Attention Gitmo Detainees: “Dying is not permitted.”
Do it in the name of Heaven
You can justify it in the end.
Found linked from The Daily Dish: At Guantanamo, Dying is not permitted.
Excerpts from the article:
In one case, according to medical records obtained by TIME, a 20-year old named Yusuf al-Shehri, jailed since he was 16, was regularly strapped into a specially designed feeding chair that immobilizes the body at the legs, arms, shoulders and head. Then a plastic tube that is 50% larger, and more painful to insert, than the commonly used variety was inserted up through his nose and down his throat, carrying a nutritional formula into his stomach.
"We are humane and compassionate,"; Guantanamo commander Harris told TIME, "but if we tell a detainee to do something, we expect the detainee to do it." As a note scrawled in al-Shehri's medical records put it: "[The prisoner] was informed that dying is not permitted."
In comments several months ago, SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Bantz Craddock, who oversees Gitmo, joked that at least hunger strikers got to choose the color of their feeding tube (yellow was a favorite), and the flavor of the lozenges used to soothe thoats (sic) irritated by the feeding tubes. "Look, they get choices," Craddock said at the time. "And that's part of the problem." At the peak of a protest last fall, 131 protesters, or more than 25%, were on hunger strikes.
…a typical feeding lasts about two hours, with the inmate left in the restraint chair for roughly 45 minutes afterward. During the feeding period, the prisoner will receive as much as 1.5 liters of formula, which, in the case of hunger strikers, can be more than their stomachs can comfortably hold. This can produce what is euphemistically called "dumping syndrome," an uncomfortable, even painful bout of nausea, vomiting, bloating, diarrhea, and shortness of breath.
Of the roughly 750 people originally detained at Guantanamo, about 250 have been released. Only 10 have been charged with a crime, and none have been convicted.
July 7th, 2006 at 10:12 am
USA!
USA!
USA!
July 7th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
America: FUCK YEAH!
July 7th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Oh the horror!!!!
At least we can be secure in knowing that if one of our guys is captured, the worst that they can expect is to have someone saw at their neck until their head falls off.
July 7th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
I am of two minds about this. A lot of the inmates probably really are dangerous men with terrorist leanings. On the other hand torturing people to stop them from hunger striking seems low and dirty to me. If nothing else we owe our medical personell at the site more than to be putting them in the situation of having to do things that are obviously morally questionalbe if not out right despicable. The right to disagree and protest peacfully is gaurenteed in the constitution. In the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights”. I think that pretty much says it all. These guys may be trerrorists, they may be enemies, but whatever dignity they have is thiers whether the Bush administration wants to admit it or not.
As Americans we owe it to ourselves and the rest of the world to behave as if we actually believed in the statements layed down in these hallowed documents. To behave as if they only applied to Americans, or to some sub-set of humanuity( or some sub-set of Americans ) is to deny them any real validity, and to deny us our most powerfull weapon in the war on terrorisem … our own ideals and dignity.
When you treat someone in an undignified manner, your own dignity immediately becomes questionable. It robs you of your credibility. I don’t know why Americans seem to miss this or give it no weight. I was brought up to believe that our dignity, and how our government treats people was what set us apart form the rest of the world. They had pride, we had dignity and decency. I don’t know when that changed exactly, but it’s obvious that it has. I miss it. I want it back. I would give most anything to believe again that America and Americans were worth the love and devotion I once held for them. Now I am most often just embarrased and ashamed of our behavior both at home and in the world at large.
Whether or not the men held there are terrorists, the practices at Guantanamo shame us both as Americans and as human beings and make a mockery of the principles that gave birth to this nation and have kept it strong and free ever since.
July 7th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
I heard about this a while back, I feel evil for thinking it’s kind of funny. The only thing I really have to say about this issue is that prisoners striking doesn’t have the same affect as a key figure. Yes this line of thought leads to the question of why isn’t Bin Laden on a hunger strike.
July 7th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
I don’t get the whole feeding tube thing… I mean, why not just strap him to a table and put an IV in?
July 7th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Sweet said it better than I could have, but I’ll throw this snarky bit of rhetoric out there: Is this to say that we should not respect basic human rights because our enemies do not themselves respect human rights? Would our actions only become questionable if our enemies did not kill their captors? If this is acceptable behavior on our part, where is the line?
July 26th, 2006 at 11:17 am
/agree Cyrus
Force-feeding inmates is hardly a violation of human rights, and is in fact encouraged if not required by the Geneva Convention if said inmates are starving themselves. These so-called “hunger strikes” mean nothing for that very reason; the prisoners know they will be fed no matter what. Imagine what the uproar would be like if self-starvation at Gitmo was simply allowed to reach its logical conclusion.
The prisoners are there for a reason, and I could care less if some Islamofascist got a 50% larger feeding tube (oh noes!) shoved down their throat. They’re certainly being treated better than Terry Schiavo was.
July 26th, 2006 at 11:39 am
My point was that force-feeding is being used as a method of torture, by using the larger diameter tubes. It’s barbaric, and the Army’s cavalier attitude towards the practice is barbaric.
And what reason are they there? The vast majority have been there for 3 years without charge. 250 of them have been released so far. What reason were they there for? Suspicion of being terrorists? In what other country are people held for 3 years on a suspicion of something? (Uganda, Iran, China, Syria, and Saudi Arabia come to mind.)
What exactly would you say to the 250 released detainees who for 3 years have been subjected to sleep deprivation, water-boarding, forced-feeding as torture, and numerous other indignities? Do you say “at least you were treated better than Terry Schiavo?” (and really, Terry Sciavo had been dead for years, and during those years was treated pretty damn good, so I fail to see the comparison)
The concept of “innocent until proven guilty” isn’t just a legality to be side-stepped by holding someone outside of a legal jurisdiction. “Innocent until proven guilty” is a higher order morality, at the level of “freedom” and “democracy.” When you let your emotional response of “fuck em, they’re all goddamned terrorists” get in the way of these higher moralities, you have joined the ranks of the fascists.