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Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Striking Detainees

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Sat Sep 10, 2005 at 04:59:00 PM EST
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About three weeks ago, we wrote about the 89 detainees on a hunger strike at Guantanamo. The strike continues and has grown to 98 prisoners. The military has begun forced tube-feeding of more than a dozen of them.

Some of the 89 striking detainees at Guantanamo have not eaten for a month, said Guantanamo detention mission spokesman Sgt. Justin Behrens. The others have refused at least nine consecutive meals, he said.

Fifteen have been hospitalized, and 13 of those were being fed through tubes, Behrens said. British lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith, who represents one of the hunger strikers, said some of the inmates were willing to starve themselves to death.

"People are desperate. They have been there three years. They were promised that the Geneva Conventions would be respected and various changes would happen and, unfortunately, the [U.S.] government reneged on that," he said.

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    Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Striking Detainees | 24 comments (24 topical)
    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:37 PM EST
    Sheesh, is it really that much more difficult to just give them the fair, unbiased hearings they want instead?

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#2)
    by Aaron on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:37 PM EST
    I assume that they're using some kind of nasogastric tube to feed these men. That's a tube run up through your nose and sinuses then down your throat into your stomach, something I have firsthand knowledge of. It's really nasty, not to mention uncomfortable. I also assume that they must be strapped down to prevent them from removing the tube. So what you have is a person strapped to a bed unable to move with a tube up their nose, no doubt there catheterized as well, how humane. Hard to believe that the United States of America is holding political prisoners who have no recourse but to hunger strike. Next we'll be opening concentration camps across the US and interning undesirables citizens, perhaps public inquisitions as well.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#3)
    by Aaron on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:37 PM EST
    (Repost of an earlier comment on this story) I'm dismayed by the fact that I see almost nothing about this on the national wire services, or on the national broadcast news. I think few realize the seriousness of the situation. Historically all we need do is look at the hunger strikes by IRA members imprisoned in Northern Ireland during the 1980s. The British government underestimated the resolve of these political prisoners to their great detriment. Not only did the deaths of these hunger strikers garner sympathy worldwide for their cause, it helped to consolidate the will of every other IRA member who watch their compatriots dwindle away over a period of months. The name Bobby Sands became a rallying cry which helped the IRA hold on for another 30 years. Today there's a street in Tehran named after Bobby Sands. The Islamic world has a long memory and pays much greater homage to history then we seem to. Let these detainees die and you'll have streets named after them springing up all over the Muslim world. The United States does not want to make the same mistake that the British did. Unlike the IRA hunger strikers, these detainees have not been tried or convicted of any crime. If we were to allow them to die, the impact on the Islamic world and the implications for the struggle against terrorism can only be guessed at, so before we start letting people starve themselves to death we'd better think long and hard about the long-term ramifications. The IRA members died much more quickly than anyone expected because no one took into consideration that the water they were drinking was chlorinated. In fact a human being can survive more than three months without food, depending upon physical condition and body fat stores, if they are provided with unchlorinated water. But without food chlorine builds up in the body and poisons you relatively quickly, let's hope the people at Guantánamo have considered this fact.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#4)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:37 PM EST
    Sheesh, is it really that much more difficult to just give them the fair, unbiased hearings they want instead?
    Does it surprise anyone, that, when people in other parts of the world see and hear the way the Gitmo prisoners are treated, that they join groups who want to kill the people who do this to them? Ya ya ya, I know... I've heard the meme a thousand times or more from the Bush League. They attacked first... are you stoopid? what don't you get? Someone has to take the high road. You want them to look up to America? Give them something to look up to, for f*ck's sake!

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#5)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    God, I remember the Bobby Sands story. He went blind, as all hunger-strikers do before they die. The brain forces all other systems to go first as it tries to hang on to life. I ask as many others do, What kind of country do we want to be? I have another question for my fellow TL posters: What kind of situation would force you into a hunger strike? What would break you as a human being?

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#6)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    I guess I should answer that question myself. Right off the top of my head: 1. If I were jailed for political reasons with no hope of justice. 2. If my family were jailed for political reasons with no hope of justice.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#7)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    aw: Good questions, those two... not easy to answer quickly... Flippant answers won't do. I'll have to think about it for awhile. I suspect that complete hopelessness is one thing that would... and that is probably what the Gitmo prisoners feel...as well as (given their culture and religion) the motivation of martyrdom. So I say again... without sarcasm this time: "Someone must take the high road. Do you want them to look up to America? Show them an America they CAN look up to..."

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    This is disgusting. The Dems should be all over this, never letting it die, riding it up to and through the midterms. If you want respect for the rule of law, you've got to rid America of the war criminals at the helm. Just when you think it can't get any worse, invariably, it does.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#9)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    The country has an opportunity here. And a simple choice. Act like the eagle. Or act like a vulture. People everywhere look UP to and admire eagles. They are disgusted by and kill vultures.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#10)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    I ask all commenters to answer my questions above.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#11)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    Edger, I'll hope you'll be back. But just as interesting would be the answers of our far-right commenters, PPJ and John-whatiz.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#12)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    Edger, you're too fast for me.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#13)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    aw: Edger, I'll hope you'll be back. I've been thinking about it since may last post on this, aw:
    I suspect that complete hopelessness is one thing that would... and that is probably what the Gitmo prisoners feel...as well as (given their culture and religion) the motivation of martyrdom.
    And I think I had my anwers for you then. But let me expand on them. I have my thoughts on the reasons and purpose for which I exist, they are private and I won't go into them here, other than to say they are the result of nearly 30 years of research, questioning, observation, and meditation. I do not belong to or identify with any organized religion. I think that organized religion is the root of nearly all social and political problems, and probably the most evil thing on this planet. But that is another discussion. I am not afraid of my own death, though I don't particularly want it to be painful or drawn out. What kind of situation would force you into a hunger strike? Being trapped in a situation where I felt utterly and completly hopeless, and had come to a point where I could conceive of no other way out, I would consider and probably try ending my life with whatever means were available. In a setting of absolute control like Gitmo likely is, I don't see any options other than self-starvation. They have no control over anything, except their own bodies, and just barely that I'm sure. What would break you as a human being? This is, I think, the same question in different words. My answer is the same.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#14)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    Jeeze, you ask tough questions, aw!

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#15)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    I (heart) edger.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#16)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:38 PM EST
    Jeeze, you ask tough questions, aw!
    I'm intensely interested in what others have to say about this. Patriots gave their lives for our freedoms once upon a time. Now our most intense patriots seem to favor... rolling over.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#17)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:39 PM EST
    aw-If my freedom was taken away and my existance only served my captors as propaganda like I was in some kind of fake exhibit or zoo invented to perpetrate a mendacious message to the world about how great and pure some country was, starving myself would be the only power I had left. Being kept alive would be more painful and their nourishment would be like eating poison. And to cease eating alongside others in the same position would make the act much more powerful and subversive. Starvation would be all I had left to stay unbroken. It is amazing to me that they have kept hope alive this long, I doubt that I would have.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#18)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:39 PM EST
    Squeaky: Hypothetically, If you were being held by a third party or country and "your existance only served [your] captors as propaganda [...] to perpetrate a mendacious message to the world about [...] some country [that you in your heart truly looked UP to and admired]", would that motivate you to hang in there, or would you still want to starve yourself? Apologies for the "clunkiness" of that question. I ask it as a test of my earlier assertion that:
    People everywhere look UP to and admire eagles. They are disgusted by and kill vultures.
    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#19)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:39 PM EST
    edgar-That is why I am surprised that they did not start a hunger strike earlier. If I were in the hypothetical situation you ask about, once I realized that was not getting out, it would be clear to me that I would have gain more political capital as one of many on a suicide starvation campaign, than to just be a a virtual zoo attraction, especially if in my heart I truly looked UP to and admired my cause or country. It is end game thinking. The starvation sheds a different light on suicide bombers. All the attention on suicide bombers is for the victims, and rightly so, but they are surely not the cowards they are portrayed as by the western press and governments.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#20)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:40 PM EST
    Squeaky: Thank you... it's good to know there are still eagles... ...and I agree with you that: they are surely not the cowards they are portrayed as by the western press and governments.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#21)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:40 PM EST
    edger writes:
    Does it surprise anyone, that, when people in other parts of the world see and hear the way the Gitmo prisoners are treated, that they join groups who want to kill the people who do this to them?
    Out of all the yelling, the the details that only three interogation acts were exceeded the army guidelines. Perhaps you will aid in correcting all the false information?

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#22)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:40 PM EST
    Jim: the details that only three interogation acts were exceeded the army guidelines. Pure and simple diversion, Jim. Barely worth the time it's taking me to type this. I remind you that the discussion in this thread is about the fact that:
    They have been there three years. They were promised that the Geneva Conventions would be respected and various changes would happen and, unfortunately, the [U.S.] government reneged on that...
    and that is their given reason for the hunger strike. I say once more (again without sarcasm):
    "Someone must take the high road. Do you want them to look up to America? Show them an America they CAN look up to..."
    Good idea, you think? Or no?

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#23)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:40 PM EST
    Jim? Is that a good idea, or is it not a good idea? Please enlighten me.

    Re: Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Strik (none / 0) (#24)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:43 PM EST
    deleted

    Guantanamo Using Feeding Tubes on Hunger-Striking Detainees | 24 comments (24 topical)