Sunday, June 11, 2006

Who made Biggus Dickus commander of Guantanamo?

Rear Admiral Harris is the commander of Guantanamo. As such he has hundreds if not thousands of trained and well armed men under his command and is able to call upon the resources of the biggest armed forces in the world. Still, it appears that he does not feel safe.

"They are smart. They are creative, they are committed," he said.

"They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

The question has to be what horrid act of war he is talking about. What attack upon the brave soldiers of the United States is he describing? Have some sneaky terrorists snuck into the camp and sowed bloody mayhem?

No, the dastardly deed the Rear Admiral is speaking of is the fact that three of the prisoners kept at Guantanamo decided that they could no longer stand years of confinement without basic human rights and took their lives by hanging themselves.

About a quarter century ago Monty Python made Life of Brian and included in it a crack suicide squad as an obviously over-the-top joke. The Rear Admiral (a rank that calls for Monty Pythonesque treatment if any does) has a world view that is so utterly bent out of shape by years of propaganda that he does not recognise that his words are both ridiculous and horrifying at once. He has turned into a figure that deserves pity, ridicule and fear all in equal measure. Next he will start complaining about the fact that the prisoners are soiling the clean prison floors during torture.

After that, I find it oh-so-terribly reassuring to hear that:

The US military said the men's bodies were being treated "with the utmost respect".

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