Patterico's Pontifications

5/19/2006

Outrage: Government Deprives Gitmo Detainees of Fundamental Constitutional Rights

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 3:58 pm



I am outraged. Some inmates at Gitmo tried to commit suicide — and we tried to stop them.

Have we learned nothing about constitutional rights?

As the Supreme Court has said:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

If this language means anything [It doesn’t. — Ed. Humor me here. — P], it surely must mean that Gitmo detainees, undergoing severe depression at their inability to continue their jihad against America, have the right to end their lives in any way they see fit.

I am filing a lawsuit challenging our government’s indefensible actions. I will move the Court to put my clients in the same position they would have been in, absent this serious deprivation of fundamental constitutional rights.

Dead, in other words.

I’ll do all this pro bono publico — and, for once, that phrase will mean what it says.

ACLU types, are you with me?

25 Responses to “Outrage: Government Deprives Gitmo Detainees of Fundamental Constitutional Rights”

  1. Prescribe physician-assisted suicide for Gitmo detainees. Liberals understand that.

    I absolutely agree with Patterico’s take on the Gitmo detainees trying to kill themselves. All I’m saying is, in order for liberals to understand this, we should allow the detainees to be counseled by physicians in the days leading up to their suicides,

    Blue Grass, Red State (83ede0)

  2. we need to allow the terrorists the freedom of enjoying physician-assisted suicide. that is something liberals can understand, and we probably wouldn’t take much heat from them over it.

    jefferson poole (fbbe0f)

  3. we need to allow the terrorists the freedom of enjoying physician-assisted suicide. that is something liberals can understand, and we probably wouldn’t take much heat from them over it.

    jefferson poole (fbbe0f)

  4. Ah, but since the detainees are not enjoying ‘liberty’, the rules don’t apply. On a more serious note, why are we exposing our guards to danger by having them intervene?

    steve sturm (d3e296)

  5. All right, you asked for it: 🙂

    nk (5a2f98)

  6. Perhaps another Freud could counsel them…

    ras (f9de13)

  7. That facility needs to be closed immediately.

    Yes, sirree! Even the U.N. says so!

    So close it already. With the detainees still inside. This accomplishes two worthy goals. It restores the detainees right to exercise their right to die, which was unjustly withheld from them, and it gets the world off our back for locking up terrorists that no one else wants to deal with.

    That’s a win-win in my book.

    Dan S (191b32)

  8. ACLU types, are you with me?

    I agree, although I’m not so sure I’m willing to burden the label of an “ACLU type.” I’m not a member, but have been tempted considering all the rights we are losing lately under Bush’s regime. Incidentally, Clinton doesn’t get a free pass on that score either.

    Anyway, life in a military prison, with no reasonable hope of release in the near future, is enough to make any sane person consider suicide.

    But I think there should be a right to suicide. David Hume’s short work, “On Suicide” explains the position well. He makes a good case that suicide should be legal (at least in some circumstances).

    As for our benefit to society by living (as if that is always true and self-evident), he says,

    But allowing that our obligations to do good were perpetual, they have certainly some bounds; I am not obliged to do a small good to society at the expence of a great harm to myself; why then should I prolong a miserable existence, because of some frivolous advantage which the public may perhaps receive from me? http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/452_r5.html

    His concluding paragraph includes this observation:

    I believe that no man ever threw away life, while it was worth keeping.

    The idea of death is so repugnant and appalling to most of us, he argues, that it would not be abused – suicide is only a last way out. The whole piece is short – only eight big paragraphs – and well worth the read.

    But back to the prisoners – if we make their life a living hell and they want to commit suicide because of it, of course this doesn’t apply at all. Whether they deserve such treatment is beside the point too. Maybe they do deserve it. Although without a trial – how can we be so sure?

    Psyberian (dd13d6)

  9. Sorry you have the wrong on idea on dealing with the ‘jihadist’.
    kill them publicly, descrate their bodies have them burned naked by women in the streets of DC, while we get a crowd of mental patients to chant ‘down with islam’. It will be that day when we start really fighting the war on terror.
    yes I realise that we would ‘be sinking to their level.’ But you know, that’s where the war is.
    We need to embrace out inner savage brute to win this one.

    paul from fl (464e99)

  10. Psyberian,

    The detainees at Gitmo already believe their life is a living hell and that the only salvation is global destruction and the ascension of the followers of Islam into Paradise, you know, the 72 virgins and rivers of milk and honey. That is why they are on a global Jihad and why they try to kill just about anyone that disagrees with them. These people are members of a death cult, plain and simple.

    Of course, that doesn’t explain the Koran’s decree that suicide is a violation of the laws of Allah and would actually guarantee them an eternity in hell. Why would passionate believers in Armageddon as salvation, as stated in the Koran, resort to suicide, something that is banned in Islamic faith? Perhaps they think that they are just martyring themselves for the greater good?

    This is not about “living in hell” as you put it; it is about having people believe that the prisoners died at the hands of the unbelievers and that the prisoners are martyrs. This is an attempt to stir the passions of the followers of extreme Islam by claiming that the prisoners were murdered and, as such, is just another ploy.

    Ray (be81f9)

  11. Yesterday’s news reports on the radio said that several of the detainees attempted suicide by taking pain pills that they had hoarded. You mean we torture them and then give them pain pills?

    Jackie Warner (41f17a)

  12. I don’t often agree with Psy, but this time’s the charm. Suicide for jihadists should certainly be legal, perhaps even mandatory in some cases. If the Left has a problem grasping the concept, they can think of it as retroactive abortion. The still unpersuaded might try to see it as a logical extension of several already existing rights: the right to self determination and the right of choice, of control over one’s own body. Sort of modern performance art in the arena of self expression. It works for me.

    Black Jack (d8da01)

  13. If you are serious, I’ll make a contribution to help defray expenses; just send me an email.

    I’m a little concerned about the precedent this would set though. What effect do you think it would have?

    Doc Rampage (f06a6e)

  14. Americans still have no idea just what we are dealing with. We are too politically correct and spend too much time arguing amongst ourselves. Stay asleep, America. That’s what they want.

    JD (232cea)

  15. In case you dont realize it, there is good reason to believe that many at Gitmo do not belong there and may or may not be associated with terrorism.

    Not that that bothers the Bush fascists. Perhaps they will tell us the Nazis did the same thing and so its really not so bad. If we had seen the Russians do the exact same thing or if Americans had been treated in this fashion, all of you would be screaming your outrage..but double standards are all the rage in this administration.

    Fact of the matter is that, unfortunately for most of you, there was a time when the US stood for justice and human rights and criticized countries that practiced exactly the same kind of random imprisonment and torture that is practiced in Guantanamo. During those “politically correct” days we joined with other nations in outlawing such treatment.

    Fortunately our leader has been divinely appointed and being such a model of Christian rectitude we are exempt for the laws of civilized nations. You may think its a joke that people have been driven to suicide and that they were “saved” by the US but to the civilized world, of which the US no longer is a member, Guantanamo Bay is a symbol of the arrogance, ignorance, and militarism that has come to characterize the USA under our Supreme
    Decide-a-ficator”

    If you think human treatment and just imprisonment are things for the “politically correct bleeding heart liberals” then really I must tell you about a state I know you would love that was in power in Germany starting around 1939.

    Patterico you are outraged?? I am outraged at your total contempt for American values and traditions. Why do you hate America so much??

    charlie (e16458)

  16. Don’t have the wrong name and let the CIA catch up to you. You can’t even sue for being wrongfully imprisoned, beaten and basically terrorized since the U.S. “justice system” will deny “a trial because it might compromise national security.” For details, see Kevin Drum’s article: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008855.php

    Psyberian (dd13d6)

  17. Psyberian..dont you know the Constitution is out of date and that Smirking George said it is just ” A GOD DAMN PIECE OF PAPER” Now if Gods rep says that who are we mere mortals to disagree!!!???

    charlie (e16458)

  18. Gitmo can be closed now, for immense PR value, while the schlubs consigned to the tender mercies of incommunicado detention in secret CIA camps elsewhere can welcome 460 newbies shipped in from Cuba.

    All can be held until “the cessation of hostilities” as determined by reports all Islamic radicals are dead.

    The moment it doesn’t look like we grabbed our ankles for the UN, Gitmo will empty – probably before a color guard and network anchors.

    steve (870ad3)

  19. Psyberian, #17:

    Imperfect human beings trying to defend themselves in an imperfect world may need adopt a policy of acceptable losses. Now the acceptable losses can be dead children in a schoolhouse in Beslan or live prisoners captured on a battlefield and imprisoned in Gitmo. (If I were dialectically inclined, I would have finished with “Choose, person of conscience”.)

    nk (47858f)

  20. That this “uprising” was disclosed at all – with military spokesmen volunteering specifics about urine, soapy water and pill hoarding – strikes me strange.

    A British ex-prisoner and two lawyers who regular visit Gitmo say medical staff are scrupulous about ensuring detainees swallow their medication.

    Electrical equipment such as fans and cameras are out of reach.

    “Moazzam Begg, the Birmingham bookshop owner released from the camp last year, said the detention cells were too closely monitored and controlled for inmates to organise a revolt so well. Clive Stafford Smith and Brent Mickum, defence lawyers who regularly visit clients in the base, said they suspected the official accounts were ‘rubbish.'”

    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article549504.ece

    Given that only a couple were “treated for minor injuries,” why would the Pentagon trot out three military officials for day-after, blow-by-blow re-enactments at such a famously secret prison?

    steve (eb120d)

  21. Doesn’t Cuba have an extensive healthcare system we could transfer the inmates to? I think we should not close Gitmo, but maybe just sort of vacate it and allow the terrorists to turn Cuba into a terrorist training camp island resort. Then we could come back a year or two later and kill two birds with one stone.

    jefferson poole (fbbe0f)

  22. Oh yeah, the Iraqis must really appreciate all the kindness we have brought, abandonning all the principals we bellow about, in our self righteous hypocricy. Here is another wonderful thing we brought to the Iraqis and our beloved soldiers:

    http://www.bushflash.com/pl_lo.html

    blubonnet (dc52ec)

  23. […] I’m happy to see that these detainees are finally getting their fundmental constitutional rights to commit suicide. Maybe I won’t have to file that civil rights lawsuit after all. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Three Gitmo Inmates Commit Suicide — We Have to Shut it Down Now! (421107)

  24. Prescribe physician-assisted suicide for Gitmo detainees. Liberals understand that….

    I absolutely agree with Patterico’s take
    on the Gitmo detainees trying to kill themselves. All I’m saying is, in
    or……

    jefferson (b5f39f)


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