Despite Criticism, Pentagon Will Still Force-feed Imprisoned Protesters

The Pentagon will issue a document Tuesday out-lining their reasons why they will continue forcibly feed Guantanamo Bay prisoners on a hunger strike. Critics have called for the agency to stop their measures of putting incarcerated dissidents in restraint chairs and running a tube intraveneously because it is a violation of civil rights. The Pentagon countered that they must practice life-saving measures to prevent injury and possible death inside the prison.



This is a clash of the civil liberties of protesters versus the rules of the Pentagon in applying medical attention of the incarcerated. The prisoners here are obviously protesting their conditions in Gitmo. However, the agency is using medical attention under their guidelines to preserve life, but also to quiet attention regarding the long range of abuses that have gone on during the years after 9/11. Their actions are rather ironic in the very least.

Although the care of people is of the highest significance, it is also pertinent to address the conditions in which the detainees are treated. The Pentagon--despite their rationale--will not address the abuses that have happened. In fact, they only want to save and distance themselves from what has gone on in the past. Hunger-striking--as drastic an act of dissent as it is--succeeds in getting attention. The Pentagon, in the highest of wisdom, must take notice.

Even the Pentagon must know the prisoners will stop their protest if the agency would hear their demands and make the changes needed to address humanitarian concerns. But until that day, they will have to deal with the ugly attention that the treatment of the prisoners have garnered in only within America, but across the world.

[edit on 6-6-2006 by ceci2006]

[edit on 6-6-2006 by ceci2006]

This is a clash of the civil liberties of protesters versus the rules of the Pentagon in applying medical attention of the incarceratedp

Why do you think these guys have civil liberties protections? They aren't claimed by any state, organization, or entity that is party to any body that gives them these rights.

Even the Pentagon must know the prisoners will stop their protest if the agency would hear their demands and make the changes needed to address humanitarian concerns

It knows it. Why should it care? They are enemy combatants. The pentagon is following the international and internal legal requirements placed upon it. It doesn't need to do anything further. Why should it?

they will have to deal with the ugly attention that the treatment of the prisoners have garnered

Ok. And this is a concern, why?

Nice post Nygdan.

No matter what the Pentagon does in this situation they are going to be wrong. If they let them have their hunger strike and they die there will be those who will criticize them for it. If they forceably feed them then they are violating their right s to protest. My honest opinion it to take the prisoners back to their own countries and release them. The ones who are terrorists will go back to their old ways and then they can be shot. The ones that don't then that's fine too.

how do we even know WHO is in these prisons? I really think we don't. Who are we to say who is or isnt in there and what protection they deserve. They deserve to be treated humane. If our country is suppose to be the moral high ground of this war, we better start acting like it.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
My honest opinion it to take the prisoners back to their own countries and release them.

They just need to review everyone's case, let go the people that don't seem to be terrorists, and permanently imprison the ones that look like they are and leave it at that.

grimreaper797
They deserve to be treated humane

How are they being treated inhumanely?

we better start acting like it.

By letting them drop dead from a hunger strike??

We have all seen the photos of the secret/not so secret anymore camps. The abuse and such. If they want to hunger strike, let em. they want to kill themselves fine, its not us killing them, it was there choice. forcing some one to live to see another day in a living hell is anything but humane.

We may as well execute everyone that is on a hunger strike then. The US has a responsibility to their health while they are under their detention, that means giving them medical care and 'force feeding' them, which here seems to be little more than an IV, as opposed to what they used to do, shoving a tube down your throat and pouring foodstuffs into it.

I wont try to coment on how they are or are not being treated. But I will say the ones who have been determined to be terrorest should be tried and executed and the others should be reliced.
Cant really say I will loose sleep over them killing them selves.

Well the whole situation seems unfortunate. Dieing from hunger is a slow and painful death. I believe force feeding them is the right thing to do. At least it will alleviate some of their physical pain from the hunger, although the emotional and pyscological pain may never be removed. Did they ever release the names of all the people being held there? I remember something about a list being released to identify the names of all being held. did that ever go out?

well maybe you could just address the problem and provide them with a trial so they are either guilty or innocent instead of keeping them in a prison without a trial. maybe then it would be a bit different. We haven't done that though have we?

Well I also suppose we would actually have to begin filing charges in the first place as well! Some of these people have not even been officialy charged with any crime! After five years I would imagine we should at least release the ones who have yet t be charged and get on with the ones who have been. Just because these people have no states or entities to claim them does that mean they have the right to be imprisoned indefinetly? Here her, lets make them american citizens and just get on with the judicial system like were supposed too.

Well, if they want to starve themselves to death, let them. They already receive copies of the Koran, prayer mats, and "culturally adjusted" meals. Apparently, that's not enough.

Human rights activists have said U.S. medical personnel have been complicit in detainee abuse, and have denounced force-feeding of prisoners as a violation of international codes of medical ethics.

So when they die from starvation, the human rights activists can accept responsibility, since they resisted force-feeding them.

thank you jsobecky. If they want to starve, thats their choice, let them. everyday put a lunch right in front of them, and if they want to eat let em.

I still think they should have trials immediately. This way the starving protest has no grounds. they would be guilty and then I dont really care if they like it or not. So long as they aren't being tortured.

But the problem is that some prisoners are being tortured. Seymour Hersh (who uncovered the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War) had revealed that the military has been complicit in letting prisoners lie in their own faeces or vomit. Not to mention, they have also allowed prisoners to be in a straight jacket while being "in the sun".

With stories like these, no wonder the prisoners are protesting. And if the Pentagon had any conscience at all, they would own up to the abuse and stop the hunger-striking. That is...if they have a conscience. But knowing that they have stalled investigations, court proceedings and other measures to root out exactly what has happened, I'm sure they don't.

Hunger-striking is not a game. And the prisoners who are doing this are not taking this measure lightly. They are doing it because they have probably experienced real torture from the military and no one will do anything about it. This goes beyond the mere notion of the "casualties of war" and "collateral damage". There are stories that trickle out about the abuse that has gone on since 9/11. And the Pentagon does not deny it. They ignore it.

Doesn't that tell you something?

As I was flipping through the news, I found this little tidbit about a prison class at Gitmo. It has something to do with the guards searching the Qurans of the prisoners:

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A Guantanamo Bay detainee who participated in a clash with U.S. military guards last month said it was sparked when guards tried to search prisoners' Qurans, contradicting the military's account of the melee, his defense attorney said Wednesday.The detainee also denied the contention by military officials that prisoners in the May 18 clash in Guantanamo Bay lured guards into a cell by staging a suicide attempt, defense attorney Kristin Wilhelm told The Associated Press.

The military, in its account soon after the clash occurred at the prison in southeast Cuba, said 10 prisoners used makeshift weapons to battle 10 guards. It was one of the most violent incidents at Guantanamo Bay, where the U.S. holds about 460 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Base spokesmanU.S. Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand said Wednesday that the military sticks by its account of the clash and stressed Guantanamo guards never touch or handle the detainees' Qurans.

Why would the military and the prisoners face off in such an explosion of violence if the guards did not do something to provoke the incarcerated?

Or do you think that the guards are innocent and trying to do their job?

Knowing that all institutions are prone to corruptness, I'm sure that Gitmo is as crooked as anywhere else. If the past stories from Hersh and others who covered the abuse are true, I'm sure that the guards pushed the detainees a little bit too far for it to be taken lightly.

And knowing especially how some of the military has made "Islam and its believers" the enemy, I wouldn't be surprised that their efforts of torture fell under these lines. It is hard to believe that just because the Pentagon says they are doing things for "life saving measures" that their actions are entirely altruistic. The Pentagon, to put it bluntly, is trying to save themselves from charges. Otherwise, they would not even care what it going on between the guards and the prisoners.

In regular lock-up facilities (such as San Quentin, Angola, Sing Sing, etc.), do people really care what is going on with the incarcerated? Not really. Because they are already deemed monsters despite the fact that some--after twenty years doing hard time--have been found innocent by reviewing the forensics of the case.

The same could be said about the prisoners in Gitmo. Again the question has to be asked. Who are the prisoners of the detainment facility? And why are they there. And if they were guilty, why are there so many lawsuits filed against Rumsfeld and others in order to answer for what went on behind the prison bars?

Why do you think these guys have civil liberties protections? They aren't claimed by any state, organization, or entity that is party to any body that gives them these rights.

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"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. "

from our own declaration of independance...

governments don't give these rights to people, although some do tend to strip them of them.

but, the idea that all men were born with these inalienable rights was one of the basic foundations that our country was built on. so, can anything good come about if we remove that foundation now??

A news report last night stated that the detainees at Gitmo had discovered how to remove a spring from their water dispensers, straighten the springs out, and use them as weapons against the guards.

They would hide the spings inside their Quran's. Thus, the search of the Quran's was justified.

Originally posted by ceci2006
Why would the military and the prisoners face off in such an explosion of violence if the guards did not do something to provoke the incarcerated?

Why do you think that the guards had to do anything to provoke the prisioners? I don't think that these guys were sent to Gitmo for holding a bake sale. Ever think that there might actually be something to this whole Enemy Combatant thing?