Sunday, June 11, 2006

asymmetric warfare against us

* Sydney Morning Herald :
Three Guantanamo Bay detainees hanged themselves using nooses made of sheets and clothes, the commander of the detention centre said, in the first reported deaths among hundreds of men held at the base.
[]
Only 10 have been charged with crimes and there has been growing international pressure on the US to close the prison.
[]
"They hung themselves with fabricated nooses made out of clothes and bed sheets," base commander Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris told reporters in a conference call from the US base in southeastern Cuba.

"They have no regard for human life," he said. "Neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us."
Apparently a 'fabricated noose' is a noose made of fabric.

As for that last paragraph...

As for that last paragraph...

As for that last paragraph...

As for that last paragraph...

I don't really know what to say.

Here's what I will say: I can only presume that he wasn't ad-libbing. In other words, I suspect it was a state-sanctioned, Frank Luntz-sanctioned Talking Point.

Given that, I don't really know what to say.

I could wonder about who is the intended audience... or whether the audience is domestic or international

I could say something glib about Al Qaeda's "media committees" - or note that we are "through the looking glass"

or i could repeat this graphic from rimone


but there isnt anything i could say that could even come close. so i'll leave it up to you in the comments...

(h/t ron)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"They have no regard for human life," he said. "Neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us."

i'm still in shock reading that, although somewhat admiring the twistiness of the bullshit.

breathtaking, really. and pure fucking evil. i so hope people aren't swayed by that shit (but i lost faith in most Americans' intelligence some time ago).

lukery said...

rimone: "somewhat admiring the twistiness of the bullshit."

yeah - there's that i guess. it really is breathtaking...

Anonymous said...

those goddamned terrorists--first they fly aeroplanes into our buildings and now they're killing themselves at us.

lukery said...

lol

Anonymous said...

Assymetrical warfare against us????The immature egocentricity of Americans in general, and Republican NeoNutzis, in particular, utterly astounds me, still. I dred the day when it no longer does. The complete inability to see anything from another's point of view is infantile, at best. Our denial of any role in what happened and unfortunately is still happening at Gitmo and other US dungeons, is beyond measure.

Rimone, "and now they're killing themselves at us" captures it exactly.

lukery said...

kathleen: "immature egocentricity ..." indeed