Haunting Account of Gitmo Forcefeeding (Warning: Graphic description)

I am too but this is one area where I don't think the Obama Admin. deserves that much blame.

 

So once someone is declared an enemy combatant they give up all of their rights? Thankfully even USSC doesn't agree with that.

 

He changed tactics...to make the cause of black civil rights non-revolutionary. That was his great accomplishment, to moderate and accomodate within the system. The complete opposite

Oh really? The heads of those who went under the guillotine, led by a man known as the Incorruptible, fast forwarded the world into an improved form of civilization. Putting Nicolas's family up against the wall did as well. Violent forms of revolution, a total inability to compromise against everything that is "evil", and sacrificing are how you enact real change. And the American Revolution succeeded, and the Russian and German revolutions failed, because the Founding Fathers were prepared to sacrifice in a way that Lenin and Rosa Luxemberg were not. That is what you are telling me.

Are you ****ing serious?

Well, it was more your utter hatred of the nation in general and some belief in a future democratic brotherhood of man that led me to my conclusion. My objection to socialism, after all, is more heavily based on philosophy than economics.

No, it's the opposite. Practically no one outside of political ideologues really seeks equality. My father graduated from a state school, he works in a company, he has a wife and children and doesn't care much about politics. A typically ordinary life. Where did he seek equality? If I walk down the streets of the city I live in, I will likely pass a homeless man without giving him more than a passing thought, and the same will hold for practically everyone who walks past this man who is worse off then themselves. Do those people concern themselves with equality?

Equality is a social condition, a concern of society and thus a concern of those who concerns themselves with society. For an ordinary person? Equality is a nice phrase with nice meanings behind it. But it's not what people seek, especially if they'll have to sacrifice something for said equality. People seek happiness or purpose instead - if they truly sought equality, the proletarian revolution would have occurred a long time ago.

 

That's not what King did. He was most certainly a revolutionary, and did not accommodate within the system. It's why he was arrested more than once. He changed tactics to show that his cause was more just and appropriate than the cruel one he was fighting against. He turned the existing system on its head.

His great accomplishment was how effectively he shined a light on the cruelty and injustices perpetrated on the black population by the ruling whites. He made it so the vast majority who weren't necessarily racist but were apathetic could no longer be apathetic, and that's what caused the change and what his accomplishment was.

 

You didn't ask about all rights, you asked about the right to commit suicide. I wouldn't include a right to starve oneself as a right retained upon capture. Especially if you might be an intelligence asset.

 

Oh you want rights? Is this freedom o' clock? <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YZvSqsBX2zU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

see, the difficult thing about bringing legal implications into all of this is that, if you're not well-versed, you may end up looking like you didn't spend the time to do anything more than type a bunch of things which make it look like you have no idea beyond your mere imagination of how the Constitution and the American legal process should function.

a reminder---

 

The right to starve oneself is not in the Constitution, so it doesn't apply in this instance. But I recognize your need to proclaim intellectual superiority.

I also think the SCOTUS decision was wrong (we could have adjudicated these guys a long time ago but for it), but that's another issue.

 

tell me why you don't think the process of force-feeding described is cruel and unusual.

Pray tell what in SCOTUS' legal reasoning prickles you as being wrong? If the President and Congress can suspend the Constitution for a group of individuals willy-nilly, are the executive and legislative branches not superseding the judicial branch in determining how to interpret the Constitution? Is that not a dangerous precedent?

Here's the thing: I don't think I'm smarter than you. But it's obvious which one of us is taking the time to research at a reasonable level, and which one of us is merely conjecturing figments of how they think things should function.

 

it's a medical procedure to prevent them from dying, not a punishment

Not any "group of individuals", non-citizen enemy combatants captured in wartime, not on American soil.

The reason these guys are in Gitmo forever is because the courts have not allowed any means of trying them outside the civilian criminal court system. Which is not feasible, or Obama would have done it already.

 

I don't know the exact jurisprudence on this but I suspect that the right to starve oneself is considered a derived right. We allow Do Not Resuscitate orders and death with dignity laws that allow for for the removal of things like feeding tubes.

 

"Hey Mr. POW, we know you might have valuable intelligence, but if you want to kill yourself, that's your right and we won't stop you."

Our enemies laugh at our ineptitude.

 

rigggghhhht. medical treatments done the right way.

Why is this not cruel and unusual? Stop avoiding the question.

The reason why these guys are in Gitmo forever is because their rights are being violated. Who knows why they are there, what with there being several reports of innocent civilians scooped up, tortured, then released without a "how-do-you-do" from the CIA. Maybe that's why things like habeas corpus are useful, and maybe that's why the United States should apply the same line of constitutional reasoning as it does with its' own citizens (which is clearly what the Supreme Court thinks, and subsequently what the law of the land is).

 

http://www.livescience.com/9209-study-torture-techniques-unethical-ineffective.html

ineptitude indeed.

can people listen to the lawyers, and scientists for once? instead of coming up with bulls**t maxims and fantasy projections of how the world should work according to them? those degrees don't just gather dust for no reason.

 

FYI---

 

1) Totally disagree. There were plenty of people who attempted to accomodate the system and failed. MLK, as FranchiseBlade put it below your post, turned the system on its head. He realized that incremental changes to the condition of slaves was no longer viable, and he communicated that, and achieved what the nation should have achieved at least decades earlier given its stage of development. The fact that is took so damn long for America to catch up to its developed counterparts is damning evidence that American-style accomodation of the system was a total failure.

2) Are you seriously saying that it was the normalcy of the founding fathers rather than the uniqueness of their plans that resulted in a succesful revolution?

3) Stop being a drama queen, I don't hate the nation. I hate the policies of government for what it does to foreigners and more recently what it does to its own people. The American constitution and legal system is closer to my views than any in the world, and there are no people I can relate to as much as I can to Americans. I didn't take you for the type who can't distinguish these things. I didn't think you were "why do you hate America?" type.

4) Your father doesn't expect equal opportunity where he studies, works and lives? Give me a break, no one believes that, even if you do. Seeking equal outcomes and seeking equal opportunities is the same journey. Both are seeking equality. There is no one who doesn't give a F about equality at least when it comes to themselves. If your dad worked hard and got passed over for a promotion to someone lazy, he would have been throwing a fit over inequality. How many people have actually sacrificed their lives for equality? Racial equality? Financial equality? Political equality? Religious equality? Virtuality everyone is seeking equality, and the fact that most people live in a system where giving a **** about the homeless man down the street does not advance the goal of equality doesn't mean that they don't believe in equality. It just means they think that man got his equal fair share, and this is how it ended up, and it's not on you to change that. I don't particularly agree with it, but that doesn't mean it's a disbelief in equality.

You remind me of the Mubarak loyalists who were skeptical then, and still now run around saying "see what happened!". It doesn't matter how bad things are now. Mubarak is gone. The MB, who are equally terrible, will be gone too. They will keep going. Some sell out will keep filling the power vacuum, until there are no more methods of convincing people to cede their rights. So next time around, when Morsi is out, people will tick another 2 boxes: Being Muslim does not mean he will be any better, and promising he will be good does not mean he will be any better. On to the next one. It might take hundreds of years, but I'd rather help accelerate that process than anchor it. For me personally, it's a game not worth winning, but well worth trying to change.

If my views were anything like yours, I would be in the most priviliged position of all, better than any American, and thanks to the American government. I have zero reason to be complaining if I did not care about rights and equality. Material gifts are inequitably tilted in my favor as a national of this country. If rights don't matter, then I live in heaven. If civilized advancement is unimportant, then I'm living in Kojirou's utopia. For the better part of my lifetime, I will get all the selfish things imaginable if I just play the game, which I'm very adept at playing. I don't want that though. If you don't believe people care about equality, maybe when I'm over there later this year we can talk about it over a drink and I will explain to you what a difficult life I had growing up, what a luxurious life I was living 5 years ago and can still be living, and just how much I've voluntarily given up... in exchange for what? In your value system, it's in exchange for ****-all. But as a human, I could not go on spending on those brands, supporting certain power structures, and living "the life" knowing I could use all that money to maximize my minuscule ability to impact change.

So are you the norm or am I the norm? I think we can safely say neither of us are. But we're both priviliged, and that's moreso because of people who sought radical change, than people who condoned radical behavior.

 

These people have been held at GITMO for years. If they have any intel it is most likely long outdated. They are still being held at GITMO because the Congress prevented its closure and there are big problems with trying to repatriate them.

 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-stops-disclosing-guantanamo-hunger-strike-tally

Because there's no purpose other than Guantanamo's operational success!