Framing the debate: everything's a bid for a headline

Three dead by suicide at the USA's oubliette at Guantanamo Bay, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy calls it a "good PR move". Aren't you glad you're not her press secretary? I should think killing yourself to get some press would rate as more than just "good."

This comes on the heels of the Washington Times (aka "The Moonie News") headline "Democrats call Zarqawi killing a stunt". I guess it's OK for Republicans to dismiss suicide as a PR move, but not for Democrats to acknowledge the obvious PR benefits the Bush administration will reap from killing one of its favorite enemies.

Apparently the Bushies can't conceive of taking life, even one's own, for any reason except to create headlines and frame the national debate. If a man imprisoned half a world away from home and family, with no trial or release in sight, takes matters into his own hands in the only way he can, we are not to consider the obvious reason, that he found himself in unbearable conditions and without hope; we are to believe that he killed himself because he hated freedom and wanted to hurt us however he could.

Thank you, President Bush, for protecting us from those who would cold-bloodedly hang themselves in their prison cells!

I'm reminded of the death of Bobby Sands, who starved himself in a futile attempt to shame Margaret Thatcher's government into treating him and others like political prisoners. At least the Iron Lady was principled, in her way: in her eyes, Sands was a criminal and would be treated as one. Bush's thugs can't even come up to that level of civilization: the prisoners at Guantanamo are neither prisoners of war nor accused criminals, they're just people who are being detained because it's necessary to detain them. Because, uh, they're evil and they hate freedom, and that's the reason for every single thing they do.

And so the country of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison continues to imprison people indefinitely without charge or trial -- 500 at Guantanamo, and an unknown number at secret prisons elsewhere. That's how much Bush and his thugs love liberty.