we saw when people chose to jump to their deaths rather than wait in the burning buildings to die?

USA TODAY estimates that at least 200 people jumped to their deaths that morning, far more than can be seen in the photographs taken that morning. Nearly all were from the north tower, which was hit first and collapsed last. Fewer than a dozen were from the south tower.

The jumping started shortly after the first jet hit at 8:46 a.m. People jumped continuously during the 102 minutes that the north tower stood. Two people jumped as the north tower began to fall at 10:28 a.m., witnesses said.

For those who jumped, the fall lasted 10 seconds. They struck the ground at just less than 150 miles per hour — not fast enough to cause unconsciousness while falling, but fast enough to ensure instant death on impact. People jumped from all four sides of the north tower. They jumped alone, in pairs and in groups.

Most came from the north tower's 101st to 105th floors, where the Cantor Fitzgerald bond firm had offices, and the 106th and 107th floors, where a conference was underway at the Windows on the World restaurant. Others leaped from the 93rd through 100th floor offices of Marsh & McLennan insurance company.

The individuals who chose to jump knew that they had no hope of surviving. Death was certain for them. It was a matter of how, not if.

Nothing but flames and smoke. No air. No hope.

Contrast that with life at Gitmo.

The detainees being held at the facility are considered to be a danger to the people of the United States and our allies. They aren't exactly innocents.

Still, these individuals are fed, receive medical care, exercise, and are free to worship.

Being detained without formal charges being filed isn't a picnic, but where would you rather be?

Would you want to be at Gitmo or on the 105th floor of the WTC north tower?

Would you rather be on board one of the four hijacked planes or "suffering" at Gitmo?

This "no hope" sob story stuff doesn't fly.

The detainees have lawyers representing them. They have hope.

What sort of legal representation did the 9/11 victims have? They had absolutely nothing but a death sentence.

Of course, Amnesty International has weighed in on the Gitmo suicides.

Amnesty International on Sunday called on the United States to 'end the lawlessness' of its facility for security suspects at Guantanamo Bay after three detainees committed suicide.

..."The news that three detainees in Guantanamo have died as a result of apparent suicide is a further tragic reminder that the USA must end the lawlessness of the facility," it said in a statement.

...The group reiterated its call for the US-run camp in Cuba to be shut and for Washington to disclose fully all other prisoners detained as part of the so-called 'war on terror.'

"So-called 'war on terror'"?

"So-called"???

Amnesty International has no credibility. It's nothing but a propaganda arm of the Left, aiding and abetting terrorists.

It also renewed its appeal for a full, independent commission of inquiry into all aspects of US detention and interrogation policies and practices with security suspects.

The calls were backed by the Muslim Council of Britain, the country's main umbrella group for Islamic organisations, which said the deaths were not an 'asymmetrical act of war,' as the United States has claimed.

Instead, it said they were an 'act of absolute desperation.'

Blah, blah, blah.

An "act of absolute desperation" was jumping from the top floors of the World Trade Center.

What the three detainees did was outwit the U.S. personnel.

We wanted them to be alive, so they wanted to be dead. No doubt, they viewed their suicides as some kind of twisted victory for Islam.

My sympathy is not for the three detainees that chose to end their lives.

My sympathy lies with the people who didn't have a choice, the ones who were condemned to die on 9/11.