MB Civic

To the Editor:

Re “Three Prisoners Commit Suicide at Guantánamo” (front page, June 11):

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have all denounced the conditions of the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and even Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Bush administration’s single major ally in the war on terror, has called for its closing.

Yet Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the commander at Guantánamo, chooses to interpret the suicides of three prisoners by saying:

“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.”

Though I no longer thought it possible, such language makes me ashamed of my own government.

Stephen Crowley
Cleveland Heights, Ohio, June 11, 2006

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To the Editor:

The moral responsibility for the deaths of the three prisoners lies squarely with President Bush.

First, he decided to imprison them indefinitely without trial. Then he defied the Supreme Court’s 2004 repudiation of his position and announced that he would insist on yet another ruling of the court before providing elementary fairness.

This obduracy has now had its long-predicted consequences, but the administration remains obstinate.

Having driven to suicide men in its custody whom it blocked from counsel and whom it unilaterally asserted were terrorists, it complains that it has been the victim of an act of war.

Actually, the Guantánamo Three were victims of the president’s war on the rule of law.

Eric M. Freedman
New York, June 11, 2006
The writer serves as a legal consultant for the Guantánamo detainees.

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To the Editor:

As a federal court-appointed monitor of health care in prisons for more than 20 years, I have reviewed the medical records of prisoners who killed themselves in prisons and jails throughout the United States.

Prisoners kill themselves when they are hopeless, when they have no contact with their families, and when faced with a terrifying future.

Prisoners at Guantánamo are subject to torture and to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment intended to drive men to madness, which leads to suicide.

For the sake of humanity, for the sake of the prisoners at Guantánamo and to divert our country from its course of infamy, the prison at Guantánamo must be closed immediately.

Robert L. Cohen, M.D.
New York, June 11, 2006
The writer, the medical director of Rikers Island Health Services from 1982 to 1985, is a federal court-appointed monitor of medical care for prisoners in Michigan, New York, and Connecticut.

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To the Editor:

You point out the inhumanity of Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr.’s response to the Guantánamo suicides (“The Deaths at Gitmo,” editorial, June 12). When I first read the admiral’s remark — “this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us” — my body went numb. When I read your editorial, I began to sob.

A ruthless military is not the same as a strong military. Americans must condemn the former.

Kathy Rappaport
Santa Fe, N.M., June 12, 2006

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To the Editor:

Although the exact reason that three detainees at Guantánamo committed suicide is not known, it is clear that our government failed in its responsibility to safeguard prisoners under our custody.

It is important that the military take immediate measures to see that this tragedy cannot happen again.

It is also vital that the Guantánamo detainees have recourse to our courts so that they can be dealt with in a civilized fashion.

Harris L. Present
New York, June 12, 2006