Is Obama condoning torture by allowing force-feeding at Gitmo?

[bushmeister0]

AP:

"'We have 42 hunger strikers,' said Captain Pauline Storum, spokesperson for the facility, who said the figure includes 31 detainees being force-fed . . .

The feeding process is administered by registered nurses and is conducted in a humane manner focused on the care of the detainee, as well as protection of medical personnel and the guard force," she said.

'Practitioners use industry standard equipment and procedures -- the same that may be found in any civilian healthcare facility,' she said."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090112/pl_afp/usattacksguantanamohealthprisoners

Uh huh . . . Enter the "Padded Cell on Wheels."



The NYT reported in 2006 the so-called "industry standard equipment" being employed is a restraint chair and the "procedures" include stuffing a hose down the hunger striker's nose. Fawzi al-Odeh, a Kuwaiti detainee, according to his lawyer "said he heard 'screams of pain' from a hunger striker in the next cell as a thick tube was inserted into his nose.

"Another lawyer, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, said one of his three Bahraini clients, Jum'ah al-Dossari, told him about 10 days ago that more than half of a group of 34 long-term hunger strikers had abandoned their protest after being strapped in restraint chairs and having their feeding tubes inserted and removed so violently that some bled or fainted . . .

'He said that during these force feedings too much food was given deliberately, which caused diarrhea and in some cases caused detainees to defecate on themselves,' Mr. Colangelo-Bryan added."

In a telephone interview yesterday, the manufacturer of the so-called Emergency Restraint Chair, Tom Hogan, said his small Iowa company shipped five $1,150 chairs to Guantánamo on Dec. 5 and 20 additional chairs on Jan. 10, using a military postal address in Virginia. Mr. Hogan said the chairs were typically used in jails, prisons and psychiatric hospitals to deal with violent inmates or patients."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0209-06.htm

Just like in "any civilian healthcare facility."

Force feeding is moral?

NYT:

"'There is a moral question,' the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., said in an interview. 'Do you allow a person to commit suicide? Or do you take steps to protect their health and preserve their life?'

Dr. Winkenwerder said that after a review of the policy on involuntary feeding last summer Pentagon officials came to the basic conclusion that it was ethical to stop the inmates from killing themselves. 'The objective in any circumstance is to protect and sustain a person's life," he said.'"

The good doctor ought to talk to a lawyer about that. The International Committee of the Red Cross says:

"The issue of force-feeding constitutes the link with situations of coercion and torture. As is well known, the World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Tokyo of 1975 prohibits any participation in torture, whether actively, passively or through use of medical knowledge, by a medical doctor. Article 5 of the Tokyo Declaration also stipulates that prisoners on hunger strikes shall not be force-fed, though few doctors know exactly why this clause is included. One common interpretation is that force-feeding is viewed as a form of torture . . .

In cases of real voluntary total fasting, usually by politically motivated prisoners or prisoners supporting a specific cause, be it ethnic, religious or otherwise, there may be a will to go all the way' and accept the physiological consequences of a prolonged fast.

In countries where prisoners’ rights are not fully respected or even completely disregarded, and where torture is practised; hunger strikes may be a last resort for prisoners wanting to protest against their situation."

http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList302/F18AA3CE47E5A98BC1256B66005D6E29

I'd say for most of the detainees at Gitmo, after six years of detention without being charged with a crime, and having no hope of ever being released (never mind the penis slicing) they're pretty much out of options for protest beyond refusing to eat.

What I want to know is if the "Emergency Restraint Chair" is still in use, and if it is, what Obama is doing about stopping its use. If he condones this type of illegal brutal tactic for breaking a perfectly legitimate form of protest, then he's buying into BushCo's crimes and tarnishing his reputation just as badly.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Yes. Obviously.

[ZombieHorde]

2. No poll? A wasted opportunity.

[derby378]

3. Ever watch IRON-JAWED ANGELS?

This shit has been going on for around a hundred years. It may not be "torture," but it's definitely not humane.

[bushmeister0]

4. Well, of course, it's been going on for years, that's why they outlawed it.

The guestion is now, whether this new administration is going to allow it to continue.

[DeepBlueC]

5. I have seen people tube-fed in hospitals

Ask any parent whether they would eschew this "torture" and let their anorexic child die. If people were willing to eat and we instead imposed tube-feeding, that would be egregious but naso-gastric feeding is is not in itself torture.

[EFerrari]

6. Did those kids get beaten for not cooperating or were the same bloody tubes

shared among patients?

This is not just force feeding. It's torture no matter how the media tries to clean it up for our consumption.

[DeepBlueC]

18. they get restrained for not co-ooperating

the process of getting someone into restraints takes a team of people when there is resistance. It can be pretty physical, unfortunately and medical people occasionally sustain injuries.

[EFerrari]

21. I'm sure it can be very traumatic.

:(

But, the prisoners at Gitmo are not being treated by the same standards.

[remember2000forever]

7. But These Are People

So Despondent And In Such Horrible Conditions, That They Want To Die!

Torture!
Not a little kid, or an old person, who is unable to feed themselves.

The Act Of Force Feeding must be Horrific!

[bushmeister0]

9. Agreed. But we're talking about strapping prisoners down, here,

not saving children. Hunger striking is an internationally recognized form of protest. Just ask the Irish. Attempting to break a hunger strike by strapping the prisoners into a chair designed for violently mentally ill patients, leaving them there for hours to prevent them from vomiting, feeding them a "liquid formula . . . mixed with other ingredients to cause diarrhea" and refusing lozenges to sooth their throats, no less, is torture. This according to international law.

Surely, this not prosecuting our ongoing struggle "in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals," as Obama claimed when he signed the order to close Gitmo.

[DeepBlueC]

17. do you let them die?

Medically, this is unacceptable. Anorexics are sometimes restrained during feeding, as are people with dementia.

[DeepBlueC]

20. all tube feeding is liquid feeding

It lacks fiber so stools will get loose. You need to get sufficient volume into the gut to slow down the transit time so the gut will have time to take up fluids from the feces and thus solidify them. That will happen with regular feeding. This is biology you are describing not torture. Refusing lozenges is torture? Oh please.

[bushmeister0]

22. Hmm . . . rationalizing torture as a normal bodily function, Very creative.

I didn't vote for Obama for this . . .

NYT:

"(Kuwaiti detainee, Fawzi al-Odah) said he heard 'screams of pain' from a hunger striker in the next cell as a thick tube was inserted into his nose. At the other detainee's urging, Mr. Odah told his lawyers that he planned to end his hunger strike the next day.

Another lawyer, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, said one of his three Bahraini clients, Jum'ah al-Dossari, told him about 10 days ago that more than half of a group of 34 long-term hunger strikers had abandoned their protest after being strapped in restraint chairs and having their feeding tubes inserted and removed so violently that some bled or fainted.

'He said that during these force feedings too much food was given deliberately, which caused diarrhea and in some cases caused detainees to defecate on themselves,' Mr. Colangelo-Bryan added. 'Jum'ah understands that officers told the hunger strikers that if they challenged the United States, the United States would challenge them back using these tactics.'"

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0209-06.htm

You actually defending this? I think you're at the wrong place. When Obama became president DU didn't automatically become Freeper- lite.

[DeepBlueC]

23. what you are quoting is an assertion

"too much food was given deliberately" ? By whose standards? I was trying to explain the biology that might account for this man's perceptions. I do not accept his assertions as a medical judgment and I will reserve my judgment in the matter until I hear the rest of the story.

[bushmeister0]

25. So, you missed the part about the screams and fainting, then?

I guess we can't trust the medical judgment of the guys who bled or fainted, either. I'm not sure what other part of the story you need to hear before making a judgment on whether Obama should continue this to continue.

FYI, the ACLU sent SecDef Robert Gates a letter today calling on the pentagon to stop this practice.

AFP:

"'I am writing to bring your attention to the cruel, inhuman, degrading and unlawful treatment of the thirty hunger striking detainees currently held at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility,' wrote ACLU Human Rights Program director Jamil Dakwar . . .

'Force-feeding is universally considered to be a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,' Dakwar wrote to Gates.

'We respectfully and urgently request that you immediately order the prison camp's commander to cease all force-feeding of detainees who are capable of forming a rational judgment and are aware of the consequences of refusing food.'

Dawkar also cited various reports that found that force-feeding at Guantanamo Bay amounted to torture and violated several US Supreme Court holdings and international agreements, including the Convention Against Torture ratified by the United States in 1994

'Debilitating risks of force-feeding include major infections, pneumonia and collapsed lungs,' said Dawkar, recalling that five detainees have died in custody at the US naval base prison."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g1LCAtRhmE82HB3-9oUxJHk3v1Gw

Here's the full letter:

http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/humanrights/gitmohungerstrikes_letter.pdf

[DeepBlueC]

29. those are not medical judgments

[Time for change]

24. A hospital is very different than a concentration camp

And these aren't children. They are being held illegally under abysmal conditions, and they should have the right to refuse food. Here is a description of one victim's plight at Gitmo during a hunger strike:

"Twice a day, the guards immobilize Latif’s head, strap his arms and legs to a special restraint chair, and force-feed him a liquid nutrient by inserting a tube up his nose and into his stomach – a clear violation of international standards. The feeding, Latif says, “is like having a dagger shoved down your throat."

[DeepBlueC]

26. it's not pleasant

I have had scopes and/or tubes shoved up into my sinuses, up my urethra, and down my esophagus and none of it has been pleasant. If I had been resisting I certainly would have suffered more discomfort and possibly sustained some injury. NG tubes go down more easily if you are co-operating and doing what is asked of you though even if you are it is not comfortable. I'm just glad I have never needed to have a chest tube inserted in an emergency situation. Restraint is used to keep the person from injuring himself by resisting the procedure...it is a safety precaution. It is an ugly procedure but it keeps you alive. If you are going to have to submit to nutrition one way or another I am not surprised that half of the people quit the hunger strike when it became obvious that they would not be permitted to martyr themselves.

I don't think we can allow them to die. I not defending Gitmo itself but I find other aspects of the incarceration, interrogation and jerry-rigged "justice" more compellingly objectionable. I am focusing narrowly on the medical issue here. I don't believe you have the right to kill yourself under my care to show that you are a martyr and I am a murderer who "just let you die" which is undoubtedly the argument that would have been made if these protesters had been allowed to succeed.

People who are weakened by weeks of starvation and suffering organ damage from it may be fed intravenously. But if these guys were to be fed intravenously they would still have to have been restrained. And bypassing the digestive system is an emergency measure only. You can't live on glucose and saline.

[bushmeister0]

31. I agree with you up to a point, no one should die (although five already have.)

But I would say the "other aspects of the incarceration, interrogation and jerry-rigged 'justice' and force feeding are all part and parcel of what's wrong with what's going on there to this day, three weeks into Obama's term.

According to international law and the treaties the US has signed (which are the law of the land), force-feeding is torture when it comes to breaking a prisoner hunger strike. Period.

Perhaps, if Obama were to move faster on unraveling W.'s mess down there the prisoners (most of whom the military has already said are not guilty of anything) might not feel inclined to refuse to eat as a last desperate attempt to gain some control over their lives.

I get what you're saying about having to restrain a person who doesn't want to be force-fed, but the way the sadists there have been going about it doesn't exactly display an abundance of humanitarian concern. This practice is designed more as a punitive measure rather than any kind of medical procedure.

Doctors take an oath to 'do no harm,' an oath which has clearly been violated in this case.

[Time for change]

33. I see your point, but I disagree

They're not being fed by NG tube out of any concern for them. They do it so that they can keep them alive to torture them more. That just compounds their suffering.

You don't know that the purpose of the hunger strike is to martyr themselves. It is more likely because they find their life unbearable. They're not under the "care" of their captors. That is a false use of the word "care".

Nobody would accuse them of letting their prisoners if they didn't force feed them. Force feeding them is against international law -- for very good reason.

[cbc5g]

8. Yeah and what would you say to stories about prisoners dying from not eating at GITMO?

Guess you have to choose the lesser of two evils, hmm?

[EFerrari]

10. No, the choice is clear. These people have to be released where innocent

or processed where they need a trial. There is no "let people commit suicide from despair" conclusion necessary.

:wtf:

[KittyWampus]

11. and Obama is in the process of getting trials set up. So go back to the OP

which is now blaming Obama for this.

[EFerrari]

12. Blaming? He is the commander in chief and this is his watch. n/t

[cbc5g]

13. How can you go to trial if you are starving, not eating, and won't eat?

Your conclusion is to let people die from suicide which would tarnish our image A LOT more than force feeding them.

[EFerrari]

15. No, you misread my post entirely.

There is no legal choice between brutal force feeding and allowing starvation. We signed on to the Geneva Conventions and it's about time we start behaving as if we did.

[DeepBlueC]

28. so the Geneva Convention upholds the right to suicide?

did not know that.

[EFerrari]

32. I don't think you read that in my post. n/t

[bushmeister0]

14. The point is that now we shouldn't have to chose.

When W. was overseeing this sort of thing, it was fascism, now all of a sudden it's A-OK?

But, I see here the Obama administration is staying the course on Bush administration policy:

NYT:

"In a closely watched case involving rendition and torture, a lawyer for the Obama administration apparently surprised a panel of federal appeals judges Monday by pressing ahead with an argument for preserving state secrets originally developed by the Bush administration.

In the case, Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian native, and four other detainees filed suit against a subsidiary of Boeing for arranging flights for the Bush administration’s 'extraordinary rendition' program, in which terrorism suspects were taken secretly to other countries and tortured. The Bush administration argued that the case should be dismissed because even discussing it in court could present a threat to national security and relations with other nations . . .

That produced an angry response from Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case.

'This is not change,' he said in a statement. 'This is definitely more of the same. Candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama’s Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue. If this is a harbinger of things to come, it will be a long and arduous road to give us back an America we can be proud of again.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/us/10torture.html

[DeepBlueC]

27. thank you

[Solly Mack]

16. Some more links

Guantanamo force feeding is unnecessary



"Advances in medical technology have eliminated much of the brutality of force feeding, making the methods used at Guantanamo unnecessary – and, conversely, diminishing the popularity of hunger striking as a form of protest.

Doctors there are intervening so early that a degree of coercion is inevitable.

A striker weakened by weeks without food is much simpler to “force feed” humanely with the use of an intravenous drip."


Forced Feeding of Gitmo Detainees Violates International Medical Codes of Ethics

"The existing ethical guidelines presume a trusting and confidential relationship between a health professional and the patient. Physicians for Human Rights is concerned that the current situation at Guantanamo, where severe conditions of detention, persistent interrogations using now widely documented coercive methods over the past three years, along with the subsequent hostility generated towards custodial staff, including the physicians, make it impossible for physicians to care for the hunger strikers according to these guidelines. In view of the continued lack of due process and transparency, chronic repressive conditions at Guantanamo, and the ongoing hunger strike crisis among prisoners there, PHR calls on the US Government to:

* permit an independent delegation of qualified physicians to investigate the conditions and circumstances of the hunger strikers in order to help attending military physicians clarify their ethical duties to each patient engaged in the hunger strike


* assure that any intervention with regard to hunger strikers is consistent with WMA standards of medical ethics, as endorsed by the AMA, and that no health personnel are compelled to engage in force feeding. It is imperative that physicians should be allowed to meet privately and confidentially with prisoners to assess the voluntary nature of their strike, as well as to ascertain how and when they have been artificially or force-fed.

PHR also calls upon the American Medical Association to:

support its members who act in accordance with their ethical duties regarding the health of hunger strikers and to sanction those who violate these duties."


Doctors accuse US of 'unethical practices' at Guantanamo Bay

"The US introduced the policy of force-feeding, in which prisoners are strapped to a chair and a tube is forced down the throat into the stomach, after more than 100 prisoners went on hunger strike in 2005."

Force-Feeding at Guantánamo Is Now Acknowledged


"The military commander responsible for the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, confirmed Tuesday that officials there last month turned to more aggressive methods to deter prisoners who were carrying out long-term hunger strikes to protest their incarceration.

The commander, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, head of the United States Southern Command, said soldiers at Guantánamo began strapping some of the detainees into "restraint chairs" to force-feed them and isolate them from one another after finding that some were deliberately vomiting or siphoning out the liquid they had been fed.

"It was causing problems because some of these hard-core guys were getting worse," General Craddock said at a breakfast meeting with reporters. Explaining the use of the restraint chairs, he added, "The way around that is you have to make sure that purging doesn't happen."

After The New York Times reported Feb. 9 that the military had begun using restraint chairs and other harsh methods, military spokesmen insisted that the procedures for dealing with the hunger strikes at Guantánamo had not changed. They also said they could not confirm that the chairs had been used. On Tuesday, General Craddock said he had reviewed the use of the restraint chairs, as had senior officials at the Department of Defense, and they concluded that the practice was "not inhumane." General Craddock left no doubt, however, that commanders had decided to try to make life less comfortable for the hunger strikers, and that the measures were seen as successful."

At Guantanamo, Dying Is Not Permitted

"Hunger strikes persist, in what Guantanamo commander Rear Adm. Harry Harris, Jr. has called "asymmetric warfare" — a means to attract attention to their increasingly controversial detention. As a result, the camp's administrators have sought to keep prisoners alive at all cost — because a prisoner's death (as the U.S. found out three weeks ago, when three Gitmo inmates committed suicide) can be a major embarrassment for the U.S. and add fuel to widespread demands for the facility to be shut down.

Civil-liberties advocates point out that Guantanamo's 460 inmates have few other means to make their voices heard, given that most have been detained for more than four years without even being charged with a crime. Indeed, though the U.S. has condemned the hunger strikers at Gitmo, just last year the White House hailed a hunger-striking Iranian dissident for showing "that he is willing to die for his right to express his opinion."

At Gitmo, however, dead prisoners are something the U.S. military wishes devoutly to avoid. So force-feeding has been standard policy at the camp ever since hunger strikes began in early 2002. The facility's top physicians have also told TIME that prisoners who resist are subjected to especially harsh methods. 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."

Hunger strikes are a form of protest. For it to be labeled a form of warfare is very telling about the mentality of those ordering the forced feedings.

[bushmeister0]

19. Nazi doctors?

"A prisoner's death (as the U.S. found out three weeks ago, when three Gitmo inmates committed suicide) can be a major embarrassment for the U.S. and add fuel to widespread demands for the facility to be shut down.

ICRC:

"The key element here is that, for the 'hunger strike' to work, the reactive refuser has to make as much noise about it as possible. The idea is to drum up sympathy from any available sources, inside or outside the prison system. This will naturally only have a chance of working if it is widely known that he is fasting. Essential to this type of strike is that the prison regime be lenient enough to permit such open displays of protest, and - more to the point - allow news of the strike to circulate outside the prison despite the adverse publicity for the system . . .

Prison doctors in relatively benign systems will carry out whatever medical duties are prescribed in such cases. Seasoned prison doctors, who have spent whole careers working in prison environments, will be best at handling such prisoners, carefully balancing respect for the patient with a firm approach on what they can and should do from a medical point of view. Usually there will be nothing for them to do, as the 'hunger strike' generally peters out by itself. Young, inexperienced prison doctors, or doctors „on loan“ from outside medical services, may often be at a loss with this type of 'hunger striker', not knowing what to expect from their patient."

http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList302/F18AA3CE47E5A98BC1256B66005D6E29

Hence the restrain chair. These doctors participating this in this sort of thing shouldn't be allowed to practice!

[BlooInBloo]

30. No. He condones torture by allowing parents to ground their children.