Think Progress

Bush Officials Stoke International Outrage Over Guantanamo Suicides

Over the weekend, two Saudis and a Yemeni committed suicide in their cells at Guantanamo. In response, the State Department’s Colleen Graffy – who “coordinates efforts with a special envoy, Karen Hughes, in a campaign to improve the US image abroad, especially in Islamic countries” – described the suicides as “good PR move to draw attention.” In addition, Guantanamo’s camp commander Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris called the suicides “an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us.”

The comments caused a diplomatic uproar around the world and have led to renewed calls for Guantanamo’s closure. A few examples of the international displeasure from both conservative and liberal editorial boards:

- “In an editorial headlined ‘Bad Language’, the right-leaning Times [of London], normally a defender of Britain’s alliance with the United States, said such rhetoric ‘plays once again into the hands of America’s enemies.’” [Link]

- “France’s Le Monde newspaper condemned Graffy’s comments, saying that they ‘illustrate the gulf which separates American authorities from the rest of the world on this sinister question.’” [Link]

- “Britain’s Guardian newspaper called Harris’ remarks ‘cold and odious.’ ‘It is entirely in keeping with the clinical illegality of America’s treatment of terror suspects since 2001,’ the left-leaning newspaper said.” [Link]

- “Britain’s conservative Daily Mail newspaper said the officials had spoken ‘with utter insensitivity to world opinion’ in an editorial headlined: ‘From the high moral ground to the gutter.’” [Link]

- “Spain’s El Mundo newspaper called the comments ‘gruesome.’” [Link]

The administration immediately had to go “into damage control,” with State Department spokesman Sean McCormack saying, “I would just point out in public that we do not see it as a PR stunt.”



71 Responses to “Bush Officials Stoke International Outrage Over Guantanamo Suicides”

  1. GSD says:

    Goodwill Ambassador Michelle Malkin has chimed in with her “compassionate conservative” opinion.

    “Boo-fricken-hoo”.

    WDPWJR?-What Dead Person Would Jesus Ridicule?

    -GSD


  2. krazny says:

    Let me see, the rightwing spin on this will be:

    what do we care about the thoughts of a bunch of weak socialist europeons.

    or something along those lines.


  3. unbelievable says:

    Will we be liberated soon?


  4. dlet says:

    Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris called the suicides “an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us.”

    Warfare is when you try to kill others….not yourself….that is called suicide. I think this general needs to go back to West Point and brush up on his reading. What kind of person would think that a person committed suicide just to give them a little bad press? A detached from reality self-centered egoist maybe?


  5. Derrick C. says:

    These kinds of comments show that we don’t, in fact, hold life sacred in this country. I wonder how this plays into the “culture of life” Bush wants to foster.

    You don’t have to like terror suspects, or even terrorists. You do have to acknowledge their humanity, however. If life is sacred, all life is sacred.


  6. got censure? says:

    The updated
    Pew Global Attitutes Survey
    shows what has happened to the US image during the last 5 years.

    Somehow I get the feeling that a lot of it has to do with the media, but it’s interesting reading.


  7. got censure? says:

    The updated
    Pew Global Attitudes Survey
    shows what has happened to the US image during the last 5 years.

    Somehow I get the feeling that a lot of it has to do with the media, but it’s interesting reading.


  8. Democrat Soldier says:

    Pres. Bush’s “culture of life” begins at conception and ends at birth. The second the child is born, the neo-cons don’t give a crap about the child.

    I’m more concerned about Pres. Bush’s Culture of Corruption.


  9. Gen. Doublespeak says:

    uncharged suspected terrorists hang themselves
    TRANSLATION:”enemy combatants” practice” hanging gestures” in an act of “asymetric warfare” on the US. Upon being found they were liberated from their asphyxiating ligiture of linens, pronouced dead and placed in body transport tubes.


  10. Juan C says:

    2 Saudis and a Yemeni??? Well, I have 3 aces.


  11. theswan says:

    Today we sympathize with the rest of the world, because here in America citizens continue to be obstructed or marginalized by one party rule. When you get shut out of the process and have no voice people on the outside will start to see that America is not the America they want to befriend. And this is happening now. Speak up world maybe someone here will hear you. And Thanks for your position, it’s the good and correct one.


  12. Bill Gant says:

    “such rhetoric ‘plays once again into the hands of America’s enemies.”

    and RUNNING A GESTAPO OPERATION IN GITMO DOESN’T…..THE BALLS ON THE GUYS


  13. krazny says:

    I found a shirt a while back, I will see if I can find it again.

    It said “republicans want live fetus’s to grow up to be dead soldiers”


  14. Jay Randal says:

    The Bush Regime hides facts about everything, so what transpires at GITMO is anyone’s guess?! Most of the so-called terrorists, at the prison in Cuba, are actually farmers or Taxi drivers aqnd NOT Al-Qaeda members! They are not even allowed to prove their innocence!


  15. Jay Randal says:

    The Bush Regime hides facts about everything, so what transpires at GITMO is anyone’s guess?! Most of the so-called terrorists, at the prison in Cuba, are actually farmers or Taxi drivers and NOT Al-Qaeda members! They are not even allowed to prove their innocence!


  16. Democrat Soldier says:

    #14 – Silly Jay. Don’t you know that everyone in QITMO is already guilty? Why else would they be there? I mean, it’s not like the Federal Government EVER makes ANY MSITAKES!

    Oh, Lord, I’m going to be sick from THAT much spinning! That’s what I get from trying to view things from the Republican / Neo-Con perspective.


  17. krazny says:

    Dem soldier did you ever see the movie Brazil? the part in the beginning where the guy says “were the government, we don’t make mistakes.” then proceeds to screw to make a mistake?


  18. Jay Randal says:

    Yes post 16 in Bush’s world view everyone is guilty and NEVER given a chance to be proven innocent! Just kidnap the suspect and rendition them to GITMO until they kill themselves?!


  19. Democrat Soldier says:

    #17 – Nope, I haven’t. But now I’ve got even more reason to watch it! Thanks for the info!


  20. Democrat Soldier says:

    #18 – Ohhh! Could we get Ann Coulter arrested for her threat against Supreme Court justices, and sent there? Maybe she would commit suicide after three or four years with no news on if she’d ever be released, much less able to argu against non-accusations!

    Oh, frabjuous day! ;-)


  21. Jay Randal says:

    “DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES”
    Tuesday 13th of June 2006
    by Jay Randal

    “Major General William Caldwell said they administered medical help to the mortally wounded Zarqawi, who had taken nearly an hour to die after the strike.” From BBC, June 12, 2006: “Al Qaeda in Iraq names new head.”

    The Pentagon first claimed the mythical al-Zarqawi was found dead after two 500 pound bombs dropped on his hideout, then they said he was still alive but died within a few minutes, but now they admit he was alive for almost an hour, so why was he not taken to a military hospital which might have kept him alive?

    An Iraqi eyewitness claims US troops removed him from an ambulance, wrapped his head in a blanket, then punched his stomach and chest until he died, so whom is telling the truth about al-Zarqawi’s death?

    Col. Steve Jones, an Army pathologist, who did the autopsy on the body says he died from “shock wave” damage to his lungs, but insisted not beaten by fists?

    Interesting that Jordanian born Zarqawi is supposed to have an artificial leg, but NO mention in autopsy?

    ( Jay Randal, political activist and writer in Stone Mountain, Georgia.)


  22. JosephW says:

    You just have to know that had Graffy been working in the Clinton administration and made similar comments, Congressional Repubs would be clamoring for her head on a silver platter.
    Of course, in the Cheney administration, the more outrageous a statement is, the more likely it is that the commentor will be promoted.


  23. Subway Serenade says:

    I learned yrsterday that the contractors in the Iraqi snuff video with the Elvis soundtrack will not face charges from the US or Iraq. Perhaps The Hague someday, I hope. Let the six figure thugs do the dirty work and let the grunts take the heat.

    Since March of last year, I’ve been saying that there will be no free and fair election in ‘06.

    It got me banned from Kos.

    The left just doesn’t get it. It’s altready a Dicktatership. It’s been a Dicktatership since the 2000 election. The boiling frog analogy applies here.

    Harry Chapin has a song called “Dance Band on the Titanic.” That’s just how I feel right now.

    Goper’s Lament (Hard To Be A Republican)


  24. TheyLied says:

    “an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us.”

    Seriously, who dreams this stuff up? This government needs an enima in the worst way.


  25. Subway Serenade says:

    Theylied:

    The same folks who say that we are faced with a series of overlaping interperimeters.


  26. Smack says:

    Anyone that sides with the neocons is obviously a psychopath. Torture and Murder and the glorification of it are not the American ideals for which I stand. I reject the tyrants in DC that supposedly speak for me. I condem thier odious, immoral philosophy. I warn those who would follow them to consider what consequences they may bring on us all, if they do not also renounce such barbarism.


  27. katy says:

    how is it that bill o’lielly was granted access to gitmo?… hours after which these people killed themselves…


  28. Tobey Tall says:

    To America put up or shut up

    If the U.S. wants to prevent the emergence of scandal after scandal, it should listen to the voice of wisdom and stop flouting international law.

    Can anybody believe the U.S. claim about respecting human rights when it lectures others on rights violations? Of course not.

    The suicides, the prolonged detention of inmates without trial, the violent and shameful human rights violations in Abu Ghraib prison, and the establishment of secret prisons outside the U.S. are dark marks on the forehead of the U.S. for its human rights record and judicial system.

    TO AMERICA YOUR NOW A BIG JOKE SHUTUP OR PUTUP


  29. Ken Daves says:

    Are we supposed to be getting really upset over this so we are diluted in our disgust at having rove allowed to roam free among us? Is coulter already running out of steam?


  30. Jaded Prole says:

    The twisted cynical logic of the reptilian right has never been more obvious. It’s time for the civilized world to consider divestment and an embargo of our renegade nation until sanity returns and This administration is sent to the Hague.


  31. Tobey Tall says:

    do you seriously think any of the 460 inmates had anything to do with 911

    The jokes on Bush and the Neocons Bin Laden has exposed them for what they are and thats petty murdering would be thiefs of OIL and nothing will stop in their way to acheive theft and negligence of their won citizens

    WELL DONE BIN LADEN – You made American Republicans and Bush show their true colours and thats red for anybodies blood

    Even the POPE is ashamed of Bush


  32. Tobey Tall says:

    come on then america read out their suicide notes before they died……………
    the world waits for the Adopted versions of their suicide notes why are we waiting


  33. Tobey Tall says:

    let me also tell you Europe would welcome all the 460 inmates so send them over here to the Hague …common we dare you


  34. Tobey Tall says:

    WATCH THIS FILM YOU DISGUSTING RIGHT WING NEO CONS B**TRDS

    The Road To Guantanamo
    DVD Description
    THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO is the story of four friends who set off from the Midlands in September 2001 for an innocent wedding and holiday in Pakistan. Two and a half years later, only three of them returned home. Through their epic journey we hear the story of their misunderstandings, ignorance, confusions and friendships as step by step they go from the safety of their small-town teenage existence to the heart of the ‘war on terror’. Through a series of interviews, dramatised scenes and archive news footage, the film shows how the Tipton Three ended up in Afghanistan hiding with Taliban fighters under fire from US Fighter planes. The boys are eventually rounded up by American forces, only to be kept in horrific conditions at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for over two years. The Road to Guantanamo is directed by the award-winning Michael Winterbottom (9 Songs) and won the Silver Bear for Direction at the 56th Berlin Film Festival.


  35. Ken Daves says:

    I am just waiting for the day that members of this administration are threatened with arrest for war crimes if they travel to countries that will stand up for us.

    We are standing up. We are doing the best we can, but when you have a lying pie hole like the entire televised and print media, what are our real options?

    If the leaders of Europe, say Denmark, France, Germany…would just forget about waiting for the way to be cleared by us for their investments and just threatened to enforce the Geneva Conventions and established a war crimes tribunal…Well, maybe we could get to a better place eventually, maybe even before we die.

    Things are so extreme that whenever these guys are removed, it will be ugly. Why delay?


  36. Ken Daves says:

    I agree with you. Road to Guantanamo is a must-see.

    It will enforce the reasonable desire to see bush et al. fry.


  37. Tobey Tall says:

    dont worry we europeans understand you have an installed puppet dictator and relish the day Bush dies , then the diebold machines will probably still say he won the election

    come on we want a more caring, understanding and honest president in the whitehouse

    I beleive he was on his way to the world cup when he got news America was getting beaten so he flew to iraq to start trouble – bloody soccer thug Bush is


  38. skyreader7 says:

    You guys don’t get it. The suicides did it so their millionaire wives back in Saudia Arabia and Yemen could be so happy in their deaths. Imagine the hilarity and partying the “Witches of Arabia” will have their live long lives.

    So Bush did the merry widows a big favor by allowing these men the freedom to commit suicide. We’re all one big world happy Democratic(or should I say Republican) family. Can you imagine if they hadn’t been successful? They would probably be on life support for the next 50 years, because we, of course, value life so much.


  39. Zookeeper says:

    As an American, I am so embarassed by those articles. When this administration screws up, they always make it worse when they try to make it better. I cringe at what the rest of the world thinks of us now.


  40. Tobey Tall says:

    38# skyreader7
    now say the same thing about your miliatry suicides and wounded the jokes on you – idiot


  41. Tobey Tall says:

    So what now? President Bush stated this week that he wants to close Guantánamo, that he wants to give the men trials. Well, let’s have them – immediately. The US has had over four years to gather evidence against the men. Surely that is enough time to prove guilt. And now it is time to show the world the evidence. As Harriet Harman, the British constitutional affairs minister, said yesterday, Guantánamo must be opened up to review or shut down. Will Britain do what is necessary to make this a reality? Because this is about even more than the fate of 460 people, it is about whether the US and its allies will lead the world by democratic example, or whether they will continue to give lip service to human rights and open societies, while denigrating those cherished notions with their actions.

    If the men in Guantánamo (and the other US prisons around the world, such as the one at the Bagram air force base in Afghanistan, where over 600 men languish in Guantánamo’s hidden twin) did something wrong, by all means punish them. But if they did not, they must be sent home.

    Mohammed El Gharani, our client at Reprieve, was only 14 when he was seized in a mosque in Pakistan. He was only 15 when he arrived in Guantánamo Bay. Already twice this year he has tried to kill himself, once by hanging, once by slitting his wrists. Let us pray there is movement by the US to finally do justice, before Mohammed, truly only a child, or anyone else in Guantánamo Bay commits suicide.


  42. Tobey Tall says:

    An investigation team came afterwards and took measurements on the ground and talked to the guards then left. The detainee was taken in a hurry and never was seen after that day for a long period of several months. Everybody in the camp was talking about it, and the “big event” was that the guards have killed the detainee.

    After a long period of time, months or so, we were informed that that detainee was still alive. Some detainees had seen him on a wheel chair – including me – and asked him “What happened? The officers claim that you hanged your self?”

    The detainee answered me “How? All that I remember is that the guards were hitting the brothers in their cells, and all of a sudden in the dark I lost conscious till this day.”

    That person, Mishal Al Harbi, a Saudi detainee in his early 20’s is living the rest of his life in a wheel chair and was almost dead on the excuse of suicide. He’s now released in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia .


  43. Tobey Tall says:

    CAGE PRISONERS

    PRESS RELEASE: Tuesday 13th June 2006

    London – Former Guantanamo detainees, including the 9 British nationals released from the camp, have poured scorn on allegations that the three deaths at Guantanamo were suicides and claim that they are almost certainly accidental killings caused by excessive force used by US guards there.

    Moazzam Begg, in a statement on behalf of all the freed British detainees elucidates that the camp’s regime is designed to dehumanise detainees and to make them bereft of hope and believe they have no rights – framing and encouraging suicide amongst them – and suggesting imaginative ways to do so.

    Tarek Dergoul, who spent significant time with two of the deceased, provides the first in depth insight into their time in Guantanamo. He describes both Manei al-Otaibi and Yasser al-Zahrani as having indefatigable spirits, never once discussing or contemplating suicide, and being the foremost in their lack of cooperation with their captors and long term committed hunger strikers; leading them to be punished by frequent reprisals and beatings by guards. That it was camp policy to systematically beat incompliant prisoners, Tarek says, makes it hardly surprisingly that such vicious attacks could result in death.

    He further elaborates that in Camp One, where he was also held – it would have been physically impossible for them to have committed suicide successfully.

    Abdullah Alnoami a former detainee from Bahrain substantiates this accusation, exposing the true nature what was previously believed to be the most oft-quoted suicide attempt at the base, of a Saudi detainee in December 2002. Following an ERF attack, Mishal Al Harbi was left in a coma and permanently paralysed and restricted to a wheelchair for life.

    Dr. Adnan Siddiqui of Cageprisoners said “It is clear that the US administrations claim that these deaths were suicide does not stand up close scrutiny and we call on the US administration to allow a full and independent inquiry to debunk the cover up and lies that these deaths were suicide and not murder.”


  44. Tobey Tall says:

    read for yourselfs and make your guts wrench at this mmmm anamoly

    http://www.cageprisoners.com/index.php


  45. Evil Spaniard says:

    Just a note on the spanish “El Mundo”: also is a rightist one. And was one of the better allies of the former spanish President José María Aznar, firm ally of Bush (not the country but, you know, when a President is a jerk…)


  46. HGM says:

    Murder whith immpunity, add two more souls to the charge of genocide vrs. Bush, Cheney and the rest of the despotic regime. There’s not much that we can do but have the knowledge that some day GW Bush will be utterd in the same breath as Polpot, Stalin, and Mao.


  47. Tobey Tall says:

    Religious Leaders Urge U.S. to Ban Torture

    Twenty-seven religious leaders, including megachurch pastor Rick Warren, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, have signed a statement urging the United States to “abolish torture now — without exceptions.”

    The statement, being published in newspaper advertisements starting today, is the opening salvo of a new organization called the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, which has formed in response to allegations of human rights abuse at U.S. detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.


  48. skyreader7 says:

    Obviously, some of our European friends don’t now who Ann Coulter is.


  49. Evil Spaniard says:

    #48 We don’t want to know Ann Coulter. It’s s typical USA product, and there belongs. No need of exporting witches.


  50. Tracy says:

    #50

    And comment about your own country’s soccer fans throwing banannas at their own goalie during regular season games?

    http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/04/sports/racism.php


  51. Stubain says:

    Tobey Tall,

    First, you talk way too much and say very little.
    Second, you say the same things over and over. Boring!
    Third, cry me a river would ya? sheesh! These sorry bags of garbage off-ed themselves. They had soccer, three meals a day, a nice bed to sleep in, plenty of fresh new Korans, and on and on. May they enjoy their 72 virgins.


  52. Butch says:

    It looks like we have engaged in a battle of hearts and minds and that our leadership is essentially unarmed for this battle.


  53. Marie says:

    Insensitivity, cruelty, hubris, and arrogance are prerequisites for work in the Bush&CO administration.


  54. Marie says:

    Some who troll here qualify.


  55. JP says:

    Great job, Bush Inc. Destroy the American brand even more!

    http://jpsgoddamnblog.blogspot.com


  56. Wallaby says:

    Stubain,

    Some things need to be said over and over again.

    Several hundred of the prisoners held at Gitmo have been released after long detentions. That is, they were wrongfully imprisoned.

    Of the 460 remaining, only 10 have been charged. The others have been held for 4 years without charge. A gross violation of the legal norms of any civilised society.

    Of the 10 who have been charged not one has been brought to trial. The charges are dubious at best. Even some of the American military lawyers appointed to defend them have stated they have little chance of a fair trial under the sham system that has been set up.

    The whole process is an affront to legaility and human rights.

    It is illegal it is indecent it is inhumane it is dishonest.

    Stubain, if that bores you, just go back to watching Jerry Springer.


  57. For Truth says:

    Hi Wallaby,

    Hey I agree that we as a country should model the behavior we wan’t other countries to exhibit. But do you use the barbaric tactics to deal with the barbarians? If you do allow the barbaric tactics, what would ensure these tactics wouldn’t become normalized in our society? It’s a big risk to be taking with your own society to stoop to the level of the barbarians. I guess thats where I was going with this.


  58. Nat says:


    First, you talk way too much and say very little.
    Second, you say the same things over and over. Boring!
    Third, cry me a river would ya? sheesh! These sorry bags of garbage off-ed themselves. They had soccer, three meals a day, a nice bed to sleep in, plenty of fresh new Korans, and on and on. May they enjoy their 72 virgins.

    Comment by Stubain — June 13, 2006 @ 7:35 pm

    It seems like such a nice place; why don’t you sign up for Club Gitmo? Of course, you’d be separated from your family, your community and your country for years but on the bright side you’d enjoy “soccer, three meals a day, a nice bed to sleep in”.


  59. Doug Book says:

    It has been a rugged few days for the left, hasn’t it. Busby loses in California, the great freedom fighter Zarqawi is blown up, three other models of peace reach self-imposed room temperature and Rove is found to have done nothing wrong in a nonsensical investigation of a non event. Just goes to show how events can have unpredictable outcomes when they take place in the real world. You on the left have created an entire universe of conspiracy and intrigue. Add to it your Orwellian reality where marines are the murderers and terrorists the victims and it becomes a moonbat Mister Rodgers Neighborhood where the most improbable occurances become commonplace and the most impossible of dreams are realized. If only you could hold the elections, the investigations and the wars there, you could defeat the republicans, jail the conservatives and place the United States under the control of the UN all in a flash. Oh well, maybe some day. You keep working on it.


  60. Jay Randal says:

    Lol post 59 Doug > you have it all figured out I see? Bush is innocent of everything and we anti-Bush bloggers on TP threads are the real enemies of America huh? Get real because Bush and his supporters like yourself have led this nation to ruin!


  61. TerrytheTurtle says:

    #60, did those talking points come to you all at once in a fax? Or did you think them up yourself Doug?

    What is “place the United States under the control of the UN all in a flash” if not an “entire universe of conspiracy and intrigue”? Don’t look now, your hypocrisy is showing.


  62. Tobey Tall says:

    Enough is Enough charge or release the Guantanamo Inmates they are innocent mostly


  63. Randy says:

    Let me get this straight, the left wants us to close down Gitmo because they believe everyone there is innocent while they believed and had all but convicted Karl Rove? They must live in a parallel universe where everything down is up. Ok, say we release all of the prisoners to world. Do you want to be personally responsible when they launch another attack that will make 9/11 look like a candy store robbery? I believe that would be what Clinton would have done or how Al Gore would have handled it if God forbid had become president.


  64. DonS says:

    State Department spokesman Sean McCormack saying, “I would just point out in public that we do not see it as a PR stunt.”

    So why is Ms. Caffy not fired?


  65. Evil Spaniard says:

    #65 You don’t get it straight, Randy. Keep trying.


  66. big papa says:

    DESTROY THE RIGHT WING

    Re-Elect Bushites to another four year term…


  67. Tracy says:

    #65

    “Intolerants like you and your ilk.”

    How am I intolerant?

    I will lecture you all day about your country’s racism including your neighbor next door, i.e. France…where it’s just as bad or worse as evidenced by that riots that took place recently fueled by French racism. I wouldn’t be really saying much about this considering the U.S.’s history of racism, but your country has had centuries to advance past what the U.S has accomplished in the last 50 years in regards to civil rights and tolerance of immigrants.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?view=BLOGDETAIL&grid=P30&blog=yourview&xml=/sport/2006/03/03/ufview02.xml

    http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/11-19-2004-61873.asp


  68. former republican says:

    Trathey,
    French Racism ? (FOX version), or new unfair labor laws passed for all French youth, Muslims being greatly effected(REALITY)


  69. Tracy says:

  70. Evil Spaniard says:

    To Tracy:

    First, my country isn’t France.

    Second, your country’s modern history began in the 17th century at a stone age level, or began with the enlightened culture imbued by the french thinkers? Your basic country culture is a mix of british law, french progressive ideas and protestand ethics (or lack of) of the 17th and 18th century. The french military even helped your country to defeat the british army. So, please, your country isn’t an experiment isolated by the void of space from the rest of the world. Your country started with a level of culture and laws much higher than zero. And the great majority of your population’s ancestors came from Europe or Europe’s descendants.

    Third, in which year happened the Los Angeles riots? 1992. Not so much time, isn’t? Let me quote the wikipedia about the causes:

    In addition to the immediate trigger of the Rodney King verdict, there were many other factors cited as reasons for the unrest, including: the extremely high unemployment among residents of South Los Angeles, which had been hit very hard by the nation-wide recession; a long-standing perception that the LAPD engaged in racial profiling and used excessive force, supported by the Christopher Commission, an investigation led by Warren Christopher (who two years later would become Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton); and specific anger over the light sentence given to a Korean shop-owner for the shooting of Latasha Harlins, a young African-American woman. Additionally, in the time between the public revelation of King’s beating and the trial verdict, the two largest L.A. street gangs, the Crips and the Bloods, agreed to a truce with each other, and began working together to make political demands of the police and the LA political establishment.

    Um, that looks as a riot against racism. And isn’t 50 years ago.

    Fourth: you know what is the source of the worsening in worker’s rights suferred by the young willing to work in France? An approach to the full capitalist model of the USA, losing somewhat the social protection of workers, traditional in France. So, if it is bad, your country must be a worker’s hell, without all those benefits for workers. But you, as a conservative, must be in favor of fewer worker’s rights, isn’t? Maybe you’re favoring the next round of riots in your own country. I’ll be not surprised if this time is in New Orleans. Maybe after the next hurricane season.


  71. Tracy says:

    #73

    “First, my country isn’t France.”

    No…really?

    “you know what is the source of the worsening in worker’s rights suferred by the young willing to work in France?”

    Yeah and it isn’t this…

    “…losing somewhat the social protection of workers, traditional in France.”

    It’s more like the fact that they will actually have to start competing with OTHER countries in the global market. You do know that France’s economy hasn’t grown much in the last 10 years…don’t you? The socialist economic model is exactly why France, Germany, and other European countries are getting smoked economically today by the U.S. and other Asian countries.

    “Um, that looks as a riot against racism. And isn’t 50 years ago.”

    So, what is your point? AGAIN, why after centuries of supposed attempts by Spain to stomp out racist views hasn’t it happened yet and is in so many ways WORSE than it is in the U.S.?

    “So, if it is bad, your country must be a worker’s hell, without all those benefits for workers.”

    Benefits…we have plenty. We just choose to rely more on ourselves, rather than the government, to provide for our well being.

    “I’ll be not surprised if this time is in New Orleans. Maybe after the next hurricane season.”

    Well for all of our racist views there didn’t seem to be any riots after Katrina. Try again.



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