Friday, September 30, 2005
Gitmo's Hunger Strikers:
From its inception, Guantanamo has relied on a soldier-speak that is replete with half-truths and distortions. In 2002 there was a ripple of concern at the number of Guantanamo detainees trying to take their own lives. The military then announced that suicide attempts had radically declined. It took a foreign journalist to expose the truth: The very word 'suicide' had been replaced by the authorities with the term Manipulative Self-Injurious Behavior (SIB)--and there were still plenty of SIBs. The military was lying by semantics.
From its inception, Guantanamo has relied on a soldier-speak that is replete with half-truths and distortions. In 2002 there was a ripple of concern at the number of Guantanamo detainees trying to take their own lives. The military then announced that suicide attempts had radically declined. It took a foreign journalist to expose the truth: The very word 'suicide' had been replaced by the authorities with the term Manipulative Self-Injurious Behavior (SIB)--and there were still plenty of SIBs. The military was lying by semantics.
