Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: I even felt relief for the Guantanamo suicides

At least these men finally got away from their torturers, grabbed control over their own deaths

I have written thousands of words about Guantanamo Bay, the grotesque treatment of inmates, their slow descent into madness, yet when I heard of the suicides of three inmates on Saturday, instead of ire and woe, the news brought a discharge almost of relief. At least these men finally got away from their torturers, grabbed control over their own deaths. It was an unexpected response and unfeeling, I thought, castigating myself. If they were guilty of terrorist plots, they should have been charged, tried and punished; if they weren't, their families and friends will be awash with grief and stalked by suspicion.

How you feel and react to events is (thankfully) still beyond the control of governments, political campaigners, the media and other meddlers. The internal life is free, refuses to be shaped by expectations, and can, at times, be precariously rebellious. In these perilous times, most world citizens know well how to keep these wayward thoughts locked up. Even in countries where liberties are guaranteed, views are increasingly regulated and monitored.

When the sadist terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed last week, the good people of the West and the Middle East were enjoined to rejoice. But as his hideous corpse was laid out for the media, I felt only revulsion and a sense of foreboding, just as I did when the bodies of Saddam's sons were similarly paraded. Far better, surely, to have captured and put them through a civilised legal process to show the world we have the courage and will to live by the virtuous principles that were despised by these men.

Sometimes that cannot happen. I understand that when confronting enemy insurgents it is sometimes necessary to kill rather than try to arrest terrorists. However, I cannot understand why we must then be co-opted into a mass, strident celebration of these deaths. The liberal branch here of the neocon project demands such cheering and jeering to show loyalty to the cause of democracy. Anyone on the left who refuses to join in with these primitive displays is denounced as an appeaser of fascism.

Those of us who won't play (American) ball aren't likely to be too worried by such bogus righteousness. We see how the neocon project unravels, its awesome power clique beating a retreat from previously held passions. Ex-warmongers Francis Fukuyama, Richard Perle, Andrew Sullivan are today deflated, even a little humble as they acknowledge they have lost the war. A tough lesson has been learnt, says Sullivan, and beneath the continuing spin, there is gathering "shame and sorrow".

Chastened neocons and their uncritical UK friends (some of whom are indeed idealists) could recover moral authority by reclaiming inviolable democratic and legal principles. They have the influence to shut down Guantanamo Bay and all those other secret "extraordinary rendition" locations around the globe. Imagine the effect this would have on policies and perceptions. They could then start to win back the trust of Muslims, including the too many who, in the privacy of their hearts, find it hard to reject Bin Laden and even Zarqawi.

The suicides in Guantanamo will have given the jihadis fresh scope for conspiracy theories, some of which ring true because of the way the war on terrorism is being conducted. Arthur Miller, the greatest of modern playwrights, said once to an interviewer: "The concentration camp is the final expression of human separateness and its ultimate consequence. It is organized abandonment." It is obvious the prisoners in US gulags set up since 9/11 have been abandoned in black holes; less obvious but more crucial is that inestimable, eternal values have been abandoned by Western politicians and military personnel.

Every time a terrorist leader is shot down in triumph, the message we give is that we have no faith in our beliefs, our progressive ideas. By appropriating the barbaric methods of the Taliban et al, we validate them, encourage others to follow suit. During the Second World War in Dresden we made that mistake, but later, when Nazis were brought to trial, the Allies showed true grit and decency. The international court in The Hague is an embodiment of that valorous spirit.

It is unethical and unwise to suspend the rule of law and permit summary justice even when volatile circumstances force nations to these actions. Saddam's trial is flawed, at times farcical, life-threatening to the people trying him, perhaps an affront to the millions whose lives he destroyed. But it is the right thing to do. Bringing Zarqawi in to answer for his hellish acts would have been, too. Closing down Guantanamo Bay and trying the accused would return national integrity to the US and rebuild its shattered reputation.

The veteran African-American historian John Hope Franklin said recently: "I am not sure what we are confronting. But I am also not sure what we ought to have done to cultivate the rest of the world. We are so powerful and presumptuous that it makes us unattractive, almost unbecoming. We don't treat other countries and people right. Power without grace is a curse."

As the going gets tough, the tough need to seek out that grace. Otherwise there is a wilderness ahead, a hopeless war without end, and nothing but shame and sorrow everywhere.

y.alibhai-brown@independent.co.uk