I support our troops in Iraq. But I don't support Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris, who is a twisted scumbag. Yesterday, according to
Bloomberg, Harris told reporters that the suicides of three prisoners at Guantanamo over the weekend were actually acts of terror against the U.S.
Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the military joint task force at Guantanamo, said yesterday in a conference call with reporters that the suicides were a coordinated ``act of asymmetric warfare'' and not the result of desperation by the prisoners.
I can't think of anything to say about this, frankly. I suppose it's worth noting, for the zillionth time, that the claim that the victims of one's aggression are actually perpetrators and aggressors is one of the hallmarks of fascist rhetoric. (There's the old Goebbels line about the Jewish conspiracy "forcing" Germany into war and bringing its own destruction upon itself. And then there was the Soviet government claim in 1991 that the Latvian activists killed during demonstrations at the Riga TV tower had thrown themselves beneath the wheels of Soviet tanks in order to make Moscow look bad. Those two come most quickly to mind. I'm sure Chinese authorities said the same thing about Tiananmen about a million times, and so forth.)
It's hard to even claim that this represents a new low mark for Bush Administration mendacity and squalidness, since the marks have already gone so low, so often. It's just another repulsive reminder of how eager the military is to lie in order to justify killing and death. If that institution wants to preserve Americans' respect for it, it should stop acting as a mouthpiece for Administration propaganda.