U.S. Concedes to Force-Feeding Detainees

[rodeodance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/22/international/middleeast/22gitmo.html?ei=5094&en=24c9f4b657ea9243&hp=&ex=1140670800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

February 22, 2006

U.S. Concedes to Force-Feeding Detainees

By ERIC SCHMITT and TIM GOLDEN

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 — 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......

[rodeodance]

1. i think they knew they had to admit it sooner or later--

.....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.

"Pretty soon it wasn't convenient, and they decided it wasn't worth it," he said of the hunger strikers. "A lot of the detainees said: 'I don't want to put up with this. This is too much of a hassle.' "

A spokesman for the Southern Command, Lt. Col. James Marshall, said that restraint chairs had been used in the feeding of 35 of the detainees so far, and that 3 were still being fed that way. He said the number of prisoners refusing to eat had fallen from 41 on Dec. 15 — when the restraint chairs were first used on a trial basis — to 5, according to a military spokesman.

[LynnTheDem]

2. So THAT part of the HRW and AI and ICRC reports were correct...

just all the other parts were wrong, the bits about the 70% of POWs being innocent, and all the murder & torture committed by US troops.

Uh huh.

I see.

:eyes:

[AzDar]

3. I almost went through the roof yesterday when I heard Dumbya

say that not selling our ports to the UAE would "damage our reputation with the Arab world".
Gee, Georgie the Feeb, do you suppose that with stories like these, and the banana-in-the-tailpipe photos coming out of Abu Ghraib, there is a sellout in existence that could make them LIKE us??

[Mnemosyne]

4. .

[saigon68]

5. last month turned to more aggressive methods to deter prisoners

Like making them HEEL on a leash

[ConcernedCanuk]

10. Thanx for the pic sai - haven't seen my avatar full size for quite a while

.
.
.

:hi:

[saigon68]

12. Its Lefty Lynndie

Queen of Abu Ghraib

She drags around the R*g heads with her left hand

[ConcernedCanuk]

13. Oh I know it's Ms. England

.
.
.

I made that avatar quite some time back . .

It's pretty representative of how the US Admin views people of Middle Eastern descent

That's my Canuk opinion anyhoo . .

[saigon68]

15. Good One eh

Yes, I wonder if the perky princess will have a book, ghost written in the near future.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. "Concedes" sounds so gracious

How about "admits," or "confesses?"

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. After denying this for... how many weeks now?

Why the fuck should anyone, anywhere, believe anything the Junta says?

[godai]

8. How can these monsters do this?

They state that the problem was that the prisoners were getting worse. So, they force feed them under inhumane conditions to keep them alive or to break the hunger strike by inflicting pain during thr force feeding. This is criminal. They intend to do this day after day? They have lost their minds and morality.

It appears we are reaching a tipping point where this house of cards collapses. Impeachment is being heard more each passing day. I only fear what insane distractions they will try to preserve their power.

[Ilsa]

9. Headline should contain the phrase, "Cmdrs are confirmed liars" nt

[Judi Lynn]

11. Their answer to the hunger strike was a form of torture.

This is an article which appeared earlier, among several others:

UNITED STATES: Guantanamo Bay prisoners tortured

Nicole Colson, Chicago

Force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is being used as a form of torture, says a lawyer for several detainees.

According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, Julia Tarver, a New York City-based lawyer who represents at least three hunger strikers, returned from an October 2 trip to Guantanamo Bay with detailed information about the US military’s brutal use of force-feeding.

The Pentagon claims that “only” 25 of the prison camp’s approximately 500 prisoners are on hunger strike — with 22 being force-fed. But legal advocates say the number is likely higher. In September, as many as 210 prisoners were on a hunger strike begun on August 8 to protest their lack of legal rights, indefinite detentions and the brutal conditions under which they are held.

On September 28, military spokesperson Major Jeffrey Weir explained to the New York Times that involuntary feedings were designed to ensure that prisoners could not “starve themselves to the point of causing harm to themselves”. He insisted that the feedings were not “forced”, but “assisted”.

But in notes of interviews Tarver conducted with her clients — which she successfully fought to have declassified — prisoners described the feedings as a nightmarish punishment, with US troops violently inserting dirty nasogastric (NG) tubes up detainees’ noses and into their stomachs.

This resulted in prisoners “vomiting up substantial amounts of blood”, says Tarver’s notes. “When they vomited up blood, the soldiers mocked and cursed at them, and taunted them with statements like ‘Look what your religion has brought you’.”

Tarver was told that “detainees were verbally abused and insulted and were restrained from head to toe. They had shackles or other restraints on their arms, legs, waist, chest, knees, and head... With these restraints in place, they were given intravenous medication (often quite painfully, as inexperienced medical professionals seemed incapable of locating appropriate veins). Their arms were swollen from multiple attempts to stick them with IV needles... If detainees moved, they were hit in the chest/heart.”

According to what detainees told Tarver, “In front of Guantanamo physicians — including the head of the detainee hospital — the guards took NG tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitization whatsoever, reinserted it into the nose of a different detainee. When these tubes were reinserted, the detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from other detainees remaining on the tubes.”
(snip/...)

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/647/647p19b.htm

[AlGore-08.com]

14. They admitted force feeding prisoners at a BREAKFAST MEETING???

Am I the only one who sees the sick irony there... ?