When you ponder the enormity of earth and its wide array of life and death scenarios, eventually the reality of how miniscule a single one of us truly is can cause the mind to shift into overdrive. In the case of someone whose mind spins constantly on these themes from inside a prison cell, realism can often manage to pummel religion over time, as ideas once excluded from consideration slowly start becoming plausible. It’s all about pressure, and how our minds react to it over time.
Someone brilliant is solving their problems out there in an unorthodox manner, and they may gain from it financially. An NBA coach is currently doing just that, and it’s not working. There’s no guarantee in life that anything will pan out as we hope, but when fate deals you a complex situation, those who can locate the complex solution that works are the ones most likely to break away from the pack and be happier for it.
There’s a story today that deals with what I’ve described here, and though the ‘innovators’ in the article eventually failed in what they were trying to accomplish (I’ve argued for quite some time here that these people aren’t as smart as our government makes them out to be) – I do have to salute them for attempting to make the best of a miserable situation.
Four prisoners attempt suicide at Guantanamo camp
Three tried to do it with pills, another by hanging; none were able to reach the other side. They were all treated and kept alive by prison doctors, and will be back out enjoying their half hour of daily exercise in no time by the sound of it. Of course, for the next few months they’ll probably be kept in their cells wearing suits that cover their hands and feet (to deny the inmates’ digits the chance to cause any more trouble). That aside, I’m pretty sure they’ll use this time to think about what went wrong, and how to earn back enough trust over time to get a second chance.
And that’s really the crux of what I want to point out here. That once you take a step ‘outside of the box’, it’s sure to be the loneliest place you’ve ever been if whatever you’re up to doesn’t work out. You can’t go this route all willy-nilly or unprepared to deal with challenges along the way. Anticipate things going wrong BEFORE you put your plan into action, and look both ways at all times for any sign of bear named Yogi. Because if you turn your back on that maneater for even a second, he WILL take off with your picnic basket!
Army doctors – the Franksensteins of the 20th century.
Can’t have inmates successfully committing suicide within the facility though – bad for business.
As for pumping these guys up with IV fluid while they’re on a hunger strike is something else altogether. That I find to be quite FrankensteinIEN!
No one seems to get all emotional thinking about Charles Manson, Ted Kazynski, or Terry Nichols locked away in SuperMax or where ever they are.
These people who go out in public with machine guns and explosives to commit murder, rape and terror fit nicely in a place like guantanamo and if their mail is a week late or their chicken parmisian is too cold, I nay give a shit.
I know – it’s HARD to feel anything for someone who’s in prison and belongs there. Whether or not the comparison with Tim McVeigh or the Unibomber is accurate, without knowing what a man actually DID, how can it be so easy for us to condemn each and every one of them?
I assume that my government knows what it’s doing, but in the area of detention and rendition, we have abducted and tortured innocent people since 9/11.
Whatever the circumstances though, to be in that situation, locked up in Cuba without being charged, indeffinitely…why wouldn’t a devout Muslim wackjob take their own life? According to this man’s religion, committing the act is a sin. That type of transformation in the head is no small feat. Rolling the dice on eternal damnation, willing to wager one’s soul for the joy it would provide to suddenly NOT be locked up in Cuba.
Thought provoking indeed…
If someone is convicted of a crime, especially a heinous one like Manson, then by all means punish them severely. As far as I know, these guys in Guantanamo haven’t been convicted of anything. Prove to some fair, legal authority what they did, and my sympathy might wane.
Well said – – – because assuming that they’re all on par with Manson seems to be something the right-wing is forced to rely on. If Clinton had a batch of people down at Guantanamo, Republicans would be crying about the rule of law and our standing in the rest of the world.
We all know this.
it’s all logic my man, all logic.
Find some judge to preside over the cases. it doesn’t have to be some “bleeding heart” out of California. Put some military judge in there with a law degree. Anybody that respects the law over politics. Saying all of these prisoners are mass murderers is all hot air until it has been proven lawfully.
Well, it looks like the suicides were a hoax. It may have been a trick to get the guards to come into the cells for an easy murdering. Link
RT:
If you are wrongfully imprisoned isn’t anything you do to escape morally justified?
Define wrongfully.
Enemy combatants who attack civilians and troops in a manner that violates the Geneva Convention are not wrongfully imprisoned. Terrorists who are captured in the act of committing terrorism are not wrongfully imprisoned.
You talk like U.S. troops went to a Starbucks in London and grabed a bunch of random people to take to Guantanamo. Remember the Geneva Convention, that accord that defines what an enemy combatant is and who they are to be treated?
These people were involved in direct combat with U.S. troops and surrendered to avoid being killed. You do know that the U.S. Constitution does NOT apply to foreign terrorists, right?
I did not know the people held at Gitmo had been convicted of anything. I guess I must have missed the trials.
Would you have them wandering around killing more people while waiting for a trial?
Why would they get a trial in the first place? They arean’t citizens so our laws can’t be forced on them. They are not part of any army and sending them back home would get them killed.
International laws says we have to hold them until the conflict is over, that’s the nature of the enemy combatant.
And you’ll find the same exact behavior in any maximum security prison in the country. This is why I was so blown away by the story…knowing what suicide equals in the afterlife for these people…well, if they’re not taking a handfull of ‘non-believers’ with them!
See, that’s exactally the false choice we’re asked to accept. It’s a fact that a lot of these detainees didn’t do anything wrong but be in the way of a warlord who wanted to get rid of his competition. There are MANY documented cases of our people snatching up an innocent and torturing them. The two that died in Afghanistan, one with shattered legs, arms tied to the ceiling…no proof of any wrongdoing, yet they were tortured and killed by our soldiers.
How about the Canadian man who was renditioned to Syria, kept in a tomb for six months, tortured, then released (on the order of Condeleza)? Our justice system says that accounting for what we did to this man would reveal secrets, and therefore he’ll just have to “get over it”.
I’ll say it again – – – to assume that every detainee in Guantanamo belongs there is to believe in the same cast of characters that have SAID they know what they’re doing, yet haven’t been able to PROVE it since day one!
Believing what we’re being told about Guantanamo requires a level of credibility that this administration does not possess.
karl – what you said about being innocent and doing everything you can to get out…that’s 100% right on in my opinion. What do you owe society once everything has been taken away from you, arbitrarily? If that happened to me, I’d sure as hell have a life-long mission to make whoever or whatever put me there pay dearly! The fact that Americans have such a difficult time empathizing with someone in this situation is indicative of how out of touch we’ve become, how seperated from reality we’ve chosen to become.
The worst thing about the last 5 years is that the US has lost the moral high ground. How can the the US credibly lecture other countries about human rights when we have gitmo.
a fact that a lot of these detainees didn’t do anything wrong but be in the way of a warlord who wanted to get rid of his competition.
WHAT???? When was this fact established??? Karl says that since no trial has happened no one has been convicted of anything. So you do think the troops just rounded up random people for an expensive stay at Guantanamo. Come on, you can’t be serious about this.
Believing what we’re being told about Guantanamo requires a level of credibility that this administration does not possess.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one. Bush is doing the shit job the last administration didn’t have the guts or the know how to take care of. It may not be popular, but it’s the right way to go.
that’s 100% right on in my opinion.
So murderers and rapists have every right to kill guards to escape prison. Amazing. Makes me wonder why we take prisoners at all with this attitude. Especially knowing that most of these guys re-offend within a year of getting out. Just what we need, to swell the ranks of terrorists by using the catch and release method of fighting terrorism.
The worst thing about the last 5 years is that the US has lost the moral high ground.
When did this happen? We still hold the moral high ground, it’s that much of the rest of the world doesn’t care about morals. France always is the first to come to mind.
How can the the US credibly lecture other countries about human rights when we have gitmo.
Are you serious??? Where can I get free medical, room and board in a Carribean nation and be protected from my own psychotic religious delusions. Red Cross always stopping by, free koran, no explosives and no children to kill. Sounds like paradise. Sure, freedom of movement is limited but they are murderers after all. Sounds like the typical soft on crime liberal Club Fed.
Four question marks! Well I’ll just have to dig up my references for this…which I’m trying to do using my college research aparatus, just installed, had to upgrade my trapeze just to get local, then the house had to be rotated 15 degrees to face Mecca…now I’m all set, but the search criteria I’m using happen to come up with a string of articles pertaining to Bob Hope’s funeral procession and how he’s gang raped up in heaven constantly by every veteran who hated his comedy on the USO tour…
Heaven! Not the best place to be for everyone. Sure, the bathroom stalls are clean and there are toilet seat covers for all, but some transvestite spirits complain all the time about how heaven doesn’t respect their right to pretend they’re someone they’re not…blah blah blah…look, as far as I see it, having to urinate standing up surrounded by men while wearing woman’s clothing is a far cry from being gang raped like Bob Hope is all the time.
In fact…I believe that Hope is in limbo, not heaven, but his attackers force him to call it heaven…so I’m lost. My Ouigi board tells me one thing, my Bible another…what’s a lunatic to do?
Four question marks!
I would have used five but I wanted to keep things civil.
then the house had to be rotated 15 degrees to face Mecca
Is that the actual Mecca or do you mean the liberal Mecca which is DNC headquarters(that’s the dome that looks a little like Darth Vader’s helmet that raises and lowers into the swamp)
what’s a lunatic to do?
You could do what the last guy did and become chairman of the Democratic Party.
Party of life strikes again:
Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission – both a religious mission and a military mission — to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state – especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is “to conduct physical and spiritual warfare”; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a first-person shooter video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.
I really think that belonging to some of these religious splinter groups is a sin in and of itself.
It’s the freedom we enjoy as Americans that creates these groups, and it’s the pain dealt out to people who don’t conform in one way or another in American society that creates people willing to hand over their brains.
When an organization demands that you not think for yourself, they’re full of shit in my book.
More on the game:
For game enthusiasts, there is also a multi-player mode, in which you can go online and battle to take territory from other players. If you happen to blow away a neutral party – and collateral damage is inevitable in the End of Days – then you will lose “Spirit Points”. But you can power back up with merely a brief timeout for prayer, or by converting one of New York’s terror-stricken citizens.
I have a feeling I may buy this game is the sad thing
SimEvangelical