The medical staff tried to more closely monitor detainees with mental-health problems. But that screening apparently did not factor in the possibility that the men might have been determined to kill themselves for other reasons ” like loyalty to a cause:
What the men hoped to communicate by their deaths may have been contained in brief notes they left behind in Arabic. The notes have not been made public, and a Navy investigation into the suicides continues. But military leaders at Guantánamo were not waiting on its outcome. They concluded immediately that the suicides were a blitzkrieg in the detainees’ long campaign of protest. At a news conference hours after the suicides, the new Guantánamo commander, Admiral Harry Harris, described them as an act of “asymmetric warfare.”
Col. Mike Bumgarner, the warden at Gitmo, tried to reach out to the inmates:
“We tried to improve their lives to the extent that we can ” to the point that we may have gone overboard, not recognizing the real nature of who we’re dealing with,” he said. “I thought they had proven themselves. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I did not think that they would kill themselves.”
Bumgarner said he could not discuss the suicides because of the Navy’s continuing investigation. But several officials said that the three detainees had taken advantage of some of the colonel’s quality-of-life reforms, including the nighttime dimming of lights and the availability of extra clothing. There were also indications that Ghassan al-Sharbi, the colonel’s onetime interlocutor, had helped plan the suicides, two of the officials said.
Obviously we need to wait for the official report, but in the mean time, keep in mind what these guards are dealing with on a daily basis. The prisoners can act out and the worse punishment they receive is 30 days isolation, which is a treat for them. It isn’t like our prison system where the prisoner can have time added!
Back when I was in ROTC, there was a poster on the wall that stated “American Paratroopers provide the enemy with the maximum possible opportunity to give his life for his country.” Exactly WHY are we trying to stop international criminals with a suicidal mindset from succeeding in fulfilling their dreams of dying for their cause? As long as they aren’t trying to take any of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen or Marines with them when they try to kill themselves, I’m in favor of allowing them to succeed.
Under Maslow’s hierarchy of human motivation, self actualization (being all that you can be) is the single strongest motivating factor in human psychology. With that in mind, if they feel they’ll be self actualized by becoming worm food, I’m all in favor of allowing them to become all that they wish to be. To do otherwise would be to deprive them of their right to self actualize and thereby be violating their human rights. I’m just waiting for the ACLU to sue for the Gitmo detainees to have the right to commit suicide as a protected form of free expression guaranteed them under the first amendment.
I agree, and think that every Gitmo “detainee’, in fact every detainee in custody anywhere, should and must be provided with the means to carry out their desires. To not do so is to deny them their religious and cultural rights. It is their intrinsic belief to die serving their cause and immediately claim their reward in the hereafter. Us preventing them from doing so is more than bad, it is an international crime! CALL THE ACLU NOW! DEMAND the detainee’s right to suicide be respected and enabled!!!