There is black irony in Mr George W. Bush waiting for a Supreme Court decision before deciding what to do about Guantan?mo. He has mentioned, in passing, that he would like to shut it down: it is giving his country a bad name. But the travesty of justice going on there, over the last four years or so, makes the American president?s latest reference to the Supreme Court sound particularly outrageous. Things have come to a head now by the suicide of the three detainees from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Out of the 460-odd inmates held in Guantan?mo, there have been 41 unsuccessful attempts at suicide. Eight prisoners are on hunger-strike now, and 80 had gone on strike three months ago. This time though, the administration?s public response to the suicides has shocked the world. Mr Bush?s ?public diplomacy? spokesperson has described them as a ?good PR move?. For the camp?s commander, they amount to ?an act of asymmetrical warfare? waged against innocent Americans. The administration assumes, without the semblance of a due legal process, that these men are ?terrorists?. And since terrorists value neither their own lives nor the lives of others, the Guantan?mo suicides are only another version of what suicide bombers do. Mr Bush thinks, by the same logic, that most of the Guantan?mo prisoners are ?darn dangerous?.

This is, more or less, how Guantan?mo works. Criminal charges have been brought against only ten out of the 460 detainees. The rest are treated as ?unlawful enemy combatants? and kept indefinitely without trial in a sort of legal blackhole that flouts every international law and convention regarding such matters. There are plenty of motives then, other than a desire for vengeance or the glories of martyrdom, for killing oneself in Guantan?mo. The Red Cross and other human rights and physicians? groups have been warning the prison administration, and their bosses in Washington, of the dangerous levels of despair and psychological disorientation in the prison. But the authorities have been consistently blocking access to mental healthcare or independent medical supervision. Journalists have also been barred entry into the prison now. It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court stands apart from this institutionalized illegality and brings America back to the ways of what the greater part of the world would call justice.