home

Guantanamo: Force-Feeding Painful to Hunger Strikers

The Sunday Observer has reviewed a sworn statement from Captain John S Edmondson, commander of Guantanamo's hospital about the force-feeding of 81 detainees on a hunger strike.

New details have emerged of how the growing number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay are being tied down and force-fed through tubes pushed down their nasal passages into their stomachs to keep them alive. They routinely experience bleeding and nausea, according to a sworn statement by the camp's chief doctor, seen by The Observer.

Edmondson describes the force-feeding procedure and says:

It is painful.... Although 'non-narcotic pain relievers such as ibuprofen are usually sufficient, sometimes stronger drugs,' including opiates such as morphine, have had to be administered.

Is this supposed to be a positive statistic?

Although some prisoners have had to be tied down while being force-fed, 'only one patient' has had to be immobilised with a six-point restraint, and 'only one' passed out. 'In less than 10 cases have trained medical personnel had to use four-point restraint in order to achieve insertion.'

A lawsuit is pending against the Doctor in Los Angeles for violating ethical standards by agreeing to force-feed the striking detainees.

Article 5 of the 1975 World Medical Association Tokyo Declaration, which US doctors are legally bound to observe through their membership of the American Medical Association, states that doctors must not undertake force-feeding under any circumstances.

There's two more things to note about Guantanamo:

  • The camp will be four years old this month.

Many [have] not been charged with any crime, nor been allowed to see any evidence justifying their detention.

  • When Sens. Lindsay Graham and Carl Levin gutted the McCain torture amendment by barring Guantanamo detainees from contesting the conditions of their confinement in federal court, it's going to be harder for abuses to come to light.

This and other Guantánamo lawsuits now face extinction. Last week, President Bush signed into law a measure removing detainees' right to file habeas corpus petitions in the US federal courts. On Friday, the administration asked the Supreme Court to make this retroactive, so nullifying about 220 cases in which prisoners have contested the basis of their detention and the legality of pending trials by military commission.

< Who Else is the Government Wiring? | Criminal Charge Dropped Over Afghan Beating Deaths >
  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft


  • Display: Sort:
    Boo frickin' hoo. Let them starve themselves to death. Jimbo

    Capt. JS Edmonson: Although 'non-narcotic pain relievers such as ibuprofen are usually sufficient... Sufficient for what? If someone shoves a tube up your nose so far that it comes out the back of your throat, down your espophagus, and into your stomach, a couple tablets of Motrin might be sufficient to treat the physician's conscience, but it's not likely to help the patient much. Jimbo: Let them starve The non-consensual placement of feeding tubes is assault. Medical ethics agrees with you that forced feeding is wrong. So why do you think they're being force fed?

    Re: Guantanamo: Force-Feeding Painful to Hunger St (none / 0) (#3)
    by Aaron on Sun Jan 08, 2006 at 12:02:06 PM EST
    People are going to start dying in Guantánamo, it's just a matter of time now. There's a hundred ways to kill yourself if you really want to, no matter how many people are guarding you. Praise be to Allah, martyrdom is coming.

    Re: Guantanamo: Force-Feeding Painful to Hunger St (none / 0) (#4)
    by Aaron on Sun Jan 08, 2006 at 12:09:59 PM EST
    I've had a nasogastric tube, and is extremely uncomfortable, and that's the nice soft tubes they use in American hospitals. In this case they'll be using something stronger and more resistant since a soft tube can be bitten through easily. No doubt along with their hand and foot restraints, these detainees are having mandibular restraints forced into their mouths and strapped or taped in. Also when you have one of these things, and you're laying down, it's very easy to regurgitate the fluid into your lungs, which of course must be cleared and raises the likelihood of developing a severe lung infection, so in all likelihood they are also being given antibiotics. Next they'll be breeding super germs down in Cuba and they won't even know it.

    I've never really understood the strategy behind the hunger strike. Pris: If you don't do X, you won't have to feed me and in a while I'll free up yourself. Jailer: Go ahead. Knock yourself out. Help me out here. Why do I care if someone I would have killed on the field of battle wants to starve himself? Jimbo

    Jimbo bragged: Help me out here. Why do I care if someone I would have killed on the field of battle wants to starve himself? Like we'd see someone like you anywhere near the field of battle! But, you'd probably be up for kidnapping unarmed civilians from their homes, which is how a lot of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay got there. Kidnapping unarmed men and delivering them to torture sounds just about your speed.

    Re: Guantanamo: Force-Feeding Painful to Hunger St (none / 0) (#7)
    by soccerdad on Sun Jan 08, 2006 at 03:26:20 PM EST
    John Yoo the Berkeley lawyer who wrote the memos justifying torture had this to say recently
    Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him? Yoo: No treaty. Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo. Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
    link these are the kind of people setting policy.

    Re: Guantanamo: Force-Feeding Painful to Hunger St (none / 0) (#8)
    by Edger on Sun Jan 08, 2006 at 03:35:48 PM EST
    Socerdad: these are the kind of people setting policy. I'm just a little concerned about the kind of people that support the kind of people setting policy that thinks this kind of stuff is ok. Just a little...

    Jimbo: Why do I care if someone I would have killed on the field of battle wants to starve himself?
    11/01/2005: News Briefing with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace
    Q Mr. Secretary? Why do you think Guantanamo's detainees have engaged in a hunger strike since early August,...?
    SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, I suppose that what they're trying to do is to capture press attention, obviously. And they've succeeded.
    I haven't seen an official statement on the rationale for the current policy of force feeding, but it could be related to PR concerns, and a sense that it'd be worse from that perspective if a hunger striker were to die, than to force feed them to prevent that from happening.

    Re: Guantanamo: Force-Feeding Painful to Hunger St (none / 0) (#10)
    by jimcee on Sun Jan 08, 2006 at 06:38:07 PM EST
    I think forcing someone to eat is cruel and wrong. A tube through the nose is most uncomfortable and should only be done with the person's wishes. If a detainee wants to starve himself to death let him. But then again I'm a Libretarian.

    jimcee: forcing someone to eat is cruel and wrong. I agree. Chalk up yet another no-win situation, neatly generated by the Bush administration.

    punisher... So why do you think they're being force fed? Could it be so all the lefties won't be able to say that Bush let them all starve to death? Aaron.... Praise be to Allah, martyrdom is coming. I hope this was a sarcastic remark???

    Re: Guantanamo: Force-Feeding Painful to Hunger St (none / 0) (#13)
    by Sailor on Mon Jan 09, 2006 at 09:20:47 AM EST
    Could it be so all the lefties won't be able to say that Bush let them all starve to death? Over and over we hear how bush doesn't care what anyone thinks, including a majority of americans. Can't have it both ways wingnuts. Causing daily bleeding and nausea is torture, excuse me, MORE torture by our illustrious king george and the most corrupt and criminal admisnistration the US has ever seen.

    Sailor... Causing daily bleeding and nausea is torture, excuse me, Ok..just so I understand your 'logic' here. If we don't feed them.. (& they die) we are at fault. And, if we do force feed them (& they are in 'discomfort') then we are also guilty ? Is that about right? The ever so typical 'no win' situation as far as the left is concerned?

    Choosing between letting prisoners hunger strike themselves to death and forcing tube feeds on them is a no-win situation only in so far as world opinion matters.

    Re: Guantanamo: Force-Feeding Painful to Hunger St (none / 0) (#16)
    by Sailor on Mon Jan 09, 2006 at 04:15:31 PM EST
    What you mean we whiteman? For the learning impaired: We the people are a nation of laws. We the people have a system of justice. We the people live in a republic, not a dictatorship ... quite yet. Now just for one second try to imagine if you were captured trying to defend your homeland.You're 15, you've listened to your elders and/or religious leaders, and you know that every invader has to be driven out. Whether russian or ... . You get captured, hooded, gagged, restrained and whisked away to a cage. And there you are held in isolation for 3 years!