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Hamdan, already the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, has essentially been driven insane by solitary confinement in a tiny cell where he spends at least 22 hours a day, goes to the bathroom and eats all his meals. His defense team says he is suicidal, hears voices, has flashbacks, talks to himself and says the restrictions of Guantánamo "boil his mind."
"He will shout at us," said his military defense lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Brian Mizer. "He will bang his fists on the table."
His lawyers have asked a military judge to stop his case until Hamdan is placed in less restrictive conditions at Guantánamo, saying he cannot get a fair trial if he cannot focus on defending himself. The judge is to hear arguments as soon as Monday on whether he has the power to consider the claim.
Critics have long asserted that Guantánamo's climate-controlled isolation is a breeding ground for insanity. But turning that into a legal claim marks a new stage for the military commissions at Guantánamo. As military prosecutors push to get trials under way, they are being met with challenges not just to the charges, but to Guantánamo itself.
So instead of living in a tropical hellhole like they have all their lives, or if in Afghanistan, freezing their tail off in winter, these sad sack TERRORISTS [remember, they were captured with weapons, but no uniforms, ergo, no Geneva Convention for these TERRORISTS] have to tough it out in "climate-controlled conditions," probably the best weather they have ever experienced in their miserable sand-flea lives. And do these savages ask for books? Why don't they seek the consolations of religion by reading the Koran? Oh yeah, these slack-jaw mouth-breathing knuckle-walkers can't read! The Pentagon replies:
Pentagon officials say that Guantánamo holds dangerous men humanely and that there is no unusual quantity of mental illness there. Guantánamo, a military spokeswoman said, does not have solitary confinement, only "single-occupancy cells."
In response to questions, Commander Pauline Storum, the spokeswoman for Guantánamo, asserted that detainees were much healthier psychologically than the population in U.S. prisons. Storum said about 10 percent could be found mentally ill, compared, she said, with data showing that more than half of inmates in U.S. correctional institutions had mental health problems.
Yes, and these poor savages don't even have the loud rock-band music to get them into Queen or REM or even Derek & the Dominos' Layla! But a trial lawyer isn't doing his job if he doesn't continue a low-key insufferable whine at all times.
"Conditions are asphalt, excrement and worse," he wrote his lawyers in February. "Why, why, why?"
At Guantánamo, there are no family visits, no televisions and no radios. A new policy will for the first time permit one telephone call a year.
In the cells where Hamdan and more than 200 of Guantánamo's 280 detainees are now held, communication with other detainees is generally by shouting through the slit in the door used for the delivery of meals. Mail is late and often censored, lawyers say.
The military prosecutors declined to comment on the claims about Hamdan's condition. As is common at Guantánamo, their legal filings were not made public before the scheduled court date. But defense filings released by Hamdan's lawyers recited some of the prosecution arguments.
The prosecutors argued that the way that Hamdan was being held did not constitute solitary confinement in part because "detainees can communicate through the walls." They said that Hamdan had denied having mental problems and that he was no model detainee, spitting at guards, threatening assault and throwing urine.
Speaking generally, Storum said detainees were enemy combatants held safely. "We are holding the right people," she asserted, "in the right place, for the right reasons, and doing it the right way."
Bravissima, Ms. Storum. You Da Man!!!
Or at least the Hill-Rod!
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