"A PR Move"

These people are sick. Absolutely sick.

"A top US official has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a "good PR move to draw attention"."

from Guantanamo Suicides a 'PR Move' at BBC News


The fact that human life is so trivial to these people that they could describe the fact that "combatants" (more than half of whom were not actually, according to the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, "combating" against america in any way shape or form) who have been interned for 5 years without charge or trial and subjected to FIVE YEARS OF TORTURE give in and kill themselves as a "PR move" is absolutely repulsive. And this American regime are the same people that Tony Blair describes as engaging in a "fight for values" (he said that in his recent press conference with Bush).

Lets recap: they've been held without trial for five years, they've been tortured for five years, and they cannot take it anymore so they commit suicide, and this is dismissed as "a tactic to further the jihadi cause"?!?!?! Those in charge of these atrocious American policies are either completely brain-dead or pure evil. I genuinely hope it's the former (what a fucking characterisation choice to have to make).



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All of this brings to mind an old Irish song.
From the song Joe McDonnell

The Chorus:

And you dare to call me a terrorist
while you looked down your gun
When I think of all the deeds that you had done
You had plundered many nations divided many lands
You had terrorised their peoples you ruled with an iron hand.
And you brought this reign of terror to my land

The Song:

O me name is Joe McDonnell
from Belfast town I came
That city I will never see again
For in the town of Belfast
I spent many happy days
I love that town in oh so many ways

For it's there I spent my childhood
and found for me a wife
I then set out to make for her a life
But all my young ambitions
met with bitterness and hate
I soon found myself inside a prison gate

Through those many months internment
In the Maidstone and the Maze
I thought about my land throughout those days
Why my country was divided,
why I was now in jail
Imprisoned without crime or without trial

And though I love my country
I am not a bitter man
I've seen cruelty and injustice at first hand
So then one fateful morning
I shook bold freedom's hand
For right or wrong I'd try to free my land

Then one cold October morning
trapped in a lion's den
I found myself in prison once again
I was committed to the H-blocks
for fourteen years or more
On the Blanket the conditions they were poor

Then a hunger strike we did commence
for the dignity of man
But it seemed to me that no one gave a damn
But now, I'm a saddened man
I've watched my comrades die
If only people cared or wondered why

May God shine on you Bobby Sands
for the courage you have shown
May your glory and your fame be widely known
And brave Francis Hughes and Ray McCreesh
who died unselfishly
And Patsy O Hara and the next in line is me

And those who lie behind me
may your courage be the same
And I pray to God our lifes were not in vain
Ah but sad and bitter
was the year of 1981
For everything I've lost and nothing's won.
©Brian Warfield


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What a state this world is in...