posted
When I read it, I assumed they meant it could be considered warfare if these men committed suicide with the intent to spur worldwide criticism of the U.S. and Guantanamo Bay.
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posted
Oh please! They were in a Cuban military prison! I think they were probably just sick of life. I doubt it was a political statement.
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posted
To call the suicides "assymetrical warfare" is some real full-bore match-grade horseshit.
This is the Spin of Desperation. Only 10 of the some 465 men held at Guantánamo have been charged before military tribunals, the reputation of the government to give accurate portrayal about the conditions within the camp is essentially broken, it's condemned by about every respectable human rights watch organization in the entire world, and the place is going to be shut down. It's only a matter of time.
I want to see it shut down, and not out of love for the men caged within; it's because the psychological effect of Guantánamo -- and our association with it -- hurts our credibility and causes negative issues which will always eclipse any useful utility that the facility could ever provide.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
The fact that they simultaneously committed suicide makes it obvious that they coordinated the action. To do so without a plan ahead of time would have been impossible.
Since this is not likely to be a Romeo and Juliet scenario of star crossed gay romance it is likely that these individuals knew they were in for life, since they deserved death and would not receive it.
So what was left for them? If they could make their deaths make as much of a splash as possible it is sure that they would do more by death then they ever could by living on in prison.
I consider it to be an admirable strategy, it has CNN crying for the end of the lock up and all sorts of watchdogs are barking. It shows that the terrorist understand how we are manipulated by our media far more then we understand it. I think it is because they lie so much they do not consider media to have any credibility whereas we are used to assuming the bias is not there.
This week alone I have seen CNN talk about how killing Zaquawii changes nothing, how Ann Coulter is a hysterical madwoman and how Fox News has a vendetta against the UN, and this is all without the suicides. Moreover I do not watch CNN that is just what I saw surfing by!
The Enemy knows how to fight us in our hearts and minds and they have a willing and eager media as their ally.
This Suicide is clearly an attempt at headlines, interpret it as a 'cry for help' if you want just remember it is a cry for help by determined enemies of everything we love and hold dear, so help them if you want but I for one am glad we no longer have to pay for their upkeep. Nooses should be issued to save them the trouble of using makeshift versions.
posted
The Utility of such facilities is that they take terrorist out of the war. When Ramadan ended with the release of 200 prisoners who were low risk and well behaved while I was in Iraq, we found four of the released the next day putting in an IED.
Luckily it proved to be a death sentence for these second offenders because soldiers were free to engage under ROE. So case closed, but how many bombs were placed after that by othersfrom tht release? If we do not have the stomach for imprisoning them then they will be the cause of and recipients of more death.
posted
Ann Coulter IS a hysterical madwoman. Who the hell has the adacity to criticize women who have lost their husbands in 9/11? How is that intelligent?
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quote:The Utility of such facilities is that they take terrorist out of the war
The utility provided to 'the enemy' is far greater than the utility provided to us. They can point to it and call us hypocrites, and weave not-so-tall-tales about how our administration talks big on human rights and the due process of law, whilst discarding it at convenience.
Guantánamo is a fountain of anti-American casus belli, and we needn't bother pointing hysterical fingers at the media for that. The operating conditions and systems of Guantanamo are immediately objectionable and counterproductive whether or not we have a 'manipulating' 'willing and eager ally' in the media that is bound to point out the fact that an objectionable practice is an objectionable practice.
The misplaced interpretations of that last point are many and varied but completely astounding.
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quote: This week alone I have seen CNN talk about how killing Zaquawii changes nothing, how Ann Coulter is a hysterical madwoman and how Fox News has a vendetta against the UN, and this is all without the suicides.
Um....Aren't all three of these things basically true?
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However, I don't think this is all spin. These men were willing and able to kill themselves for their cause before they were captured, and I doubt that changed once they were caught.
A lot of what the insurgents are trying to do is weaken the U.S.A's resolve to stay the course in Iraq, as well as try to undermine the U.S.A's standing in the international setting as well, causing us to pull out before we are ready to do so. This act of coordinated violence between the prisoners shows that they are still willing to give their lives for their cause.
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quote:"I am often asked if I still think we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. The answer is: Now more than ever!"
You don't even need to misquote AC to make her sound like a complete idiot.
Calling her an intellectual of ANY sort is nauseating.
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: However, I don't think this is all spin. These men were willing and able to kill themselves for their cause before they were captured, and I doubt that changed once they were caught.
Well, I think that running around in areas where bullets are being fired indicates a willingness to die, if not a willingness to kill oneself. So in that sense, it's not that different from being an American soldier in combat.
posted
Do we have rules against posting entire articles? I think The New York Times article is much better, but it's long.
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Let's look at it yet another way, just for the sake of argument. This could just as easily be considered another peaceful protest, like hunger-striking. Yes, they are trying to draw the American media's attention to the prison and its conditions, but isn't that what you do? If you are abused and disenfranchised, you find a way to appeal to a higher power. Let's see this a bit more objectively.
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quote:The fact that they simultaneously committed suicide makes it obvious that they coordinated the action. To do so without a plan ahead of time would have been impossible.
Okay, first of all, it could be coincidence. But I'm not stupid enough to argue that it is.
However, suicide pacts among friends are not uncommon (among friends who are suicidal, anyway.) When you're planning suicide, sometimes it gives you the courage to do it to know that you're not alone (or so I've heard.)
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quote:Originally posted by Robin Kaczmarczyk: Suicide bombers.
That's warfare.
But this is not that, is it?
What if they were murdered and the suicide bit is just.. Y'know.. Propaganda?
The Saudis already suspect so, since they totally distrust the United States to a ridiculous degree.
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quote:Ann Coulter IS a hysterical madwoman. Who the hell has the audacity to criticize women who have lost their husbands in 9/11? How is that intelligent?
That is exactly her point, the Left keeps putting up poster children that nobody dares argue with because they are "suffering" so their agenda gets swallowed with the sympathy they generate.
As for Gitmo being a banner against due process, well since when did we guarantee due process to foreign fighters? Seems a waste of time, soldiers do not collect much evidence, we have no CSI we do not 'Read them their rights' we do not do anything like that. If we do not kill someone it is because they chose not to fight when they were caught red handed or we shot them and they lived.
Like any war, I suppose they will be processed after they are no longer a potential threat. In the meantime they are not killing my friends.
posted
Any points Anne Coulter ever makes are tainted simply by her speaking at the time they're made.
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posted
The poor Left... Suffering for us while the rest of us lack the understanding and the time to think for ourselves at their level.
If only I could take the time to feel others pain like those in Hollywood. If only I could understand that the rest of the world deserves to take what my forefathers gave to me because they were wrong to get it in the first place.
It is so sad to have a society that so weakens the enlightened few that they cannot rule us all for our own good.
posted
Do you just agree with her because she's on your side? If someone from the so-called left spouted the sort of crap Ann Coulter spouts out about WIDOWS who lost their husbands and are crushed and devastated, you'd be up in arms. I'm tired of this left-right nonsense. I'm tired of both sides not seeing the whole picture. It's just so damn idiotic. It doesn't help a damn thing either.
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posted
BC, just to use the 9/11 widows point -- hardly the only point on which I can criticize Coulter -- it's worth noting that she's alleged that they don't even mourn their husbands. Do you believe that such a claim is accurate, or that she'd have any way to obtain information to that effect?
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posted
Actually she also said that they were in fact "enjoying" their husbands deaths. She said something to the effect of 'I've never seen someone enjoy the death of their husbands so much.'
BC -
Come off it. Even if the left was purposely using suffering widows as pawns in their political game (which I wouldn't put past them, but no one can prove anything), does that negate the point these women are trying to make? They aren't stupid. If they didn't want the message they're spouting to be heard, they wouldn't say it. So far as I'm concerned, they are using whoever gives them a mic just as much as the mic giver is using them. Does that justify Coulter's personal attacks? She isn't attacking the message, she's going right for the messenger.
And what's with this continual usage of "Hollywood" as if that city is somehow representative of the nation's liberals? Just because ultra right wing Coulter-like conservatives like to bash Hollywood liberals doesn't mean they alone are icons of the nation's left leaners. I don't know, nor do I care, about the political policies of anyone in Hollywood. Where are conservatives like Coulter (and BC for that matter) getting the idea that anyone else does? Either they have a magic Zogby poll that no one else has seen, or they are just plain making it up. But I credit them with doing it even so, good job. It doesn't seem to matter what the facts are behind what they say, they package it so well the nation always seems to buy it at face value. Bean Counter is proof enough of that.
I'm sick grouping, and the lying, the vengeful hate filled personal attacks like those that Coulter is making. If she cared that much about America, I'd think she'd have her ass on the phone calling her Senators and her Congressmen and asking them why they can't balance the friggin budget, why they can't come up with energy legislation that works, why they can't simplify the tax code, why they can't seem to control pork barrel spending at a time when our national debt is at an all time high, why the world at large seems to have forsaken friendship with our country, why millions of Americans have no health care coverage, why millions of Americans can't afford post-secondary education, why millions of American students are failing, dropping out of, or graduating below par with other industrialized nations in school.
All of that, and she bitches about friggin 9/11 widows protesting? Where the hell are her priorities?
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posted
The question is what are the rest of media's priorities? Polls of all 911 widows show that like the rest of the country they support the war on terror and break down pretty normally politically, Anne just acts as the 'pit bull' that is willing to attack the four that happen to be loud mouth Left Wingers as being loud mouth left wingers instead of 'speaking for all the widow's of 911'.
Further this group is not the only case of the Left pulling out the sympathy card. Remember brave Christopher Reeve who would walk again if only we got rid of Bush? Remember Cindy Sheehan? Using the death of her son to push her lifelong political agenda?
Coulter is calling for the stripping of personal sympathy from the issues, like most conservatives she is a fiscal conservative who is not in favor of big government spending except on the National Defense issue.
Her priorities are where they have always been, but the ridiculousness of the Left's tactic needs challenging and that is what she is courageous enough to do.
As for referring to the whole thing a Hollywood Left, it is I think pretty much to point out that the people there live in a fantasy world that does not connect to the rest.
Do the people in other countries, billions of them, sit around worried that the cannot find other nations that they can call friends? I think they sit around worried that their neighbors may be enemies, it is a far more realistic position.
posted
Pretty much the standard reaction, and the one the Left hopes for so congratulations on being the target audience, their opinion carries no more weight nor is it more sacred because their husbands are dead.
posted
Where in the hell did you ever hear me say I hate my country? I love my country more then I love my life, and I really love my life.
I think you suffer from illiteracy at the worst, or maybe ignorance at best.
The lack of a State run media is great so long as it does not mean that some other interest runs it instead. It is no better to have a 'Girl Scout' run media then a State run one. The current issue is the fact that the media does have an agenda and bias that is drawn from the Left. Essential a 'State run Media' for an out of power minority.
quote:their opinion carries no more weight nor is it more sacred because their husbands are dead
No, true. But I submit that the widows' relationships with and feelings towards their dead husbands ARE more "sacred" as a consequence of their husbands' deaths.
Coulter does not attack their OPINIONS. She is attacking THEM. She doesn't say "we shouldn't care what they have to say because they're uninformed;" she says "we shouldn't care what they have to say because they're glad their husbands are dead."
The latter IS in fact beyond the pale. And I actually lose a bit of respect for you, BC, knowing that you'd defend that approach.
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quote: That'd be an intriguing military strategy: "Suicide Squad, advance!"
So a suicide bombing is not a military strategy? The Japanese did not use human wave attacks? I think the Suicide Squad, advance military strategy has been used many many many times.
This week alone I have seen CNN talk about how killing Zaquawii changes nothing, how Ann Coulter is a hysterical madwoman and how Fox News has a vendetta against the UN, and this is all without the suicides. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Um....Aren't all three of these things basically true?
Not unless your specific opinion counts as truth, which it does not.
quote: BC, just to use the 9/11 widows point -- hardly the only point on which I can criticize Coulter -- it's worth noting that she's alleged that they don't even mourn their husbands. Do you believe that such a claim is accurate, or that she'd have any way to obtain information to that effect?
Freedom of speech for everyone who agrees with your point of view but not for those who want to express their own opinion?
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quote:So a suicide bombing is not a military strategy?
I'm not sure how we got from killing yourself in your cell as a military strategy to blowing yourself up along with several others as a military strategy. I believe these are qualitatively different.
quote:Not unless your specific opinion counts as truth, which it does not.
1) Killing Zarqawi changes basically nothing. It's a start, but the organization will not fall apart without him. It's a PR victory, but not anything too major.
2) Ann Coulter is beyond doubt hysterical. Whether she's actually mad is possibly up for debate.
3) Fox News DOES appear to have a strong editorial slant against the U.N. Do you dispute this?
quote:Freedom of speech for everyone who agrees with your point of view but not for those who want to express their own opinion?
I'm fairly sure that no one here has said that Coulter can't legally say something reprehensible. Just that she's a loathsome person for saying it.
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posted
I love Ann Coulter as little as the next guy, but back here in the land of "On Topic" I was wondering what people think about the suicides (I know, I know, discussions that can't digress aren't worth having).
I personally think the administration's characterization is accurate, that these were terrorists looking to turn public opinion against using what has so far been a successful resource (operationally speaking).
I think the reason I believe this is that I assume most of the people imprisioned at Guantanamo actually are trained combatants, rather than innocents who have been swept up in a too-broadly applied net. I wonder if people who believe the suicides weren't political assume the opposite (that the suicide-commiters were not enemy combatants, but innocents who just couldn't take the interminable waiting).
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quote:I think the reason I believe this is that I assume most of the people imprisioned at Guantanamo actually are trained combatants, rather than innocents who have been swept up in a too-broadly applied net. I wonder if people who believe the suicides weren't political assume the opposite (that the suicide-commiters were not enemy combatants, but innocents who just couldn't take the interminable waiting).
I'm not sure why everything is so black and white in some people's eyes.
So say they were "trained combatants". Under most circumstances, they would then be considered prisoners of war. When the war ended, they would be returned home and could reunite with their families, friends, and lives.
But since these men were night fighting as representitives of a recognized nation-state, they are not prisoners of war. And because they were fighting in a war which by its very definition cannot ever end (the "War on Terror"), they will never be returned home. Ever.
They get to look forward to spending the rest of their lives in a prison, without ever even having a trial.
If I were in their shoes, suicide might look awfully tempting, especially if I thought it could hurt my those who have imprisoned me.
So I think that it was both of these reasons. Despair with no hope of ever having any sort of happiness, and an opportunity to make a political attack. I don't see how its either/or.
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posted
I think, if the Bush administration knew what to do to make this war, they would
1. Do not try to spin it. Show it as it is and why it is really happening. Lets see those blown up babies you get on Aztlan and Aljazeeira daily. See how long support for the war takes you there.
2. Put 24-7 cameras in ALL the cells on Gitmo and other holding facilities to demonstrate to the world, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the USA is acting in a manner beffiting the 'moral' leaders of the world.
A war, as far as I know, is an expansion of a political/economic interest through violence. Well, politics and economics will not be served best by violence in the age of videotape and instant internet access because minds are much easier to sway to your point of view if you are not pointing a gun at someone.
Posts: 379 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I think, if the Bush administration knew what to do to make this war, they would
1. Do not try to spin it. Show it as it is and why it is really happening. Lets see those blown up babies you get on Aztlan and Aljazeeira daily. See how long support for the war takes you there.
2. Put 24-7 cameras in ALL the cells on Gitmo and other holding facilities to demonstrate to the world, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the USA is acting in a manner beffiting the 'moral' leaders of the world.
A war, as far as I know, is an expansion of a political/economic interest through violence. Well, politics and economics will not be served best by violence in the age of videotape and instant internet access because minds are much easier to sway to your point of view if you are not pointing a gun at someone.
Posts: 379 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I think, if the Bush administration knew what to do to make this war, they would
1. Do not try to spin it. Show it as it is and why it is really happening. Lets see those blown up babies you get on Aztlan and Aljazeeira daily. See how long support for the war takes you there.
2. Put 24-7 cameras in ALL the cells on Gitmo and other holding facilities to demonstrate to the world, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the USA is acting in a manner beffiting the 'moral' leaders of the world.
A war, as far as I know, is an expansion of a political/economic interest through violence. Well, politics and economics will not be served best by violence in the age of videotape and instant internet access because minds are much easier to sway to your point of view if you are not pointing a gun at someone.
Posts: 379 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I think, if the Bush administration knew what to do to make this war, they would
1. Do not try to spin it. Show it as it is and why it is really happening. Lets see those blown up babies you get on Aztlan and Aljazeeira daily. See how long support for the war takes you there.
2. Put 24-7 cameras in ALL the cells on Gitmo and other holding facilities to demonstrate to the world, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the USA is acting in a manner beffiting the 'moral' leaders of the world.
A war, as far as I know, is an expansion of a political/economic interest through violence. Well, politics and economics will not be served best by violence in the age of videotape and instant internet access because minds are much easier to sway to your point of view if you are not pointing a gun at someone.
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quote:politics and economics will not be served best by violence in the age of videotape and instant internet access because minds are much easier to sway to your point of view if you are not pointing a gun at someone.
I disagree. I think the terrorists have shown themselves uniquely capable of winning political and economic battles through the use of video-taped violence spread across instant global media.
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posted
Many of those imprisoned in Guantanamo have never been charged with anything. It serves as an off-shore holding facility beyond the rule of law. Committing suicide isn't "asymetric warfare"; it may be the only way for someone so imprisoned to be heard.
As far as Coulter goes, funny thing: being the subject of tragedy does not deny one the right to a political voice, especially with regard to seeking policies that one sees as possibly preventing further such tragedies from occurring.
No one argues that making such statements should protect one from criticism or analysis of the statement. Attacking the messenger on a personal level, however, falls to people like Coulter. Having made herself prominent by shilling for the right on issues surrounding 9/11, to personally attack those who have directly suffered from the event for *gasp* using it for political purposes is more than indecent. It's sheerest hypocrisy.
It continues to amaze me that with significant control of all three branches of government, some conservatives continue to show the chutzpah to suggest that *they* are the downtrodden, voiceless oppressed.
quote:Originally posted by Robin Kaczmarczyk: I think, if the Bush administration knew what to do to make this war, they would
1. Do not try to spin it. Show it as it is and why it is really happening. Lets see those blown up babies you get on Aztlan and Aljazeeira daily. See how long support for the war takes you there.
2. Put 24-7 cameras in ALL the cells on Gitmo and other holding facilities to demonstrate to the world, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the USA is acting in a manner beffiting the 'moral' leaders of the world.
1) I suspect the majority of those babies were blown up by terrorists targeting their own people. And honestly, I hope you're not holding up Al-Jazzera as a beacon of journalistic integrity that does not spin the news. 2) Then there would be an outcry on the lack of privacy. If someone is determined to find fault, fault will be found Robin. Although personally I wouldn't mind your suggestion at all.
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quote:Committing suicide isn't "asymetric warfare"; it may be the only way for someone so imprisoned to be heard.
Committing suicide is a classic form of asymetric warfare. It can have an effect dramatically disporotinate to the resources consumed, thus making it attractive to combatants who are disadvantaged with regards to traditional military capabilities. Whether the Guantanamo suicides were an act of asymmetric warfare is debatable, but suicide itself is a textbook method of waging asymmetric war.
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quote:Committing suicide isn't "asymetric warfare"; it may be the only way for someone so imprisoned to be heard.
Committing suicide is a classic form of asymetric warfare. It can have an effect dramatically disporotinate to the resources consumed, thus making it attractive to combatants who are disadvantaged with regards to traditional military capabilities. Whether the Guantanamo suicides were an act of asymmetric warfare is debatable, but suicide itself is a textbook method of waging asymmetric war.
You'll forgive me for suggesting that definition seems to come from the same playbook under which "civilian casualties" become "collateral damage."
Sure, you can define virtually anything as an aggressive act. But one needs to be careful to draw the line between honest and useful evaluations of potential impacts on an ongoing military campaign and PR-speak that may serve largely to allow acts of despair to be described as outward-directed violence.
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posted
That's not exactly accurate, Senoj, Destructive suicide, ala suicide bombing or kamakazi attacks, is an acknowledged part of asymmetric war. Non-destructive suicide, such as was done here, could at best be considered a form of protest/propoganda.
You want to call it part of war, I guess you could make a case for it, but you need to drastically redefine what you mean by war then. Unless you do a remarkably good job of it, you're running a big risk of sounding pretty stupid, which, to many people, is what happened here.
I think it's likely that these suicides were aimed at achieving an objective rather than just acts of desperation, but I think it's really reaching (and obviously so, which is the really damaging part) to equate this with an act of war.
quote:I think it's really reaching (and obviously so, which is the really damaging part) to equate this with an act of war.
I don't see why. The detention facility is inhibiting the terrorists ability to carry out their military operations. They want it shut down. They know there's a lot of international pressure to shut it down. They take advantage of that through a suicide mission, thereby achieving a military objective through untraditional methods. To me, that scenario (again, it's all conjecture, I'm not saying it's fact, merely plausible) is an act of war. Terming these "non-destructive" suicides underestimates the destructive capabilities of Psy-ops in modern warfare, IMO.
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posted
Also, just to clarify that I apply these definitions to both sides of the conflict, I would say that the US announcement that the tips that led to Zarqawi's death came from the inner-circle of al-Qaeda in Iraq was also an act of war. It's not destructive in the sense of blowing things up, inflicting material damage, etc., but it is significantly inhibitory to the enemy's ability to wage an effective war.
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IN MY OPINION: Obviously the only intelligent move, considering that the rationale presented to explain the suicides as being 'acts of war' actually, when analyzed, describe acts of protest.
In a 'ghoulish' manner of spin, no less.
..
I like how all the freed former inmates of Guantanamo, upon hearing that people had killed themselves, were just saying "well, yeah, big surprise there."
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