"They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."
--Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., commander of the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, on the suicide of three inmates
It is fascinating how eager we are to ascribe intentions to the other. I don't claim to know why these guys committed suicide, but it seems a touch presumptuous to dismiss the possibility that people facing indefinite detention without due process might be driven to an act of desperation.
Regardless of why they did it, placing your enemy--especially one with "no regard for [his] life"--in a position where he literally has nothing left to lose is a supremely stupid tactical decision.
UPDATE--In the same vein:
We're now so fully terrified of the shadow of our national nemesis that an act of total surrender by our purported enemies must be repackaged as an attack. So terrified that the spokesmen of empire specifically reject the argument for desperation and embrace the super-villain theory, that even the prisoner's death by his own hand is a blow to the body of state. Où alliez-vous, Michel Foucault?
(via Henley)
Frustrating when you go to the trouble to say something and find someone else said it better a day before. C'est la vie...
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