Murder at Gitmo

HARPER'S MAGAZINE has a frightening report by Scott Horton, titled 'The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle'. According to Scott, the interrogation of 3 prisoners resulted in death by asphyxiation. The U.S. media has been ignoring the problem, but it's not going away, and it's going to turn into one hell of a spicy meatball:

Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

Late on the evening of June 9 that year, three prisoners at Guantánamo died suddenly and violently. Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, from Yemen, was thirty-seven. Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, from Saudi Arabia, was thirty. Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, also from Saudi Arabia, was twenty-two, and had been imprisoned at Guantánamo since he was captured at the age of seventeen. None of the men had been charged with a crime, though all three had been engaged in hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their imprisonment. They were being held in a cell block, known as Alpha Block, reserved for particularly troublesome or high-value prisoners.

So far, Slate has picked it up, and a growing number of independent US bloggers, as well as the European press. The cover-up reads like a bad Murder She Wrote script. Meanwhile, Omar sits there . . .

Another religious nutball with a weapon. One dead, one wounded.

The initial reports indicated that two US Army recruiters had been hit by an attacker during a random act of violence.

None of that seems to be the case. The two soldiers killed were, in fact, fresh out of boot camp and had returned to the station which recruited them as a part of a US Army scheme known as the Hometown Recruiting Assistance Program. It brings new soldiers, having just completed their Initial Entry Training (boot camp), back to their hometowns to assist the full-time recruiters and to talk to the social group from which they came.

I'm quite certain that many will find that a little repugnant. I'm also certain that those who do so will be unable to produce a service record from any armed force. So be it. Service in the armed forces of most industrialized western countries is voluntary, at least in terms of compulsion to enter, so whether you have served or not is of little consequence save for the fact that those of us who have possess a greater insight into some of the less obvious internal workings.

That's not what this is actually about, however. What it's about is that two young people, dutifully going about their business, were attacked by yet another violent nutball allegedly using his religion as motivation for his actions. In the end, 24-year old Private William Long, lay dead on the floor alongside a wounded 18-year old Private Quinton Ezeagwula.

I strongly doubt there is any organized constituency for whom the individual who perpetrated this act can legitimately claim to be serving. It came out of nowhere without a prelude of threats. Nevertheless, police are suggesting it was a targeted attack - the recruiting office and its occupants being the targets.

If the suspect in custody, once Carlos Bledsoe, and now, having converted to Islam, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (the interpretation of that name suggests he sees himself in a special position) is guilty of this, and if he truly is using his adopted religion as the motive for murder then it's time a secular court sent a message.

Anyone using their religion, regardless of what it is, as an excuse to shield their behaviour, instead of being able to steer that excuse to mitigate guilt or sentence, should have their sentence extended and the use of religion as an excuse treated as an aggravating factor.

Religion is supposed to be about "souls". Beyond that, it has very little merit. If an individual drags their religion into souless murder they should be made to pay a greater price.

It's called murder... unless Blackwater is involved

America's mercenary army is going to eventually bite the hand that keeps them rolling in juicy government contracts and unprecedented layers of protection from prosecution. This should get interesting:

Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, according to civilian and military officials briefed on the case.

Now, any civilized country employing mercenaries (Yeah! Doesn't that sound special?!) would:

A) Immediately cease doing business with such a company of soldiers of fortune until an investigation completely cleared the company of wrongdoing;
B) Prosecute those directly responsible for any and all criminal acts.

Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek indictments, and some officials have expressed pessimism that adequate criminal laws exist to enable them to charge any Blackwater employee with criminal wrongdoing. Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the F.B.I. declined to discuss the matter.

Well, it is still being investigated, so a civilized government would wait until all the facts are in before indicting their mercenaries.

The case could be one of the first thorny issues to be decided by Michael B. Mukasey, who was sworn in as attorney general last week. He may be faced with a decision to turn down a prosecution on legal grounds at a time when a furor has erupted in Congress about the administration’s failure to hold security contractors accountable for their misdeeds.

Ummm... any civilized country employing mercenaries would have a homegrown law which allowed prosecution of people who, you know, kill other people without justification. Hell, the US did it for "unlawful enemy combatants". If they can find a way to ignore the Geneva conventions, you'd think they could find a way to prosecute murder by their hired guns overseas.

Investigators have concluded that as many as five of the company’s guards opened fire during the shootings, at least some with automatic weapons. Investigators have focused on one guard, identified as “turret gunner No. 3,” who fired a large number of rounds and was responsible for several fatalities.

Yes, turret gunner No. 3 sounds like a real piece of work. Any civilized country employing this kind of mercenary would react by making sure that particular mercenary army, which obviously doesn't screen its recruits very well, was no longer allowed to take the field.

It gets better. You'll want to read the whole thing. Then you'll probably want to take a shower.

Oh yeah. Just case you missed the subtle hints. Civilized countries don't employ mercenaries. The US Declaration of Independence is just one document which says so.