the citizen-viewer

I am just sick to death of these Guantanamo detainees and their sneaky ways. I mean, check out this article from the New York Times: Prisoners' Ruse Is Suspected.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Robert T. Durand said that the three Guantanamo captives who killed themselves on Saturday "tried to conceal themselves in their cells -- behind laundry and through other means -- to prevent guards from seeing them commit suicide." Those tricky bastards!

Al-Zahrani, 22. He really got us. Damn!

The "deception by the prisoners," in the Times's own words, "raises questions about how long it took military guards to discover the bodies. Regulations at Guantanamo call for guards to check on each inmate every two minutes."

Every two minutes. Man, these guys really want to die, don't they? Out of spite, I mean.

Here's Rear Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the commander at Guantanamo: "They are smart, they are creative, they are committed." He went on: "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."

That's right. Locked up alone, incommunicado, in tiny cells, monitored every two minutes. They've got us by the short hairs all right.

You see what kind of people we're dealing with here? So committed to making us look bad by killing themselves, that they are unwilling to be strapped to metal chairs and force-fed through metal tubes jammed up their noses without so much as a dab of Vaseline.

Or is it just that they're so pitifully weak-willed that they would rather face death than an unknown number of years, maybe a lifetime, in a highly restricted prison where they are watched constantly and deprived of every scrap of freedom and dignity normally associated with being a person? Choose life!

No, these guys are pure evil. They're just trying to pull a PR move. If only Karl Rove could master their technique.

The Times goes on to say, "White House officials described the three men as committed terrorists, and military officials said that none had been among the handful of prisoners whose cases had been brought before military commissions for prosecution."

That's kind of a funny combination. I wonder, if the White House is confident that they are committed terrorists, why they wouldn't have thrown a little trial for them, you know, if they have evidence. I guess why have a trial if you already know.

Odder still, is that it turns out that one of the three, Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi al-Utaybi, was declared "safe person, free to be released" and slated for release, his lawyer said (only to the non-U.S. press, apparently), but hadn't been told that because his captors had not figured out what country to send him to.

Too bad for him. He should have been more patient. After all, he had only been held with no charge, no explanation, and no prospect of release for a few years. Whassamatter boy, it's not like you had other plans, did you? Perk up! Oh, I forgot, you're dead.

Meanwhile, the Times article continues, "Democrats in the United States said little, apparently concerned about appearing to be sympathizing with detainees who could turn out to have significant terrorist connections."

That's right, you brave defenders of democracy and human rights. The U.S. has held these crafty PR manipulators for years in Guantanamo without bothering to try them, under occasionally withering criticism from abroad. They must have no end of evidence against them, so don't bother to ask for it. I'll be real sure to vote for you this November.

But you know what was the greatest crime these people committed?

They stole from the U.S. government. They stole their own lives, and their lives belonged to us. How dare they. How damn dare they.