Hey, did you hear about the latest terrorist attack?
A Saudi Arabian detainee at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay apparently committed suicide Wednesday, the U.S. military said.
Lest you think I've gone nuts, recall that the US government considers prisoners committing suicide in Guantanamo an act of war. I'm serious. Remember this?
Rear Admiral Harris is adamant that the people in his care are well looked after and are enemies of the United States.
He told me they use any weapon they can - including their own urine and faeces - to continue to wage war on the United States.
The suicide of three detainees, he reaffirmed to me, amounted to "asymmetrical warfare."
The state department disagreed. They saw the Gitmo suicides as a PR tactic:
"Taking their own lives was not necessary, but it certainly is a good P.R. move," Graffy said of the deaths. Drawing on knowledge gleaned from work "on improving the United States' image abroad, especially in Islamic countries" (a detail The New York Times pulled from her State Department bio), Graffy elaborated on her remarks on the BBC show "Newshour": “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."
Those evil terrorist bastards. All that bellyaching about torture and being innocent and locked up forever with no end in sight is just a fancy-pants marketing strategy. It's ingenious. See, suicide bombings and committing suicide in prison are both acts of war against the US because they make us look bad. (Which would logically mean that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are committing terrorist attacks against the US every time they open their mouths.)
I'm jesting here, but it really isn't funny. Guantanamo is indeed a PR disaster for the United States and it's entirely self inflicted. And now we have presidential candidates talking about "doubling it" to wild applause by American citizens. I think somebody needs to stop these nutzoid Republicans from hurling their rhetorical feces as weapons and committing acts of asymetrical warfare against the rule of law as soon as possible.
Governments and rights groups have deplored the deaths
One of the three men who committed suicide at the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay was due to be released - but did not know it, says a US lawyer. Mark Denbeaux, who represents some of the foreign detainees said the man was among 141 prisoners due to be released.
He said the prisoner was not told because US officials had not decided which country he would be sent to.
Meanwhile, a top US official appeared to row back from the tough line taken by other officials over the suicides.
At the weekend, one top state department official called them a "good PR move to draw attention", while the camp commander said it was an "act of asymmetric warfare waged against us".
These people are told they'll be 50 by the time they get out, that they have no hope of getting out Mark Denbeaux US lawyer
"I wouldn't characterise this as a good PR move," Cully Stimson, US deputy assistance secretary of defence, told the BBC's Today programme, on Monday.
"What I would say is that we are always concerned when someone takes his own life, because as Americans we value life even if it is the life of a violent terrorist captured waging war against our country."
'Despair'
The Pentagon named the prisoner who had been recommended for transfer as 30-year-old Saudi Arabian Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi Al-Utaybi.
He was a member of a banned Saudi militant group, the defence department said.
The other two men who died on Saturday morning were named as Ali Abdullah Ahmed, 28, from Yemen, and Yassar Talal al-Zahrani, 21, another Saudi Arabian.
Ahmed was a mid- to high-level al-Qaeda operative who had participated in a long-term hunger strike from late 2005 to May, and was "non-compliant and hostile" to guards, the Pentagon said.
Zahrani, 21, was a "front-line" Taleban fighter who helped procure weapons for use against US and coalition forces in Afghanistan, according to the department.
Professor Denbeaux told the BBC World Service that the feeling among detainees at the Cuba camp was one of hopelessness.
"These people are told they'll be 50 by the time they get out, that they have no hope of getting out. They've been denied a hearing, they have no chance to be released," he said.
He said US policy was to refuse to tell prisoners they were due to be released until a location had been found.
Utaybi had been declared a "safe person, free to be released" but the US needed a country to send him to, Professor Denbeaux said.
"His despair was great enough and in his ignorance he went and killed himself," he said.
Mounting criticism
The prison camp at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, holds some 460 prisoners, the vast majority without charge.
There have been dozens of suicide attempts since the camp was set up four years ago - but none successful until now.
Criticism of the camp is mounting, even among President Bush's Republicans.
"There are tribunals established... Where we have evidence they ought to be tried, and if convicted they ought to be sentenced," said Republican Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Some inmates had been detained on "the flimsiest sort of hearsay", he added.
The United Nations rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, said European leaders should use a summit with President George W Bush next week to press for the prison's closure.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said procedures at Guantanamo Bay violated the rule of law and undermined the fight against terrorism.
Suicide at Guantanamo: the story of Abdul Rahman al-Amri
by Andy Worthington posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 7:43 pm
According to the Associated Press [(updated) AP story below], the Saudi citizen who apparently committed suicide at Guantánamo on Wednesday 30 May has been identified by the Saudi authorities as Abdul Rahman al-Amri. Described by the Pentagon as a 34-year old from Ta’if, born on 17 April 1973, al-Amri had been held in the maximum security Camp V, reserved for the “least compliant and most ‘high-value’ inmates”, according to a US military spokesman.
Whether or not this is a valid description of al-Amri is debatable. He did not take part in any of the tribunals at Guantánamo – either the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT), convened to assess the status of the prisoners as “enemy combatants”, or the annual Administrative Review Boards (ARB), convened to assess whether the prisoners still constitute a threat to the US and its interests. He did, however, prepare a statement for his CSRT in which he “admitted it was his duty to fight jihad and that he continues to admit to that today. He says it is all Muslims’ responsibility to fight for jihad when called upon by a Muslim government (in this case, and at that time, it was the Taliban)”.
Having served in the Saudi army for nine years, al-Amri apparently travelled to Afghanistan in September 2001, undertook military training at a “school for jihad” in Kandahar and then moved on to the front lines. In December 2001, he passed through the Tora Bora region, crossed the border into Pakistan, and surrendered to the Pakistani police. He was one of approximately 180 Guantánamo prisoners handed over to the US authorities after being detained by the Pakistani authorities during a one-week period in mid-December 2001 [F6 note -- again, see http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=6528497 ]. Dozens of these men were either humanitarian aid workers or religious teachers, and most of the rest were, like al-Amri, Taliban foot soldiers recruited to fight the Northern Alliance in an inter-Muslim civil war that began long before 9/11. In his statement, al-Amri pointed out that “Americans trained him during periods of his service” with the Saudi army, and insisted that, “had his desire been to fight and kill Americans, he could have done that while he was side by side with them in Saudi Arabia. His intent was to go and fight for a cause that he believed in as a Muslim toward jihad, not to go and fight against the Americans”.
He also refuted the most serious allegation against him: that he “was identified as the person responsible for providing a movie that provided all the details on how the USS Cole was attacked [in 2000] and the explosives that were used”. He admitted that he used the alias Abu Anas whilst in Afghanistan, but explained that he believed that another individual with the same name had been responsible for providing the film. This would not be surprising. Countless prisoners have refuted a variety of allegations based on claims relating to their supposed aliases, and it’s probable - given al-Amri’s stated role as nothing more than a foot soldier against the Northern Alliance - that he was no exception. Watch the press for the Pentagon’s response to his death, however. Whilst it’s probable that there’ll be more subtlety on display than last June, when the prison’s commander, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, described the suicides of three prisoners as “an act of asymmetric warfare”, it’s likely that someone in the administration will step forward to declare that the USS Cole allegation “proves” that al-Amri - held for nearly five and a half years without charge, without trial, and without access to a lawyer or to members of his family - was an al-Qaeda operative. What will probably not be mentioned is that, according to a report by the imprisoned al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj [ http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=19323 (F6 note -- my next post, a reply to this one)], al-Amri, like the three prisoners who apparently committed suicide last year, had been on hunger strike for several months. Even in death, it seems, there is no escape from the vengeance of the Pentagon.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The detainee who died at Guantanamo Bay in an apparent suicide was identified as a Saudi military veteran and self-described Islamic holy warrior who denied he ever intended to kill Americans.
U.S. military records show the detainee admitted having a connection to al-Qaida but insisted he was little more than a Taliban foot soldier when the United States invaded Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The military and the Saudi government on Thursday identified the detainee as Abdul Rahman Maadha al-Amry. U.S. records show he was 34 and had been held without charges at the prison at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in southeastern Cuba since February 2002.
Al-Amry had no attorney of record, although the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a blanket legal challenge on behalf of all Guantanamo detainees. Lawyers say many detainees have little faith in the American legal system but others simply do not understand it.
"People just don't know where to turn so there are absolutely people in Guantanamo who want a lawyer but don't have one," said Zachary Katznelson, an attorney for the British human rights group Reprieve, which represents 37 detainees.
The U.S. military said al-Amry was not breathing when he was found Wednesday by guards in Camp 5, a modern, high-security section of Guantanamo generally reserved for detainees who are considered to have intelligence value or who do not follow prison rules.
Al-Amry was said by another detainee to have been on a hunger strike in March. Military records recently obtained by The Associated Press suggest he had also refused food in the past, with his weight dropping below 90 pounds (41 kilograms) at one point in 2005. He weighed 150 pounds (68 kilograms) when he entered Guantanamo.
A Guantanamo spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt, said al-Amry was not on a hunger strike at the time of his death, but he had been force-fed with a nasal tube in the past. He said he did not know if the prisoner had attempted suicide in the past.
Authorities have not revealed how they believe he killed himself in what would be the fourth suicide at the detention center, which holds about 380 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.
Haupt said al-Amry's cell was "regularly" monitored by guards, though he did not say how often. "We will seek to understand what happened and we will seek to prevent it from happening again," he said."
The military has also not disclosed any potential motive for suicide, although Guantanamo critics say indefinite confinement in the solid-wall, one-person cells for all but about two hours a day at Camps 5 and 6 has caused depression among detainees.
"Camp 5 is just utterly grim psychologically," said Sabin Willett, a lawyer for Guantanamo detainees. "There's no question that isolation destroys human beings."
The apparent suicide came nearly a year after two Saudis and one Yemeni hanged themselves with sheets at Guantanamo - a case that prompted the military to adopt new security measures aimed at preventing such deaths.
Al-Amry did not appear before the military panel that determined he was an "enemy combatant" who should be kept in custody. But he spoke to a personal representative appointed by the military and acknowledged some of the accusations against him, according to a transcript of the hearing obtained by AP last year through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
He said he went to Afghanistan in 2000 and fought for the Taliban because he felt it was his duty as a Muslim to aid an Islamic government. He said he attended a "school for jihad" and saw Osama bin Laden "from a distance."
Al-Amry also said he served in the Saudi army for nine years and four months, at times receiving training from the U.S. military.
"Detainee said had his desire been to fight and kill Americans, he could have done that while he was side by side with them in Saudi Arabia," the transcript said. "His intent (in traveling to Afghanistan) was to go and fight for a cause that he believed in as a Muslim toward Jihad, not to go and fight against the Americans."
Al-Amry said that in Afghanistan he carried an AK-47 rifle but added such weapons were issued to any fighter who went to the front line. He said he fought in the rear during the battle at Tora Bora, a Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold. He was captured after surrendering in Pakistan and taken to Guantanamo in February 2002.
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