Yasiin Bey, better known by his previous stage name Mos Def, can’t handle a Gitmo force-feeding, but he’s willing to give it a try. The rapper and actor agreed to participate in a project to demonstrate what it’s like to be a Guantanamo Bay prisoner on a hunger strike.UK-based human rights group Reprieve teamed up with Bafta award-winning director Asif Kapadia to produce the video and published it on the Guardian website today. More than 100 of the 166 detainees at Guantanamo have undertaken a hunger strike since February, and the facility force-feeds about 45 of them on a regular basis.
With the approach of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month during which Muslims abstain from food and water during the day, Gitmo critics have renewed calls for the prison to end the force-feedings. Guantanamo authorities have defended the practice as “humane, high-quality medical care to preserve life and health,” and say they will engage in force-feeding at night during Ramadan to respect the daytime fast.
In the graphic video, volunteer doctors strap Bey, clad in what has now become an iconic orange jumpsuit, to a restraint chair and stick a tube up his nose and down toward his stomach. Bey gasps and moans as two additional men force him still.
When the doctors prepare to insert the tube a second time, Bey pleads in genuine anxiety.
“Stop it, please! Stop it!” he shouts, before an off camera voice calls for the doctors to end the simulation.
Okay...so? It's an uncomfortable and possibly painful experience.
What are peoples preferences exactly?
Shall we let those who go on hunger strike perish from lack of food? Is that preferred? If they do that, will the U.S. be called heartless and violators of human rights by letting these people starve to death?
Shall we instead let anyone who goes "I'm going on a hunger strike" go? Simply free anyone who says "hunger strike"?
Exactly what are you suggesting is done instead, because frankly this looks like nothing but a "I don't like GITMO, so I don't care what they do, I'm going to find a way to criticize them and demonize them for it".
The outrage comes from the misguided belief that those who are locked up at GITMO are in no way a threat to America. They truly believe that these people are NOT hell bent on killing us.Okay...so? It's an uncomfortable and possibly painful experience.
What are peoples preferences exactly?
Shall we let those who go on hunger strike perish from lack of food? Is that preferred? If they do that, will the U.S. be called heartless and violators of human rights by letting these people starve to death?
Shall we instead let anyone who goes "I'm going on a hunger strike" go? Simply free anyone who says "hunger strike"?
Exactly what are you suggesting is done instead, because frankly this looks like nothing but a "I don't like GITMO, so I don't care what they do, I'm going to find a way to criticize them and demonize them for it".
The outrage comes from the misguided belief that those who are locked up at GITMO are in no way a threat to America. They truly believe that these people are NOT hell bent on killing us.
I've been intubated while awake. It's not exactly pleasant but it's that big a deal either.
Okay...so? It's an uncomfortable and possibly painful experience.
What are peoples preferences exactly?
Shall we let those who go on hunger strike perish from lack of food? Is that preferred? If they do that, will the U.S. be called heartless and violators of human rights by letting these people starve to death?
Shall we instead let anyone who goes "I'm going on a hunger strike" go? Simply free anyone who says "hunger strike"?
Exactly what are you suggesting is done instead, because frankly this looks like nothing but a "I don't like GITMO, so I don't care what they do, I'm going to find a way to criticize them and demonize them for it".
Let them starve themselves to death
*&^% em
It's typical "damned if you do, damned if you don't" from liberals. If they're force-fed to stay alive, the guards are heartless. If they die from malnutrition, the guards are heartless.
Some people just need to be offended, or they don't know what to do with themselves.
The outrage comes from the misguided belief that those who are locked up at GITMO are in no way a threat to America. They truly believe that these people are NOT hell bent on killing us.
From right after 9/11 2001 I have been saying that we had to handle this as a police matter within the bounds of legality. A war is something you do against a specific country, but there is no "terrorist" country. Instead there are what we view as terrorists within countries who are contained within innocent civilian populations which means we are not engaged in an all out war on the population of a country. Had we handled it in a way that was more police like seeking to arrest and convict these terrorists in some sort of court for their actions we would have had to gather evidence and try them. Instead a certain faction in the US decided we should treat this as a war where these people are now POWs and we cannot try them because we lack crimes and proper evidence to do so. Even the ones who have been declared innocent have now become a problem because releasing them is problematic because we have violated their human rights so much that those people in command would be potentially criminally responsible for their actions. That is not to mention the reality that if they were innocent and not ready to kill us all when we imprisoned them, they probably will be now. I cannot blame them for that. If i was pulled off the street by russian troops and tossed into russian torture chambers for years without a trial, charges, or even doing anything wrong I would be ready to kill their asses if i ever got out, and I do not hold any hatred for the russian people right now.
This is a stupid mistake made by law breaking assholes years ago, and now we are suffering from the consequences of what to do. Letting these guys loose at this point I have no doubt would incite more violence against the US. I severely doubt punishing those responsible would stop that, but i would be for doing so. We need some sort of restriction on our government to not be able to create a war against a concept rather than using legal actions to prosecute and detain people who act outside of legal boundaries. War against concepts do not work, and there is never any victory against an idea. You can conquer a country with military force, but you cannot conquer an idea with troops.
I personally think we should release them if we are not going to try them and simply shore up our security to try to avoid the inevitable backlash against america that would come from it. The ones we can try and convict we do that so that when we have hunger strikes and have to do this at least we can say that they had their day in court with legitimate defense and we convicted them on evidence of actual crimes. People tend to be much less bothered by criminals having to undergo stuff like this, and the problem is we do not know if these guys are criminals because they have not been tried and convicted. However, I can see why our government is and will be very unwilling to release these people. It is a stain of blood and embarrassment our country will never be rid of.
When terrorists was in Guantanamo,
Let My people go!
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let My people go!
Of course its not as big of a deal when you are drugged.
I am offended that our govt thinks that it can keep anyone imprisoned indefinitely without trial. That is not what the US should be about. That is not what libertarianism is about. Whats with all these neo-imperialism supporters posing as 'libertarians?' Was the Bush Administration that bad that you guys cannot call yourselves Republicans/conservatives anymore?
I wasn't drugged.
When I was in the Army our medics used to practice on us. Tubes and IVs.
So basiclly we're talking about 19-year-old kids with a few months of medical training and maybe 2 or 3 previous 'tubes under their belt intubating other 19-year-old kids in the muddy field behind the barracks for Wednesday's "Sergeants' Time" training.
We're not exactly talking about experts doing the administration under ideal clinical conditions.
And like I said, it wasn't comfortable by any means, and I probably wouldn't have done it unless I was voluntold to, but if you weren't ranting and raving and making some huge production about it and generally acting like an enormous ***** it wasn't exactly torture either.
In retrospect, I guess there was some small degree of "drugging". They'd jam a little bit of some kind of topical anesthetic up our nose, and then coat the tube in some kind of lubricant, which I guess must have helped some. Wouldn't have wanted to do it "raw dog" (as the kids say).
I assume the same procedure is used in Gitmo, though I haven't read the SOPs so I can't be sure.
Anyhow, I'm giving you my personal experience in having this done to me a number of times under similar, if not identical, conditions and my personal observations of personally sitting there and watching it done to a dozen other guys.
A few guys were kind of squeemish, one guy threw up, but nobody carried on like Mos Def in that video.
There is NO DOUBT in my mind that he was hamming it up for the camera.
I'm sure that there's something in the War Powers Act that allows the president to do so - some loophole or what-have-you. For all intents and purposes, they're considered military prisoners and informants - and I think America should give a giant middle finger to the UN and the Hague. America needs to look out for its own, and if these war criminals can be used to further that, so be it. However, I would like to see due process being enforced and have their stuff taken care of as opposed to being thrown in a cell and rotting.
Of course, the debate over whether he overacted is moot. The real debate should be on Guantanamo itself.
Maybe you should educate yourself a bit on where a lot of these men came from. What kind of 'libertarian' are you anyways?
I have no sympathy for terrorists
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