Asymmetry

So, three Guantánamo Bay prisoners recently committed suicide. Here's the official take on it, according to the AP: '"They have no regard for human life," Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris said, "neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us."'

And here's the opinion of a right-wing columnist: "They gave momentum to an international campaign to shut Gitmo down which would mean the release of their comrades. To a committed jihadi, such an achievement would be preferable to spending years praying, watching television and playing volleyball."

Coordinated suicide as an act of war? Monty Python was all over this one years ago. Remember the Judean People's Front (or whichever group it was) and its suicide attack squads? A fearsome band of provincial terrorists chases off the Roman imperial garrison. Then each terrorist takes out a sword and stabs himself in the chest. Highly effective tactic -- in the world of Monty Python.

Of course, there can be little doubt that the prisoners were trying to send a message to the world. If they were terrorists, then they were presumably trying to discredit the United States. But it is also possible that they were innocent people trying to send exactly the same message. Having been held without charges (as far as I can tell) or hope of release for five years, an innocent person could be perfectly happy to embarrass his captors. He might even consider the suicide a form of legitimate "jihad," which contrary to popular myth covers many forms of activity other than terrorism. Non-terrorists have a long history of using suicide and similar tactics to highlight what they see as injustices.

The reason this possibility is significant is that we don't know whether or not these three men were guilty. Of the approximately 460 inmates at Guantánamo, as the AP article notes, only 10 have been charged with any crime. The mantra that everyone in Guantánamo is a terrorist is a totally unproven assertion, and furthermore is legally false under the laws of the United States, where individuals are innocent until proven guilty. Even if everyone in Guantánamo had been captured on a battlefield with a weapon in his hand (which is also false), then the relevant classification would be "prisoner of war," not "terrorist."

Let's illustrate the problem with the story of five innocent men who were recently released into the care of Albania:

Many of Guantánamo's prisoners proclaim they're innocent. What's different about these men, Muslims from China's Uighur minority, is that even American authorities said they were innocent, referring to them as "no longer enemy combatants" or "NLEC." Nevertheless, they remained imprisoned more than a year after their names were cleared -- after the U.S. government determined they did nothing wrong and posed no terrorist threat to America or Americans. ...

The following is a transcript of the conversation with Qassim, who spoke through a translator on behalf of the entire group.

Q: What was Guantanamo like?

A: Guantanamo is like a hell where there is no justice or respect for human dignity. Our life there was very, very miserable, especially the last one year after being told that we are innocent and still living behind wired walls. We feel confused, frustrated and tired. I would call the worst period of time of my four years incarceration in Guantanamo.

The saddest part of the whole thing is that after being cleared, no longer enemy combatants, or innocent. Being innocent people, we were told that we have no rights but shelter, food, water and a place to pray. Given that, that place is not the normal, usual prison. So I would say that it is a hell.

I recommend reading the whole thing. Remember, according to the rhetoric of the Bush supporters, everyone at Guantánamo is by definition a terrorist. Consider that as you read the words of this innocent man -- innocent of terrorism and "no longer" guilty of unlawful combat according to the United States, which imprisoned him for four and a half years.

This piece in the NYT by another former Guantánamo inmate is also interesting. It includes a direct response to Rear Admiral Harris' comment:

I am a quiet Muslim -- I've never waged war, let alone an asymmetrical one. I wasn't anti-American before and, miraculously, I haven't become anti-American since. In Guantánamo, I did see some people for whom jihad is life itself, people whose minds are distorted by extremism and whose souls are full of hatred. But the huge majority of the faces I remember -- the ones that haunt my nights -- are of desperation, suffering, incomprehension turned into silent madness.

I believe that a small number of the detainees at Guantánamo are guilty of criminal acts, but as analysis of the military's documents on the prisoners has shown, there is no evidence that most of the 465 or so men there have committed hostile acts against the United States or its allies. Even so, what I heard so many times resounding from cage to cage, what I said myself so many times in my moments of complete despondency, was not, "Free us, we are innocent!" but "Judge us for whatever we've done!" There is unlimited cruelty in a system that seems to be unable to free the innocent and unable to punish the guilty.

| Posted by Wilson at 12:23 Central | TrackBack
| Report submitted to the Power Desk