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Newspeak

Apparently slicing your throat with your own sharpened fingernail is a suicidal “gesture,” and a simple attempt to spread anti-Americanism.

A detainee at the military detention camp here cut his throat with his own fingernail, causing substantial blood loss early last month, but was not at risk of death, military officials said today.

“He did in fact use a sharpened fingernail,” Cmdr. Andrew Haynes, the deputy commander of the guard force here, told reporters during a camp tour.

The neck wound — described by one military official as a “scratch” — required stitches to close.

That’s more than a “gesture.” And when someone is desperate enough to try to slit their throat with their own fingernail, I think their motives may be beyond an attempt to criticize the U.S. government.

It also takes a special kind of clueless asshole to see a person in this situation — stuck in an isolated prison where people are dying and being tortured, having no legal protections or basic human rights, driven to suicide “gestures” — and then think to himself, That guy is trying to cut his own throat because he hates America!


19 thoughts on Newspeak

  1. Some people just seem fine with 1984-esque denial that anything is wrong at Guantánamo. It’s hideous.

  2. Given that most people have a hard time cutting their WRISTS, we should believe that this guy cutting his own throat is merely a gesture.

    I…there are no words.

  3. I remember one of the early justifications for keeping the international observers out was that there would be hunger fasts and/or suicide attempts by the people kept there for years on end with no charges as an “attempt to embarrass the military/America.”

    No, I think we were embarrassed enough before that.

  4. And don’t forget WHY the prisoners in Guantanamo – being held by the U.S. Government for years without trials or even charges – hate America – for our FREEDOM.

    Clearly this man tried to slit his throat with his fingernail because he hates freedom.

  5. With Christmas coming up my family and I are choosing different charities to give to and this situation just makes me sick. What is the best way to help situations like this? Amnesty International? ACLU?

  6. And when someone is desperate enough to try to slit their throat with their own fingernail, I think their motives may be beyond an attempt to criticize the U.S. government.

    I remember one guy who was “so desperate” that he actually ate 3/4 of a “Speed Stick”! (He “bolted” when taken to a hospital- lasted 67 days before they brought him back…)

    I also remember the dude (Frankie Graham!) straight-jacketed to his bunk and drugged w/ Phenobarb in the ‘cell’ next door… (My first day!)

    Ask me about spending 6 consecutive weeks in “solitary confinement” (“War Crime!”) because I used a racial slur towards the Gym teacher–

    Did I mention this all occurred when I was a 15yr old “detainee” at the Riverview School for Boys in 1979-1980?

  7. If they’re keeping up the pace with detainees killing themselves, Guantánamo will soon be empty. It’s almost like they hope, this is how it’s going to be solved…

  8. You’re all so clueless. The scum in that prison are laughing at you, sitting here worried about their welfare. Of xourse they hate America. They know that this gesture will be tajen by you and your liveral press as further evidence of the “inhuman” conditions at Gitmo. You’re all just a bunch of saps who’d better hope that the inmates at Gitmo never run your asylum

  9. The scum in that prison are laughing at you

    Doubtful. I imagine it hurts to laugh with stitches in one’s throat.

  10. Well…if you were being held in an American detention camp under the conditions in which these people live, wouldn’t you just be a little peeved at America? I mean, just theoretically…not to ruffle any feathers here…

  11. Oh I have no doubt that most of the people being held at Guantanamo hate America. I would too. What I doubt is the idea that America-hate is the motivation for suicide.

  12. You’re all so clueless. The scum in that prison are laughing at you, sitting here worried about their welfare. Of xourse they hate America. They know that this gesture will be tajen by you and your liveral press as further evidence of the “inhuman” conditions at Gitmo. You’re all just a bunch of saps who’d better hope that the inmates at Gitmo never run your asylum

    Hahaha. Yeah, of course they hate America. Cutting your throat with a fucking fingernail is still a sign of desperation. Funnily enough, torture will drive someone to be that desperate.

    To be honest, I have a hard time distinguishing my burning hatred of America’s policies (and the conservative society that so many idiots here in NZ glorify) from the actual decent human beings who live there. I love so many people in the US but sometimes I just wish it’d fall off the face of the earth 🙁

  13. The poor guy in question has been held six years at Gitmo.

    SIX YEARS. With NO charges or hope of ever being released. Even POWs know that they have to be returned home once the war is over.

    The thing I hate worst about the bastards in power is how ashamed they’ve made me feel about my country.

  14. Believe it or not, I’ve never pictured anyone in Guantánamo liking America or feeling grateful for anyone’s liberal concern for their welfare. And the fact that someone tries to kill themselves is not the reason I believe there are inhuman conditions there, that would be the pictures of the place.

    Yeah, I guess everybody said it already.

  15. Larry: duh. I strongly suspect that most of the detainees there both strongly hate and fear the United States. If they didn’t before, they have every reason and every justification to do so now.

  16. As Tarzan may have once said:
    Me confused. What authority ever stated that this fellow’s action was just a gesture in the first place?
    Of course it was rooted in despair and desperation. And irrationality too…..technically ya don’t get the 10 virgins feeding you honeycakes if you don’t kill a bunch of infidels first. Perhaps he bagged a few before getting um, detained

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