FORCE FEEDING IS TORTURE; OBAMA IS GUILTY

In a New York Times op-ed, Joe Nocera poses the question "Is Force Feeding Torture?"  The answer, in my opinion, is absolutely yes.  Anybody who thinks that water boarding is torture must come to the same conclusion.

The military claims that it is force-feeding the detainees in order to keep them safe and alive. According to The Miami Herald, about one-third of the detainees on strike - at least 35 men, though possibly more - are being force-fed. A handful are in the hospital.

But not long ago, Al Jazeera got ahold of a 30-page document that detailed the standard operating procedures used by the military to force-feed a detainee. The document makes for gruesome reading: the detainee shackled to a special chair (which looks like the electric chair); the head restraints if he resists; the tube pushed painfully down his nose; the half-hour or so of ingestion of nutritional supplements; the transfer of the detainee to a "dry cell," where, if he vomits, he is strapped back into the chair until the food is digested.

Detainees are also apparently given an anti-nausea drug called Reglan, which has a horrible potential side effect if given for more than three months: a disease called tardive dyskinesia, which causes twitching and other uncontrollable movements. "This drug is very scary," said Cori Crider, the legal director of Reprieve, a London-based group that represents more than a dozen detainees. "My fear is that it is being administered without their consent," she added. Although the military refuses to discuss the use of Reglan - or any aspect of force-feeding - that's a pretty safe bet.

This issue is already a major scandal internationally, especially after a mid-April clash between guards and prisoners, and I suspect that Obama understands the hypocrisy of his stated opposition to water boarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques that have been described as torture.  In true Obama fashion, he is trying to finesse the situation.  That effort will become much more difficult if he loses the loyalty of his most ardent fans - the media (which is happening, although not as comprehensively as one might hope).

Obviously his big speech last week was intended to provide a distraction from the many scandals exploding all around his administration by changing the subject.  But the reason he has suddenly remembered that he promised to close Gitmo several years ago is because he has a public relations disaster on his hands.

This disaster will bring down bitter condemnation from Obama's own side of the political spectrum.  The ruckus created by Medea Benjamin's heckling of his speech was a signal that the free pass Obama has been receiving from Code Pink and similar groups may at last be over.  The brutal force-feeding of prisoners cannot be ignored and it will not be ignored anymore. 

Obama and his minions will try to place the blame on Congress.  He'll do this because Congress does share some responsibility for keeping Gitmo open. There are valid reasons for maintaining such a detention center, which Obama himself apparently discovered upon taking office.

However, as Medea Benjamin pointed out in explaining why she protested, Obama is the main culprit here.

"With the men in Guantanamo on hunger strike, being brutally forced fed and bereft of all hope, I couldn't let the President continue to act as if he were some helpless official at the mercy of Congress."

Obama had a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in the Senate and total control of the House for his first two years in office and he not only failed to close Gitmo "on his first day" as promised but he didn't close it down during that entire optimal period.  As late as December 2010 it was Democrats, not Republicans, who inserted a provision banning the transfer of Gitmo prisoners to the United States into an omnibus spending bill.  Obama knew it and could have objected...but didn't.

Force-feeding has been labeled a violation on the ban of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. The World Medical Association holds that it is unethical for a doctor to participate in force-feeding. Put simply, force-feeding violates international law. James Hamblin at The Atlantic poses the question: When does "suicide prevention" [the official excuse for the force-feeding] become torture?

Brian Mishara, Director of the Center for Research and Intervention on Suicide and Euthanasia in the Psychology Department at the University of Quebec, put it succinctly in The New York Times: "In the case of Guantánamo, intervening to save or prolong a person's life without trying to change the person's reasons for wanting to die cannot be considered suicide prevention. Suicide prevention would involve intervening to change the person's desire to die (despite his circumstances) or changing the situation that he feels is intolerable. From the news reports I have seen, those steps are both absent, and therefore the military's force-feeding does not constitute suicide prevention."

In India, a woman named Irom Sharmila has been on a hunger strike for 12 years over a law that suspends some human rights protections in areas of conflict. She has been tube-fed through her nose by the Indian government -- for 12 years.

Will the United States keep these detainees alive for 12 years against their will? If 12 years sounds too long, then what is an appropriate amount of time to keep a prisoner alive by tube feed? Is this torture? Hundreds of physicians around the world have spoken out on behalf of the World Medical Association -- in addition to the American Medical Association -- in saying that what the U.S. is doing is inhumane. The U.N. Human Rights Commission has said in the past that forced feeding constitutes torture and violates international law. 

Nocera's article in the Times concludes this way:

Here is the most infuriating part. President Obama is on record as saying that America should never practice torture. He has also, of course, called for Guantánamo to be closed down.

Without question, any effort he might make to shut down the prison would be met with resistance in Congress; it's already begun. But the practice of force-feeding detainees, which virtually every international body condemns as a violation of international law — and which they decry as cruel and inhuman? He could stop that in a heartbeat, with one call to the Pentagon.

After all, he is the commander in chief.

Isn't he?

I wonder if the useful idiots that comprise the Nobel Peace Prize committee are regretting their ridiculous decision to award their prize to Barack Obama merely for being Barack Obama and not George Bush.  "President Drone Strike" is now "President Feeding Tube."  Time for him to be held accountable.