As Gitmo Hunger Strike Continues, Lawyers Step Up Fight for Access

[devotion2mary]

Washington, DC, Oct 31 - Attorneys representing a disputed number of

inmates engaged in a months-long hunger strike at the US-run prison

camp in Guantánamo Bay are slamming the Pentagon’s handling of the

protest. Instead of meeting the desperate demands of the more than 200

prisoners who lawyers claim have been engaged in the act of civil

disobedience, the military’s response has been to deny the attorneys

access to their clients’ medical records and to force-feed the striking

detainees in violation of international medical standards.

newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2540

 

[gilliam]

You all do know that these “hunger strikers” trade off with each other. This is a political ploy to try to get themselves freed.

 

[Karin]

gilliam:

You all do know that these “hunger strikers” trade off with each other. This is a political ploy to try to get themselves freed.

Nope was not aware of this…how do you know? In the sense is it common knowledge that the media is not reporting?

 

[gilliam]

Karin:

Nope was not aware of this…how do you know? In the sense is it common knowledge that the media is not reporting?

Yes it is common knowledge. It has been brought up at every Pentagon briefing that I have heard this topic discussed with the press.

Example briefing:
defense.gov/transcripts/2005/tr20051101-secdef4201.html

 

[KathleenElsie]

Killing one-self is against God’s law. As far as I am concerned it is the obligation of the government to make sure they are “fed” one way or another.

Hunger strikes have been going on since Gitmo opened. Nothing new here.

 

[Karin]

gilliam:

Yes it is common knowledge. It has been brought up at every Pentagon briefing that I have heard this topic discussed with the press.

Example briefing:
defense.gov/transcripts/2005/tr20051101-secdef4201.html

Thank you Gilliam …was not aware of this. But it does not state that ALL of these people are doing this only some of them.

 

[gilliam]

Karin:

Thank you Gilliam …was not aware of this. But it does not state that ALL of these people are doing this only some of them.

I don’t know if I have ever heard Rummy say ALL of any group did anything

 

[MikeWM]

Hunger striking is quite common with terrorist prisoners. The IRA did it quite often - along with ‘dirty protests’. Still, at least they had been convicted of something.

Mike

 

[gilliam]

MikeWM:

Hunger striking is quite common with terrorist prisoners. The IRA did it quite often - along with ‘dirty protests’. Still, at least they had been convicted of something.

Mike

Prisoners of war are not “convicted”

 

[MikeWM]

gilliam:

Prisoners of war are not “convicted”

Agreed. I must have asked this at least four times now and been roundly ignored, so I will ask again : when is this ‘war’ going to be over? What are the exit criteria? When you have ‘prisoners of war’ it is in the understanding that at some point the ‘war’ will be over.

Mike

 

[Fidei_Defensor]

Why go on a hunger strike? Club Gitmo offers such exquisite culinary meals such as orange chicken with rice pilaf, better than what American kids get for school lunches. Some torture.

 

[gilliam]

MikeWM:

Agreed. I must have asked this at least four times now and been roundly ignored, so I will ask again : when is this ‘war’ going to be over? What are the exit criteria? When you have ‘prisoners of war’ it is in the understanding that at some point the ‘war’ will be over.

Mike

The war on terror or the liberation of Iraq?

You might want to start another thread on this topic, it would be off topic here, I think.

 

[MikeWM]

gilliam:

The war on terror or the liberation of Iraq?

The ‘war on terror’. I thought the liberation of Iraq had been done (‘Mission Accomplished’, etc.), and in any event most (all?) of the people in Gitmo weren’t picked up in Iraq…

You might want to start another thread on this topic, it would be off topic here, I think.

Would it? Doesn’t the legitimacy of their detention have a bearing on their protest tactics?

Mike

 

[koda]

They are not being treated as POW’s, but as “enemy combatants” - that way, according to the Bush Admin., the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to them and we can torture them all we want.

 

[gilliam]

koda:

They are not being treated as POW’s, but as “enemy combatants” - that way,.

This has been review a number of times by the US courts and has been upheld.

according to the Bush Admin., the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to them and **we can torture them all we want. **

OK, I want a quote where Bush said we can torture them all we want, or an apology. This sort of uncharitable remark has no business on this forum.

 

[Robert_Bay]

WARNING

Don’t make uncharitable statements and don’t make unsubstantiated accusations.

 

[MikeWM]

gilliam:

This has been review a number of times by the US courts and has been upheld.

Ah, indeed. So the US courts can say they are legally detained, but they have precisely zero recourse to the US courts. That sounds really fair - not. It may be legal, but morally, it is a disgrace.

Still no-one offering exit criteria for the ‘war’, at which point these people will be tried or released…

Mike

 

[gilliam]

MikeWM:

Still no-one offering exit criteria for the ‘war’, at which point these people will be tried or released…

Mike

The war on terror? Post a separate thread and I will respond. I promise.

 

[MikeWM]

gilliam:

The war on terror? Post a separate thread and I will respond. I promise.

Many thanks - but where? I fail to see a suitable forum other than this, and pulling a vaguely-related news story out of thin air to start a new thread in ‘Secular News’ seems very artificial.

Mike

 

[koda]

thenation.com/doc/20051031/editors

Here is a story from a couple of days ago dealing with Bush’s threat to veto of a defense appropriations bill because of the amendment added by Sen. McCain stating that the U.S. would not engage in torture. A pertinent excerpt is below:

“… Human Rights Watch, whose subsequent report demonstrates that torture in Iraq “was systematic and was known at varying levels of command” and points out that the abuses “can be traced to the Bush Administration’s decision to disregard the Geneva Conventions” in the Afghan war. Credit, too, the cognitive dissonance experienced by Republicans like JAG reservist Senator Lindsey Graham, a bill co-sponsor, and McCain and Hagel, who make a point of quietly visiting veterans at Walter Reed Hospital every week.”

This is not a direct quote from Bush himself (if I find one later, I will post it) but it is his administration and he is suppossed to be in charge.

This is the most recent example I can find and it is a story I’ve heard/read in numerous places. As for the general claim, I have heard this from various news sources for so long now that I felt safe in assuming that others had heard it as well. It was not my intention to make unsubstatiated claims. IMO, though you may not agree, it is clear that the Bush Admin. is engaging in torture and that the very fact that decline to give the detainees POW status so that the Geneva Convention does not apply points to that fact. I will be happy to see any source you might with to provide that contains a credible denial of the above.