The video features Secretary Ken Salazar and includes employees from across the U.S. Department of the Interior, who share their experiences growing up as LGBT youth.

The military told Agence France Presse that guards found the prisoner unresponsive and not breathing Wednesday. “After extensive lifesaving measures had been exhausted, the detainee was pronounced dead by a physician.”

The death of Inayatullah may again focus some attention on the judicial quagmire that is the prison camp at Guantanamo. The vast majority of the hundred-plus prisoners there have yet to be accused of crimes even though they have been held for years. The conditions of the imprisonment are vague and continue to be inadequately monitored. As a result, the “War on Terror” facility has become a symbol of U.S. injustice and imperial privilege to much of the world, fueling anti-American sentiment and seeming to confirm terrorist recruitment propaganda.

Moves to relocate the prisoners and try them according to U.S. law have met a series of politically charged hurdles year after year. After vowing to make closing the camps at Guantanamo a top priority, President Obama has abandoned the project, seemingly content to allow it to chug along of its own accord, a military-judicial no man’s land paid for by U.S. taxpayers without an end in sight and beyond the rule of law.

Early in the Obama administration, there was talk of moving the prisoners to Supermax prisons in the U.S., like to the facility in Florence, Colorado, where many high-profile terrorists are being held.

Colorado politicians blanched at the idea but local residents and Supermax officials have been less squeamish.

Town Manager Tom Piltingsrud told the Denver Post in 2009 that Florence residents would likely support a transfer.

They took the initiative on establishing Supermax in the first place, scraping together money to buy land and then donating it to the government for the complex, he said.

They remain glad for the jobs it provides.

“It’s a recession-proof industry,” Piltingsrud said.

There already is a housing development with a Gary Player-designed golf course close to the federal prison complex that includes Supermax. It has 100 units now but could have up to 1,500 when completed….

Florence Mayor Bart Hall has little worry about maintaining the security of the area, even in the event of a large-scale transfer from Guantanamo.

Hall noted that in rural Colorado, people are pretty self-reliant.

“Most of us own guns,” he said.

Family members of previously deceased Guantanamo prisoners have filed lawsuits arguing that the Pentagon covered up details of the deaths. U.S. judges dismissed those complaints.

Scott Horton at Harpers wrote the unaddressed backstory to those alleged suicides:

Late on the evening of June 9 that year, three prisoners at Guantánamo died suddenly and violently. Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, from Yemen, was thirty-seven. Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, from Saudi Arabia, was thirty. Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, also from Saudi Arabia, was twenty-two, and had been imprisoned at Guantánamo since he was captured at the age of seventeen. None of the men had been charged with a crime, though all three had been engaged in hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their imprisonment. They were being held in a cell block, known as Alpha Block, reserved for particularly troublesome or high-value prisoners.

As news of the deaths emerged the following day, the camp quickly went into lockdown. The authorities ordered nearly all the reporters at Guantánamo to leave and those en route to turn back. The commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, then declared the deaths “suicides.” In an unusual move, he also used the announcement to attack the dead men. “I believe this was not an act of desperation,” he said, “but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.” Reporters accepted the official account, and even lawyers for the prisoners appeared to believe that they had killed themselves. Only the prisoners’ families in Saudi Arabia and Yemen rejected the notion.

Two years later, the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which has primary investigative jurisdiction within the naval base, issued a report supporting the account originally advanced by Harris, now a vice-admiral in command of the Sixth Fleet. The Pentagon declined to make the NCIS report public, and only when pressed with Freedom of Information Act demands did it disclose parts of the report, some 1,700 pages of documents so heavily redacted as to be nearly incomprehensible. The NCIS documents were carefully cross-referenced and deciphered by students and faculty at the law school of Seton Hall University in New Jersey, and their findings, released in November 2009, made clear why the Pentagon had been unwilling to make its conclusions public. The official story of the prisoners’ deaths was full of unacknowledged contradictions, and the centerpiece of the report—a reconstruction of the events—was simply unbelievable.

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The Associated Press reports:

Suicide attempts by gay teens – and even straight kids – are more common in politically conservative areas where schools don’t have programs supporting gay rights, a study involving nearly 32,000 high school students found.

Those factors raised the odds and were a substantial influence on suicide attempts even when known risk contributors like depression and being bullied were considered…

[Hatzenbuehler's] study found a higher rate of suicide attempts even among kids who weren’t bullied or depressed when they lived in counties less supportive of gays and with relatively few Democrats. A high proportion of Democrats was a measure used as a proxy for a more liberal environment.

Hatzenbuehler based his research on surveys taken of 32,000 11th-graders in Oregon. He found that in the most conservative counties, gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens were 20 percent more likely to have attempted suicide than in more progressive counties.

Roughly 25 percent of gay teens in the conservative counties had attempted suicide, compared to 20 percent in the more liberal counties.

Stats on straight teens were similarly lopsided. Roughly 4 percent of straight kids attempt suicide but straight kids were 9 percent more likely to attempt suicide in more conservative counties.

Analysts of the research, including Hatzenbuehler, say that school rules and programs designed to support lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual youth boost the psychological health of all students.

Last month during debate over Colorado anti-bullying and same-sex civil unions bills, gay students and youth workers gave testimony that laws that discriminate against gay adults– like those that provide key domestic partnership rights for straight people and not for gay people– foster an environment echoed in school offices, classrooms, hallways and playgrounds.

Brad Clark, director of gay rights group One Colorado this week wrote an op-ed for the Denver Post on Friday’s Day of Silence. Clark pressed Focus on the Family to rethink its Day of Dialogue in light of the well-documented grave problem presented to gay students by anti-gay school harassment.

In the days following the Day of Silence, I understand that you’re promoting an event, the Day of Dialogue. According to your website, it’s a day where young people are encouraged to start conversations with classmates about God’s plan for sexuality.

But I fear that the Day of Dialogue is really about one thing: giving students language and materials to tell their LGBT classmates that they are wrong in God’s eyes and should pursue help to change who they are.

I hope that I’m wrong.

Last week, Focus on the Family posted this video introducing its Day of Dialogue.

This legislative session in Colorado, Reps Sue Schafer, D-Wheat Ridge, and Kevin Priola, R-Henderson, introduced House Bill 1254 (pdf). The bill would rework anti-bullying guidelines and establish a board within the state Department of Education to revise rules of conduct and reporting and to raise money to pay for anti-bullying research and programs. The bill sponsors told the press they were looking to act preemptively to head off a “sensational suicide” in Colorado.

As the Colorado Independent reported in December, according to a 2009 Healthy Kids Colorado survey (pdf), roughly 19 percent of all Colorado high school kids report being bullied. Roughly 30 percent say they have gotten into fights. Roughly 7 percent have been threatened with weapons.

Last year more than 5 percent of all Colorado high schoolers stayed home from school for fear of bullying. That’s 12,000 teen students, and among certain demographic groups, the percentages soar. Linda Kanan, director of the Department of Public Safety’s School Safety Resource Center, told the Independent that roughly 37 percent of gay and transgender kids avoid school for fear of bullying.

–
Hat tip to Margaret Hartmann at Jezebel.

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The article titled “GWU Student’s Suicide Tragically Coincides With Obama Visit” drew outrage among students at George Washington University. University officials had in fact learned of a student committing suicide in his dorm room at the same time the President began his speech, however, there was absolutely no connection.

By Thursday afternoon, an event was created on Facebook encouraging students to reach out to Fox through phone calls and emails to complain about the article. More than 1,200 had signed up as “attending” while nearly 7,000 others had not yet replied.

Fox apparently removed the article, but The GW Hatchet posted the story on their website. From the Hatchet:

Danny Leimberg, the [Facebook] event’s creator, posted contact information for Fox News’ headquarters and implored students to call and complain.

“After reading the article I think it’s ridiculous they had that in the politics section in their page, much less implying the relationship between the two,” Leimberg said. “Members of the GW community should be outraged, and his family shouldn’t have to see something like that on the politics blog.”

Leimberg said he wants to see Chernenkoff and the blog’s editor punished.

“I think there should be consequences for the people who publish it,” Leimberg said. “We just need to stand around the student and his family.”

The Huffington Post posted a screen shot of the article from Fox’s website.

This is not the first time Fox has caught fire for their news stories online. In November they blogged about a fake story on The Onion, a satire media group, and referred to it as fact.

“I just had been by this corner a thousand times, and I had never noticed it’s right there,” [one resident] says. “I feel like that’s what happens here. You don’t think about Katrina. You don’t notice Katrina. Then all of a sudden it’s right next to you.” Twenty-five cent martinis are an offer at Commander’s, and much of the city has been rebuilt. But traces of Katrina are still around.

One of those traces, some people argue, is the suicide rate in Orleans Parish. In 2008 and 2009, the rate of suicide was about twice as high as it was the two years before the levees broke. The rate of suicides in Orleans Parish has basically doubled.

A second, very different story focuses on how the cost of insurance for buildings, homes and businesses has skyrocketed, slowing the recovery, though the government has tried to step in to help:

“Katrina obviously exposed the fact that the state is riskier than had been previously assumed,” said Robert Hartwig, who heads the industry-sponsored Insurance Information Institute. “Insurers look at models. The models suggest that we are in a period of heightened hurricane activity. Not just for one year or two years, but over the long run. That makes Mississippi and every other coastal state more vulnerable.”

Katrina cost insurance companies $45 billion in today’s dollars, he said. Claims for the entire year were $70 billion in today’s dollars. “In order to be prepared for years like that,” Hartwig said, “insurers simply have to charge a rate that reflects the risk.”

“It’s a re-evaluation of the risk, but it’s also a recognition of the risk. Katrina made it pretty obvious what that risk was.”

Critics contend the industry has overestimated that risk. Nevertheless, insurance rates continue to climb. The state’s willingness to work with insurers has helped the market, Hartwig and others say. Commercial rates, in particular, have declined from post-Katrina highs and coverage is more widely available.

A photograph taken after a protest in Grand Rapids, Mich. (Flickr user StevendePolo)

He hit “publish” on the last Wednesday in July, in the middle of a long afternoon. “I also have become homeless and am on the verge of suicide. I slept out in the wood last night and didn’t gett very much sleep. I hate to bring you people down with my problems but I thought you would like to know this. I don’t know what else to say except I’m very sorry it turned out like this but I can take the strain of living like this very much longer.” (All posts are reproduced as published.)

[Economy1] The post went up as part of a conversation about homelessness on Unemployed-Friends, a popular online forum for the unemployed to connect with one another. Most were discussing how to live in homeless shelters after eviction or foreclosure. But his post went further. “This is killing me physically and emotoinally. I am at the end of my rope and getting to the point of letting go. I have tried everything I know to get help. DHS won’t help’ Salvation Army won’t help. 211 won’t help. I have no idea as to where to go from here. If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow I probably will be dead.”

Thousands of users visit the web site daily, offering one another everything from advice about applying for unemployment insurance benefits to emotional support. It is one of dozens of such sites helping the nation’s 14.6 million unemployed — particularly the long-term unemployed, the 6.6 million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months. “I am very tempted to walk in front of an oncoming semi right now. Sorry to go on ranting but I am getting to the point where I feel I have no choice. For those of you that want to know I am currently in Grand Rapids. I appreciate your words of encouragement but right now it doesn’t seem to be enough to keep me going.”

The post ended, “I will try to tough out another night. Goodbye for now.”

***

The unemployed commit suicide at a rate two or three times the national average, researchers estimate. And in many cases, the longer the spell of unemployment, the higher the likelihood of suicide.

On online fora such as Unemployed-Friends, the topic comes up often, users finding news reports or hearing tell of deaths in their community, and mourning them. There was the Staten Island suicide, where an emergency medical services employee who thought himself about to be fired posted his final words on Facebook: “I can’t go on anymore. I just hung myself.” In Anaheim, Calif., there was the man underwater on his mortgage and awash in credit card debt who shot his wife and and one of his children before himself. His two children survived. His wife did not. In Indiana, there was the middle-aged mother who sent her daughter out to buy soda and killed herself before her daughter came back. That happened the day after the repossession of her Chevy Malibu.

Other stories are more apocryphal. In a post that ginned up dozens of comments and thousands of views on Unemployed-Friends, someone reported a father of three in Michigan had killed himself, writing in his final letter, “I am sorry, I have now lost every ounce of pride I ever had. You will be better off without me.” (The report of the suicide is unconfirmed.) A colleague told me he knew of a local man who killed himself when his unemployment insurance ended, because when his unemployment insurance ended he had no way to pay his child support.

The stories appear in letters to Congress as well. “My dad, S, killed himself March 16, 2009 because he ran out of money and could not find work. My whole family had been devastated by the economy. He was 61 years old and could not take it anymore. He could not figure out how to keep the electric on, buy food, or keep a roof over his head. A day before his electric was to be shut off, and 2 weeks away from eviction, my dad took the hardest walk of his life. He left a note on the dining room table for my sister and I. His suicide letter said ‘I love you. I had to do this. I ran out of money. I wish you both luck in your lives’. He left the door unlocked with the door key left in the lock. He carefully laid out two suits for us to pick from to bury him in,” one person from Forest Hills, N.Y., wrote to Rep. Anthony Weiner (D). “I almost caught my dad in time, maybe another 10 minutes and I could have saved him.”

The stories show the deeper wounds of unemployment, and especially long-term unemployment. It is not just the loss of a job, but the loss of community, routine and purpose. It means worse health. It means higher rates of divorce. It means alcohol abuse. All of these are also risk factors for suicide.

***

The users of Unemployed-Friends knew these stories. And they knew this shame and suffering, knew it well enough to take it seriously, for fear of what it can make people do. The web site goes so far as to keep suicide prevention hotline numbers at the top of every page. So when the note from user Vidirian2001 published to the forum, the virtual community realized it had little time to prevent a real-world death. The first reply begged Vidirian to call emergency services. Others suggested a clinic or the hospital.

“Please take the advice of the posters here – we care about you – even if we don’t know you personally – anyone can feel the way you are feeling – we are all facing hard times,” one wrote. “Please Please – I am in tears reading your story.” They said they were crying and praying for the anonymous poster, and told their own stories of survival. One posted Psalms.

Some asked if any fellow Michiganders would go find the user, to help him or her.

Vidirian2001 did not respond until the next morning. “Hello people. Today doesn’t seem to be much better. For those of you that would like to know I am in Grand Rapids MI . If I can’t get any help soon I will follow through with my plans. I also have tried calling suicide prevention and they just transferred me to some one else who then dropped the call. I have no blood relatives I can count on. The friends I do have are supportive but can’t/won’t help me. I am crying right now because I feel there is no way out.”

***

There is no saying how many suicides the recession has caused.

During the Great Depression, the suicide rate increased about 20 percent, from 14 to 17 per 100,000 people. The Asian economic crisis in 1997 led to an estimated 10,400 additional suicides in Japan, Hong Kong and Korea, with suicides spiking more than 40 percent among some demographic groups. But such statistics can mislead, social scientists say. Joblessness does not cause suicide. Rather, it correlates: Depressed persons tend to lose their jobs due to poor work performance, and a few also commit suicide. Jobless people tend to turn to alcohol, worsening their depression, and increasing the chances that they harm themselves. Still, academic studies show that suicide rates tend to move with the unemployment rate. Researchers in New Zealand found that the unemployed were up to three times as likely to commit suicide, with middle-aged men the most likely.

So how many suicides are associated with the recession? Nobody knows, not yet. The statistics lag about three years, so the official Center for Disease Control numbers still predate the financial crisis. Right now, therefore, the reports remain anecdotal.

But looking at individual counties’ or cities’ data, there are ominous signs of a real spike. Some counties show no change. Others show dramatic climbs. In rural Elkhart County, Ind., where the unemployment rate is 13.7 percent, there were nearly 40 percent more suicides in 2009 than in a normal year. In Macomb County, Mich., where the unemployment rate is also 13.7 percent, an average of 81 people per year committed suicide between 1979 and 2006. That climbed to 104 in 2008 and to more than 180 in 2009.

The suicide prevention hotlines also show signs of stress. In Jan. 2007, as the recession started, there were 13,423 calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a nationwide toll-free hotline. A year later, there were 39,467. In Aug. 2009, the call volume peaked at 57,625. Last year, the government granted the group an extra $1 million to increase programs in places with high unemployment rates.

***

By Thursday, the posters on Unemployed-Friends knew more about the user known as Vidirian2001. They had gone back to his first post, which went up in June. “Hello everyone. I am Scott I am 45 years old. I have been out of work for over 3 1/2 years. I am getting to the end of my rope. Yesterday, the postman came to the door with a letter for me to sign for. I thought it was something to do with my parents property which is in forclosure. It turns out my wife of 7 years is filing for divorce and is kicking me out of the apartment.”

Rapidly, they pieced identifying details together: Scott, male, 45, estranged. They knew he lived in Grand Rapids, Mich., where the unemployment rate is 11.1 percent. They knew that he posted from a library somewhere in Grand Rapids. They knew he was suicidal, but still reaching out. They knew they had to help him.

Users started calling all of the libraries in Grand Rapids in real time, asking the workers to go find him. Another called the Grand Rapids Police Department’s non-emergency line, providing them with all of the information about Scott and his known whereabouts. Another called the Michigan suicide prevention office. Along with the librarians and the police, they managed to get Scott, still suicidal, to a hospital for urgently needed medical care.

And one user living in Traverse City, hours from Grand Rapids but within driving distance, offered Scott a place to stay to get him off of the streets. “I think it would be better for someone(my son) to pick him up than have him travel alone by bus- he is too vulnerable at this point for the trip alone. We are already rearranging our dining area so we can make him a make shift room of his own so he will have some kind of privacy. My hubby is hoping he likes to fish cause that will give him a new fishing partner!” she wrote.

“For all offering to help pay for this I will get back with you if we need any help with gas money but I think we have enough gas in our van to make the trip I am 126 miles away and I get really good mileage and a couple of my kids are willing to help with money if we need it.”

***

The governmental statistics on suicide, unemployment and the relationship between the two are surprisingly thin.

Amy Rowland, a spokesperson for the CDC Injury Center, acknowledges as much, noting a bump in the suicide rate for older male workers. “Studies done by other researchers show that economic strain and loss are risk factors for suicide.” she says. “However more studies need to be done to better understand what might be occurring in this age group that is contributing to these increases and how we can best control and prevent it.”

Economists Richard Dunn of Texas A&M University and Timothy Classen of Loyola University Chicago are conducting some of those studies. They wanted to pinpoint the effect joblessness had on suicide rates. The problem was sorting out correlation and causation, as many people lose their jobs for depression or alcoholism or drug abuse, which in turn increase the risk of suicide. The economists, of course, could not fire people at random and then track them. So they looked for natural experiments, where workers were fired for reasons other than job performance. They zeroed in on mass layoffs, like when a factory closes and thousands of workers find themselves suddenly unemployed.

Unemployment, they found, does increase the risk of suicide. And not just once, but twice: First, just after the factory shuts down, and then again, about six months later, when unemployment insurance ends. The impact is strongest among men. Dunn explains: “If you had laid off 4,000 [men] initially, one would have killed himself immediately, within a month, and six months later, another person would have killed himself.”

“We don’t expect all 4,000 people to remain unemployed in month six,” Dunn continues. “It is probably 2,000 or 1,000 people who are. So the research suggests that the impact of losing your unemployment benefits is actually stronger than the impact of losing your job. How much stronger? We don’t know. But twice as strong, three times as strong. Some significant difference.”

That is to say, duration of unemployment and loss of unemployment benefits are more important determinants of suicide risk than job loss itself.

***

I spoke with Scott on the phone this week, his voice affectless, his sentences matter-of-fact and declarative, his mood impossible to read. The first thing he told me is that he continues to struggle with suicidal thoughts.

He explains what happened on the day of his post: He was sitting at a kiosk on the computer, considering whether to throw himself in front of a semi or to go “dance with a train,” the words delivered to me as if he were noting the weather. Suddenly, the police approached him in the library and took him to a nearby hospital. Most persons threatening suicide must remain in the hospital for at least 24 hours of observation. Scott says that the hospital released him in an hour, with numbers for services to call. He promised them that he would go get counseling. He spent another night homeless, sleeping on a cement slab in the back of his former apartment building. “There was a patio back where I used to live, so I went there,” he says.

“After that, the people I’m staying with — well, their sons — they came and got me. I had counseling set up in Grand Rapids, but I’m in Traverse City now. I’m not going to go 150 miles –150 each way, a two and a half hour drive — for counseling.” He is not currently in therapy, and does not have ready access to medical care.

We talk about his former life. He has struggled with depression for decades. It runs in his family. His mother and father both suffered from it, too. He was a wood worker and furniture maker, but the industry has left Michigan for China and Malaysia. Still, he had a wife and an apartment, food on the table. But he lost his job. Earlier this summer, his wife left and evicted him, leaving him destitute and homeless. Now, he is living with a family that found him on a message board, in a makeshift bedroom in their home. Both the husband and wife are unemployed themselves. They are hoping to sell their house if they can, and move out of Michigan to somewhere warmer, somewhere with jobs. Scott is waiting on food stamps and possible disability payments for a wrist injury.

He is disappointed with the state of Michigan — he has no caseworker, no hospital stay, no counseling, no Medicaid — disappointed “to say the least. That’s just putting it mildly.” He also feels disappointed with Congress. “The — the system is broken, as far as I’m concerned,” his voice breaking for a moment. “It’s broken and it needs to be repaired drastically and urgently, but the people in Congress could care less as long as they’ve got theirs. I’m not even the worst off. On the forum, one guy sold his computer to buy some milk for his kid, then got in his van and shot himself. I’m better off than many.”

When the Unemployed-Friends rescue happened, he posted: “All I have to say to you people on this forum is: YOU PEOPLE ARE A GODSEND. Not only for me but for others who need a helping hand and someone to talk to. I am crying tears of joy because someone who doesn’t even know me is willing to help me in my time of need.”

I ask him how he is feeling now. He replies, “Like a burden. I have no money. I have no job. I’m not going to lie to you. I still think about it.”

For people in distress, there is help: Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on (800) 273 TALK.

Guantanamo detainees line up for morning prayers. (The Toronto Star/ZUMApress.com)

How did prison guards at Guantanamo Bay overlook three men hanging from nooses in their cells for more than two hours, in what was supposed to be a super-high security prison housing “the worst of the worst” terrorists in the world?

That’s one of the central questions addressed by a new report released on Monday from Seton Hall University Law School about the deaths of three detainees at Guantanamo Bay on the night of June 10, 2006. The report finds that government officials, after failing to prevent the prisoners’ deaths, then sought to deflect responsibility by claiming that the men were engaging in “asymmetrical warfare” against the United States, tried to hide what happened from the media and detainees’ lawyers, and neglected to conduct a thorough and credible investigation or hold any prison guards responsible.

[Law1]These latest revelations about the deaths of three men at Guantanamo are consistent with a broader trend in how the U.S. government has tried to conceal the circumstances of deaths in U.S. custody and shield U.S. officials from liability, by seeking to dismiss all lawsuits brought against government officials by family members of deceased detainees.

TWI recently reported that the Obama administration is fighting to squelch a lawsuit brought by the families of two of the prisoners who are the subject of the Seton Hall report, claiming that a law passed by Congress protects U.S. officials from liability for any mistreatment of detainees who were declared “enemy combatants” and held in U.S. custody. The government also argues — most recently in a legal brief filed last Friday — that the relatives of the men are not entitled to sue because, among other things, the court should not interfere in foreign policy and national security matters, and a remedy would “have a detrimental impact on the effectiveness of the military.” The government also argues that the officials sued are immune from suit because the dead prisoners did not have any constitutional rights to better care or supervision, and none of the 24 military and former military officials sued personally participated in denying them any constitutional rights. The government argues that neither the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment right to Due Process nor the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment apply to Guantanamo detainees.

As Salon blogger and Constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald wrote on Monday: “All of this is depressingly consistent with multiple other cases in which the Obama DOJ is attempting aggressively to shield even the most illegal and allegedly discontinued Bush programs from judicial review.” In each case, the administration has argued, as aggressively as the Bush administration ever did, that “federal courts have no right to adjudicate claims that the Government violated the Constitution and the law,” writes Greenwald.

TWI has pointed out and Harper’s contributing editor and human rights lawyer Scott Horton wrote over the weekend that the government is even making these claims to defend John Yoo, and to argue that no government lawyers ought to be held responsible for advising the government to engage in clearly illegal conduct, even if the consequences were, forseeably, that someone would be tortured or even killed.

In their legal complaint, the fathers of two of the young men, Yasser Al-Zahrani and Salah Al-Salami, both in their 20s, claim their sons were beaten, sleep-deprived, isolated, held in freezing cold or excruciatingly hot temperatures, humiliated, prevented from practicing their religion and denied necessary medication. The fathers, represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, claim the young men were obviously suffering from deteriorating mental health and growing despair. Deemed “enemy combatants,” they’d spent four years locked up at the Guantanamo prison camp without charge, without seeing the evidence against them, and without ever even meeting with a lawyer who could press their case in a court. Both had engaged in a prolonged hunger strike with other prisoners, and, their fathers say, clearly presented a high risk of suicide.

Yet somehow, as the Seton Hall report points out, the three men were left unsupervised in their cells for long enough that they were able to tear up their sheets and clothing and braid them into a noose; make mannequins of themselves to fool guards into believing they were asleep in their cells; hang sheets to block the guards’ view in violation of prison rules; stuff rags down their own throats; tie their own feet and hands together; hang the noose from the cell wall or ceiling; climb up on to the sink in the cell, put the noose around their necks and release their weight so as to die by self-strangulation; and hang dead for at least two hours in the cell, without attracting any attention from the prison guards.

According to the report, five guards were responsible for 24-hour supervision of 28 detainees in the constantly-lit prison cells, which were also monitored by video cameras. Although the guards were initially suspected of giving false statements and read their Miranda rights, they were also ordered not to write out sworn statements, although that’s required by the military’s standard operating procedures. Ultimately, no one was held responsible for any wrongdoing, the report concludes.
Mark Denbeaux, a law professor at Seton Hall and Director of the school’s Center for Policy & Research, which conducted the study of the military’s investigation into the three deaths, said in a statement that the investigation shows “guards not on duty, detainees hanging dead in their cells for hours and guards leaving their posts to eat the detainees’ leftover food.”

Denbeaux also called the government’s investigation “a cover up,” adding that “given the gross inadequacy of the investigation the more compelling questions are: Who knew of the cover up? Who approved of the cover up, and why? The government’s investigation is slipshod, and its conclusion leaves the most important questions about this tragedy unanswered.”

A Pentagon spokesman reached late Monday said that defense department officials had not yet reviewed the Seton Hall report and had no comment.

In light of the Obama administration’s consistent position that government officials cannot be held legally liable for any mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees, however, the answers to those remaining questions may never be answered.

A Kentucky census worker found naked, bound with duct tape and hanging from a tree with “fed” scrawled on his chest killed himself but staged his death to make it look like a homicide, authorities said Tuesday.

Bill Sparkman, 51, was found Sept. 12 near a cemetery in a heavily wooded area of southeastern Kentucky. A man who found the body in the Daniel Boone National Forest has said Sparkman also was gagged and had an identification badge taped to his neck.

Authorities said Sparkman alone manipulated the scene to conceal a suicide. Police said he had talked with others about ending his life, though authorities did not say specifically who in a news release.

Sparkman had recently taken out two life insurance policies that would not pay out for suicide, authorities said. If Sparkman had been killed on the job, his family also would have been be eligible for up to $10,000 in death gratuity payments from the government.

I admit I overlooked this case, because it was initially reported as a suicide. But it’s no longer so clear that that’s the case.  now looks like that may not have been the case. Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Brook DeWalt told According to journalist Naomi Wolf, “the status of the investigation into Mr al-Hanashi’s death … is now a Naval criminal investigation – meaning that he is no longer considered a suicide but a victim of a murder or a negligent homicide.”

Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Cmdr Brook DeWalt, however, who I spoke to after initially writing this post, denies that interpretation. According to DeWalt, “any death is investigated by NCIS [Naval Criminal Investigative Service] on navy bases. Whether it be natural causes, whether it be suicide, criminal, across the board.”

Wolf’s “news” has just gotten a little fuzzier. What is clear, though, is that five months after al-Hanashi’s death, we still don’t know what happened to him.

In all the discussion of where the administration is going to try Guantanamo detainees, the news about Hanashi has been buried.  It’s In fact, both the Bush and Obama administrations have been extremely tight-lipped about the deaths of detainees in U.S. custody. Although the government reports when a Guantanamo detainee dies, As I’ve pointed out before, at some point the military stopped reporting the deaths of its prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve repeatedly asked why, and I’ve asked the Pentagon to define its current policy for reporting deaths of detainees in U.S. custody overseas.

I’ve never received any explanation. I’ll keep trying.

This post has been updated for clarification, based on DeWalt’s statement that Wolf misinterpreted his remarks.