Suicide As A Public Relations Strategy (Continued)

According to the position taken by the United States government suicide is a war time strategy. The United Sates Department of State, led by Secretary Condoleeza Rice, is the top department for diplomatic representation for this nation. Officials at State say suicide is a very effective public relations tool.

Here at You ThinkWhat we've been tossing around a few ideas that some in government may also consider effective tools for public relations. In this age of BushCo newspeak, with a president who makes up words and people in government who define the words he makes up, one must be prepared. So as a public service to our readers we suggest the following..are you reading along U.S. State Department officials as well as with your colleagues in the Department of Defense? Pay attention. Here we go:

Self-Mutilation: to increase popularity. Many adolescents are performing this techniqe. Little did they know this painful activity would increase their popularity among schoolmates and adults.

Starvation: we hear this is a surefire way to gain attention. This technique has been successfully used by activists, and revolutionaries alike. From Dick Gregory to Randall Robinson, to the late Katherine Dunham at age 83. Today's example of smart,sharp, PR savy combatants are some of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in Cuba.

In an article published in the Chicago Tribune on May 17 2006, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the seemingly benevolent commander of Guantànamo, defended the treatment of detainees.

"Conditions have improved dramatically for detainees since they first arrived in 2002. More important, we aggressively look for ways to build on the 'safe and humane care and custody' mission ...We hold men who proudly admit membership at the leadership level in al-Qaida and the Taliban, many with direct personal contact and knowledge of the September 11 2001 attackers. We are keeping terrorist recruiters, facilitators, explosives trainers, bombers and bomb makers, Osama bin Laden bodyguards and financiers, from continuing their jihad against America ...

We provide safe shelter and living areas with beds, mattresses, sheets and running-water toilets. We also provide adequate clothing, including shoes and uniforms, and the normal range of hygiene items, such as a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and shampoo. Even so, many detainees have taken advantage of this - crafting killing weapons from toothbrushes and garrotes from food wrappers, for example ...

We provide outstanding medical care to every detainee, the same quality as what our service members receive ... That said, many detainees persist in mixing a blood-urine-feces-semen cocktail and throwing this deadly concoction into the faces of the American men and women who guard them, feed them and care for them ...

Despite articles written by defense attorneys and young translators arguing the contrary, these are, in fact, dangerous men in our custody. Make no mistake about it - we are keeping enemies of our nation off the battlefield. This is an enormous challenge. These terrorists are not represented by any nation or government. They do not adhere to the rules of war."

Listening to this official one could almost be convinced the Jews and others were at fault when they were confined to German concentration camps during World War II. He could almost make a successful case for believing that it was acts of aggression on the part of ungrateful prisoners that caused so many to die in detention camps like Majdanek, Treblinka, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, and Belsen.


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