Figures that the web Globe switched entrees on me:
"Judge allows force-feeding of Guantánamo detainee; Says her ruling was anguishing" by Charlie Savage | New York Times May 24, 2014
WASHINGTON — The seemingly unending struggle over Guantánamo Bay — the prison President Obama vowed to close shortly after he was sworn in — is again reverberating over an “anguishing” case of force-feeding a Syrian detainee.
The case involves Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian who has been held for 12 years without a trial and who has gone on prolonged hunger strikes. Late Thursday, a US District Court judge lifted an order barring his force-feeding, even as she rebuked the military for using procedures that she said caused “agony.”
The decision underscored the stubborn problems entangling Guantánamo. A dispute over its future between Obama, who still wants to close it, and many Republicans in Congress, who want its use expanded, has resulted in a frozen-in-place policy that no one supports. There have been recurring vows to resolve the situation, but the years pass and the government keeps dozens of men imprisoned without trial, despite the recommendations of a task force in January 2010 that they be released.
Innocent men. Can't be released because of the stories they will tell -- which is why the US government will no longer release information.
Last week, Judge Gladys Kessler temporarily barred the military from force-feeding Dhiab. On Wednesday, she also ordered the Obama administration to turn over videotapes showing the procedure, which he is challenging. But in Thursday’s decision she cited “an anguishing Hobson’s choice”: to risk that the detainee dies by keeping the order in place as a legal fight unfolds or to allow the military to take steps to keep him alive using procedures that inflict “unnecessary” suffering.
“The court simply cannot let Mr. Dhiab die,” she wrote.
The force-feeding procedure involves strapping a detainee into a chair and inserting a tube through his nose and down his throat. Liquid nutritional supplement is then poured into his stomach.
A leaked military file for Dhiab said he was arrested by the Pakistani police in April 2002 and later turned over to the United States.
The file describes Dhiab, who is now 42, as a member of a group of Syrians who fled to Afghanistan in 2000 after escaping a government crackdown on terrorist cells. He was sentenced to death in Syria, it said, for “unspecified political crimes,” which it speculates was “probably for his terrorist activities in Syria,” which it does not detail.
The assessment also alleges that he was a document forger for jihadist groups, saying he had 30 passport-size photos in his possession when he was arrested. It says he insisted instead that he was a honey salesman.
Did the CIA double cross this guy?
Dhiab was recommended for transfer more than four years ago, but officials fear repatriating him because Syria is in chaos and because of the death sentence. In February, the president of Uruguay offered to allow him to be released there, but Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who has final say under restrictions imposed by Congress, has not signed off on the transfer.
Lieutenant Colonel J. Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman, said, “We remain fully committed to implementing the president’s direction that we transfer detainees to the greatest extent possible, in a way that is consistent with the tenets of both our national security and our humane treatment policies, as we work toward shutting down the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay.”
At one point this year, Dhiab suspended his hunger strike for a brief period when it appeared to him that release might be imminent. But he said he found the continuing limbo “too difficult to bear” and resumed the protest “because of the delay in releasing him,” a defense lawyer who spoke with him recounted in a new court filing.
Kessler wrote that Dhiab had indicated a “continued desire to refuse to eat and/or drink” since she forbade the military to force-feed him a week ago, and his condition was “swiftly deteriorating.”
Dhiab’s challenge to the military’s procedures for force-feeding hunger striking detainees is the first since a US appeals court ruled in February that the judiciary may review conditions of confinement at Guantánamo, reversing an earlier ruling by Kessler that she lacked authority to intervene.
She had asked the military to compromise over its procedures while the litigation unfolded. She wrote that Dhiab had asked to be fed at the base hospital without being restrained and without having the feeding tube reinserted and removed for each cycle, sparing him the “agony” of that procedure. If he could have been fed in that manner to prevent him from committing suicide by starvation, “it would have then been possible to litigate his plea to enjoin certain practices used in his force-feeding in a civilized and legally appropriate manner,” she wrote.
Damn terrorists making AmeriKa look bad!
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Found my plate!
"Judge allows force-feeding of Guantánamo detainee" by Charlie Savage | New York Times May 23, 2014
WASHINGTON — A U.S. District Court judge late Thursday lifted an order that had barred the military from force-feeding a hunger-striking Guantánamo Bay detainee, and sharply rebuked the Obama administration for refusing to compromise over procedures she said caused “agony.”
Judge Gladys Kessler said in a three-page ruling that she faced “an anguishing Hobson’s choice” involving the detainee, Jihad Ahmed Mujstafa Diyab: to keep the order in place as the fight continues and risk that he dies, or to lift it and allow the military to take steps to keep him alive using procedures that inflict “unnecessary” suffering.
“The court simply cannot let Mr. Dhiab die,” she wrote, using an alternate spelling for the detainee’s name.
The force-feeding procedure involves strapping a detainee into a chair and inserting a tube through his nose and down his throat. Liquid nutritional supplement is then poured into his stomach.
Diyab, 42, a Syrian who has been held without charges at Guantánamo for nearly 12 years, was recommended for transfer in 2009-10 by a task force.
I'm sorry, say that again.
But officials fear repatriating him because Syria is in chaos and because its government has apparently sentenced him in absentia to death. The president of Uruguay has offered to allow him to be released there, but so far the Obama administration has not done so.
A long-term hunger striker, Diyab had been indicating a continued desire to refuse to eat or drink since Kessler forbade the military to force-feed him a week ago, and his condition was “swiftly deteriorating,” she wrote.
Diyab’s challenge to the military’s procedures for force-feeding hunger striking detainees is the first.
Last year, Kessler ruled that she lacked authority to intervene on such matters while sharply criticizing the military’s procedures as “painful, humiliating and degrading,” and making an unusual appeal to President Barack Obama to address issues at the prison raised by a major hunger strike.
But earlier this year, a federal appeals court ruled that the judiciary does have authority to review conditions of confinement at Guantánamo.
Kessler had asked the military to negotiate a compromise over its procedures with the detainee and his representatives while the litigation unfolded.
She wrote that Diyab had asked to be fed at the base hospital without being strapped into the restraint chair and without having the feeding tube reinserted and then removed for each cycle, sparing him the “agony” of that procedure.
If he could have been fed in that manner to prevent him from committing suicide by starvation, “it would have then been possible to litigate his plea to enjoin certain practices used in his force-feeding in a civilized and legally appropriate manner,” she wrote. “The Department of Defense refused to make these compromises.”
Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman, did not directly address Kessler’s criticism. He said the department would not allow detainees in its custody “to commit suicide” and that it used “enteral feeding in order to preserve life.”
As if the Pentagon was concerned about preserving life when their whole mission is the destruction of it.
On Thursday, Cori Crider and Courtney Busch, two members of Diyab’s defense team, filed a series of allegations relayed from Diyab related to the force-feeding practices. Among other things, they told the court, he said the medical staff sometimes deliberately overfed detainees to the point of discomfort.
More torture.
Diyab further alleged that another hunger-striking detainee, Ahmed Rabbani, started to bleed on April 29 when the medical staff tried to intubate him, leading to “extremely painful swelling in his nose and throat.” As a result, he said, he “developed a bad chest infection and had been vomiting blood over the previous few days.”
The allegations could not be independently verified. Diyab’s defense team recently learned that some videotapes of forcible cell extractions and force feedings of Diyab and other detainees exist, and at a hearing Wednesday Kessler ordered the military to turn 34 such tapes of Diyab over to his lawyers.
Related: VCR Ate CIA Videotapes
I hope the Pentagon has better equipment.
But in his statements, Diyab said the tapes might not show everything. The medical staff and guards, he said, turn the cameras off when they are forcing the tube into him, and turn them on only when he has stopped resisting.
A leaked military file for Diyab said he was arrested by the Pakistani police in April 2002 and several months later was turned over to the United States. He is being detained indefinitely as a wartime prisoner and has not been charged with a crime.
That was where the print ended.
Okay, if he is a prisoner in wartime then he has rights. If he is just an "enemy combatant," well, where are the charges?
The files describe Diyab as a member of a group of Syrians who fled to Afghanistan in 2000 after escaping a Syrian government crackdown on terrorist cells. He was sentenced to death in Syria, it said, for “unspecified political crimes,” which it speculates was “probably for his terrorist activities in Syria,” which it does not detail.
The assessment also alleges that he was a document forger for jihadist groups, saying he had 30 passport-size photos in his possession when he was arrested. It says he insisted instead that he had moved to Pakistan with his family and was a honey salesman.
I have no reason to doubt him, and millions of them to doubt my government.
About half of the 154 detainees remaining at Guantánamo have been long recommended for transfer. In 2009, when Obama took office, he promised to close the prison within a year. But the effort collapsed by 2011, in part because Congress imposed steep restrictions on further transfers, citing instances in which some former detainees had engaged in terrorist-related activity.
Then why doesn't he just issue an executive directive as commander-in-chief? All of a sudden he's decided to listen to Congress? What a great little blame game both parties have going as they both live lavish political lifestyles.
Instead, he decided to leave them on a ship at sea.
In early 2013, nearly 100 detainees staged a major hunger strike, and military officials described them as in despair over whether they would ever go home alive. Obama pledged to reinvigorate his efforts, and a dozen detainees have been transferred since last summer. Congress has also relaxed some of the restrictions on transfers.
Still, amid the hunger strike last year, Obama also defended the policy of force-feeding detainees who would not eat, despite criticism by groups like the American Medical Association, which said it was a violation of medical ethics.
“I don’t want these individuals to die,” Obama said.
He then went and signed off on a drone strike.
By the end of last summer, participation in the hunger strike had fallen off sharply. But the military has also stopped making public how many detainees are refusing to eat, and lawyers for detainees contend that the guards are using rough force-feeding to break the wills of those who continue.
“I am stunned that the Department of Defense refused to agree to the reasonable compromise Mr. Diyab proposed,” said Jon Eisenberg, another lawyer for Diyab, who has appeared on his behalf before Kessler. “But the real responsibility lies at the door of President Obama, who utters lofty words but fails to stop the terrible things that are happening at Guantánamo Bay on his watch.”
I'm not stunned at anything this war-criminal government does anymore, and did that guy ever nail Obummer in a nut shell.
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Related:
"Mr. Diyab’s defense team recently learned that some videotapes of forcible cell extractions and force-feeding
of Mr. Diyab and other detainees exist, and on Wednesday, Judge Kessler
ordered the military to turn 34 such tapes over to his lawyers.
But in his statements, Mr. Diyab said the tapes might not show everything. The medical staff and guards, he said, turn the cameras off when they are forcing the tube into him, and turn them on only when he has stopped resisting.
In
2009, Mr. Obama promised to close the prison within a year. But the
plans slowed amid a congressional blockade to any transfers to a prison
in the United States, and steep restrictions on transfers elsewhere.
Transfers
dried up after 2011, leading to a major hunger strike in early 2013.
Mr. Obama defended the force-feeding, saying, “I don’t want these
individuals to die.” But he also vowed to revive efforts to close the
prison, and since then, a dozen detainees have been transferred. There
are 154 inmates left in the prison.
After Mr. Obama revived his efforts, participation in the hunger strike fell off sharply.
But the military also stopped making public how many detainees were
refusing to eat, and lawyers for detainees contend that the guards are
using rough force-feeding to break the wills of those who continue.
“I
am stunned that the Department of Defense refused to agree to the
reasonable compromise Mr. Diyab proposed,” said Jon Eisenberg, another
lawyer for Mr. Diyab. “But the real responsibility lies at the door of
President Obama, who utters lofty words but fails to stop the terrible
things that are happening at Guantánamo Bay on his watch.”
source"
And down the memory hole we go.
Now I'm late for dinner. Thanks, Globe.
What was not served is that three prisoners were recently tortured to death. That would make all the AmeriKan spew about human rights look bad.
