Deeds Louder Than Words in Cairo

President Obama said in Cairo this week that he sought a new beginning in US relations with the Muslim world, and a relationship based on common principles, including "principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."

Beautiful words, but deeds tend to speak louder and this week one spoke volumes. Just a few days before the president spoke, a US prisoner held for seven years without charge, killed himself rather than endure one more day at the US Detention center in Guantanamo.

Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al-Hanashi, whose death was announced Tuesday, was the fifth prisoner - and the second Yemeni - to die in an apparent suicide at the Guantanamo prison. Not charged with any crime, Saleh was 31 years old. Information is limited, but lawyers who visited in May said Saleh was one of seven being held in a psychiatric ward where he was restrained in a chair and force-fed through a tube the width of a finger. It's an excruciating process. The attorney of another striker described a tube being inserted by one guard while another holds the prisoner's chin and a third holds him back by his hair. "No anesthesia or sedative".

Pentagon medical records show Saleh weighed 124 pounds when he entered Guantanamo. A few years later he was down to just 87 pounds.

How a man in his shape might have managed to kill himself is hard to imagine. Why is far easier.

The vast majority of Yemenis in Guantanamo have never been charged -- and more than a dozen have been cleared for return. But only two have left in the past two years and talks with the Yemeni government are stalled.

Meanwhile, 17 Chinese Uighur Muslims prisoners some of whom the Bush administration cleared for release as early as 2003, continue to languish occupying an iconic place in Gitmo culture. Their release would give hope to the hopeless, say fellow prisoners' attorneys. They should never have been incarcerated. They could be released into the US tomorrow. It's going to take actions like that, Mr. President for those words, "Justice, progress, tolerance, and respect for the dignity of all human beings" on an American president's tongue might begin the long journey of actually gaining some meaning.

The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, public television and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com.

Comments (20)

1. AH, Ms. Flanders, you skipped the biography of Mr. Al-Hanashi, he is a bad dude!

   What else can we do to help equally bad dudes to commit suicide before Magic's one-year (to close Gitmo) is up? Let's help them to their 72 virgins ASAP instead of somewhere in Pakistan or some other pre-paradise stepping stone locale.....:)

   Posted by Happy at 06/05/2009 @ 4:27pm

2. posted by LAURA FLANDERS on 06/05/2009 @ 3:52pm

   GTMO and all the other sites like must be closed. In 50 years, the degree of apology that the US will owe the world will be much bigger than the apologies issued over the internment of Japanese in WWII, which pales in comparison.

   Posted by syfriendly at 06/05/2009 @ 5:04pm

3. Posted by Happy at 06/05/2009 @ 4:27pm | ignore this person | warn this person

   I cannot believe you just wrote that you think people should be driven to suicide through extended torture and abuse as part of a justice system or a national security system or any system. That's sick.

   Posted by syfriendly at 06/05/2009 @ 5:06pm

4. That's sick.

   Posted by syfriendly at 06/05/2009 @ 5:06pm

   How jerky of you.....can't wait to snuggle up to those detainees........LOL!

   You got any evidence of "extended torture and abuse" at Gitmo.....or even just to the now-HAPPILY-deceased-f*&king-72 virgins-Mr. Al-Hanashi.

   Go ahead, make my day, tell us that flushing a Koran down the toilet is torture, even if it did happen!

   Posted by Happy at 06/05/2009 @ 5:12pm

5. "AH, Ms. Flanders, you skipped the biography of Mr. Al-Hanashi, he is a bad dude!"

   No Happy, you check out the resume. He fought against Massoud's group in the Northern Alliance. That is all.

   Posted by smparsons at 06/05/2009 @ 5:22pm

6. Go ahead, make my day, tell us that flushing a Koran down the toilet is torture, even if it did happen! Posted by Happy at 06/05/2009 @ 5:12pm

   Happy_Long_ Horn,

   Self-Centered Zionist like you is afflicted with a bug. This bug makes subhuman like you trivializes human suffering; unless it is directed at you or your cabals.

   If the desecration of religious symbols of others is so trivial, then why is it that your squeal of Anti-Semitism is so loud at the slightest perception of offensive remarks against your religion?

   Do you consider flashing the Torah down the toilet mental torture; you idiot?

   Posted by CripThink at 06/05/2009 @ 6:03pm

7. Maybe HAPPY deserves some sympathy....both is ideological AND financial world collapsed around him last fall.

   ...

   or maybe not....heheh

   Posted by Mask at 06/05/2009 @ 9:03pm

8. financial world collapsed around him last fall.

   ...

   or maybe not....heheh

   Posted by Mask at 06/05/2009 @ 9:03pm

   It's even unbelievable to me.....I'm having the best 5 months to start a new year since 2003! Nearly every move I made is paying off as I redirect my portfolio!

   Bought more gold (GLD) today on the dip!

   Posted by Happy at 06/05/2009 @ 11:08pm

9. Maybe HAPPY deserves some sympathy....both is ideological AND financial world collapsed around him last fall. or maybe not....heheh Posted by Mask at 06/05/2009 @ 9:03pm

   Really Happ just needs a good swift kick in the testicles. And to be fair, so does ObamaBush..

   Posted by chaoszen at 06/06/2009 @ 11:01am

10. We have been fooled again. I listen patiently to people who say we need to write,call, e-mail our representatives and let them know how we feel. That always makes me laugh in a rather uncomfortable way.

    The house and the senate are owned lock stock and barrel by the lobbyists and the corporate contributors to election campaigns. With a few exceptions that are like barely heard voice's in the wilderness.

    There will be no significant change until we have publicly funded elections, and even then it would take decades for it to make any difference.

    The only thing that could bring about much needed social change in this country is for the people to rebel. And I mean extreme civil disobedience. Millions of people would have to march on Washington and demand change in no uncertain terms. Unlike in France for instance, many Americans would be slaughtered and blood would be spilled.

    The price would be high, and the American people are cowards. So just learn to live with it, or leave if you have the resources.

    Just my humble opinion..

    Posted by chaoszen at 06/06/2009 @ 11:21am

11. Wait until you see the cobbled up mess of "Healthcare Reform" we end up with. They will attempt to throw us a bone. But the bone will have no meat on it. It will be like a "doggie toy" that we might throw to our pet dog. Not real.

    And the vampires that get rich off of other peoples misery will continue to rake in the profits.

    Does anyone know that in all the other industrialized countries it is illegal to have "For Profit Healthcare"? It is a high crime. But here it is just business as usual.

    We are so uncivilised.. And stupid.

    Posted by chaoszen at 06/06/2009 @ 11:46am

12. Well, if you want to see what Obama and civilized people are up against, this will give a very clear picture:

    http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=6595

    That's not to mention the Joe Liebermans and Charles Krauthammers and all the other cretins who would build a Gitmo every other block if they could.

    Posted by DejaVu at 06/06/2009 @ 12:38pm

13. Posted by DejaVu at 06/06/2009 @ 12:38pm

    Makes me wonder if "God" gave the Israeli his house on palestinian land what form does the "deed" take?

    Looks like it takes the form of a good liquoring up to justify it.

    Posted by chaoszen at 06/06/2009 @ 1:21pm

14. If there was no "God" then humankind would surely invent one. And the "God" that each one invents seems to support their version of the truth.

    Personally, I grow tired of these many God's that humans invent. It is far past time to move beyond these childish imaginations.

    Religion is certainly a mind killer. And worse than that. It robs us of the ability to think and act independently.

    It is far past time for us to abandon these conceptions and the violence they spawn.

    "God" as a concept is unknowable. Let's learn to live and let live, and forget the terrible derangement of the mind that seeks to define the unknowable in human terms.

    Posted by chaoszen at 06/06/2009 @ 1:41pm

15. I am appalled at people's comments and think clearly you are not taking this site as a lecture tool to learn about the events of mankind. God will surely come and destroy the wicked but it doesn't necessarily mean people that are not Christian as we all should know. On topic with the article, Obama's speech is delusional and the exacting of terrorism at 9/11 is working out in the favor of Islam in tearing Americans apart just as Jesus came as a sword to tear us apart as well. Hopefully people will realize how much the towers in NYC didn't mean that much, especailly to me, and especially in the case of going to war with the Middle East, as we best keep to our business because it's not becoming any clearer for any deep rooted committment to ourselves as a people.

    Posted by baggins25 at 06/06/2009 @ 2:27pm

16. What should speak louder is the fact that militants continue to be captured, far from any battlefield, and held for indefinite confinement, without appeal to habeas corpus. But they are being sent to our Bagrem facilitiey in Afghanistan instead of Guantanamo in Cuba, out of the sheer hypocrisy that Guantanamo was denounced by Obama during the campaign, and now must be closed.

    As to prisoners committing suicide, why this phony moralizing?

    Suicides were committed by the hundreds every week in our POW stockades that held the vast numbers of Wehrmacht and Waffen SS prisoners during and after WWII. When they killed themselves we said, good riddance. Why should we feel any differently for the scum in Guantanamo who mean to kill as many Americans and Jews as they can?

    Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 06/06/2009 @ 9:02pm

17. "We are so uncivilised.. And stupid" (chaoszen) You just answered your previous sort-of question: "Why don't we protest?" That's because we have been dumbed down with religion deliberately, and we are are now like sheeple on their way to their slaughter. But hey, as long as our ally in the M.E. is safe.

    Posted by mystic at 06/06/2009 @ 11:02pm

18. The seeds of destruction have been sown clearly, as there is no resolution and the sand, terrain, and heat of the Middle East is like the flame the moth came to find, seeking only it's own end. American's involvement with world affairs is a terrible endeavor that has lost it's validity with countless other feats we have tried to pull off. American business interests are iniquitous and will have no fruits for Americans to even enjoy for they are like zombies pacing empty houses with no riches to claim to their own, except the poor and the wise who live undisturbed by the social atmosphere, claiming it's madness in a type of fascism from not healing wounds that have been endured by warring minds.

    Posted by baggins25 at 06/07/2009 @ 06:30am

19. Why should we feel any differently for the scum in Guantanamo who mean to kill as many Americans and Jews as they can?

    Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 06/06/2009 @ 9:02pm

    I find it contradictory that some on the right have such little trust of our government in general and always rail against government programs that spend considerable amounts of money while not having the desired affects. But these same people have complete faith that everyone the government has squirreled away at GTMO are guilty as accused. It is a weird dichotomy where they defend our governments military and domestic security actions as infallable while ranting agaist the waste and fraud of domestic programs.

    We cannot say that the all the detainees in GTMO are even threats, or have the goals of killing americans or jews. We just don't know. Some we know were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hugo is just placing total faith in the government that everyone in GTMO is "bad"

    Posted by Extraneous at 06/08/2009 @ 1:57pm

20. Extraneous at 1:57pm said:

    >> some on the right have such little trust of our government in general ... [but] have complete faith that everyone the government has squirreled away at GTMO are guilty as accused.

    Hugo is just placing total faith in the government that everyone in GTMO is "bad"<<

    Extraneous' head is dented. Which makes him/her typical of this Nation crowd.

    First of all, those at Guantanamo are not accused of anything; they are being held for what they are and admit to being, Islamists fighting the US. We have a right to put a lid on people who think we are evil and God wants them to kill us.

    Even Obama acknowledges that, which is why he does not want them released and is currently having their ilk sent to Bagram in Afghanistan.

    As to the logic that if I consider our politicians crooks and windbags who misspend our money I should reject the verdicts of our criminal justice system, that again is prime NATION thinking.

    The stupidity of these posters fully reflects the drivel of the magazines' writers.

    Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 06/08/2009 @ 5:07pm