Review Sheet for the Mid-Term - and yes, it will be on the test. Sigh.

This from the Village Voice in November from Nat Hentoff

Jumah Dossari has been imprisoned at Guantánamo for nearly four years without charges or access to his family, in nearly complete isolation. On October 15, he tried to hang himself in his cell, timing the attempt so that an outsider might see him dangling in a makeshift noose, his last message to the world. Dossari has more or less survived. (Military officials confirm that in the last few months, there have been at least 36 suicide attempts.) While he was being revived, other prisoners at Guantánamo, who are being force-fed because they are on a hunger strike in desperation, like Dossari's, had their cases heard against "George W. Bush, et al.," in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

I have seen many stories on the hunger strikers in the national and international press; but the clearest account I know, vividly detailing what George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld keep describing as the "humane" treatment of prisoners at Gitmo, is in Judge Gladys Kessler's decision on these cases in the D.C. District Court. The prisoners are asking for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the government to prove the legality of their being held at the U.S. naval base. There have been hunger strikes at Guantánamo before; and this most recent one—according to the petitioners' lawyers—included between 131 to 210 "detainees" of the 500 in prison. The Defense Department's statistics are reluctant and changeable, so that count may be larger.

At least 20 of the "detainees" claim they are being "forcibly subjected to involuntary medical intervention via the introduction of intravenous fluids or nasocentric (nasal) tube feeding." In her memorandum opinion, Judge Kessler quoted a declaration by Julia Tarver, the counsel for three of the petitioners. It was submitted to the court after she had visited her clients at Guantánamo from September 30 to October 2 of this year. Julia Tarver wrote that during the forced feeding of Yousef Al Shehri, as the tubes were inserted "through [his] nose, down the throat, and into the stomach, Al Shehri was given no sedative for the procedure; instead, two soldiers restrained him—one holding his chin while the other held him back by his hair and a medical staff member forcefully inserted the tube in his nose and down his throat. . . . He could not speak for two days [and] he could not sleep because of the severe pain." Judge Kessler wrote that "the procedure caused him and other detainees to vomit 'substantial amounts of blood.' "

In a different prison location, where there was a hole in the floor in which to urinate, thicker tubes were inserted into prisoners' noses; and when one was removed from Al Shehri's nose, Julia Tarver wrote (in another passage quoted by Judge Kessler), "blood came gushing out of him. He fainted, and several of the other detainees almost lost consciousness." Further indicating that the "humane treatment" the president continually pledges is mandated in the cells at Guantánamo, Yousef Al Shehri also said, according to Julia Tarver's account, that "in front of Guantánamo physicians—including the head of the detainees hospital—the guards took NG tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitation whatsoever, re-inserted it into the nose of a different detainee." (Emphasis in original.) The passage continued: "The detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from other detainees remaining on the tubes." Judge Kessler then wrote: "Petitioners assert that because of this needlessly cruel and painful treatment, Al Shehri 'can no longer walk.' " The judge further quoted from Tarver's account: "He lost some of his vision, and he is vomiting every day. . . . He has severe headaches and great pain in his ear. He is only able to urinate once every few days. . . . He has given his last will and testament, as he fully anticipates that he is going to die."

Some years ago, I was in Judge Gladys Kessler's courtroom and admired the crisp decisiveness of her judicial temperament. Therefore, I was not surprised that in her ruling on these cases, she noted that the government, in its response to these charges, "pointed out that thus far, 'no one has died.' " Said Judge Kessler: "It goes without saying that this Court need not wait to issue injunctive relief until a detainee has died."

She went on: "The court concludes that Petitioners have provided sufficient facts . . . to establish that the threat of death or serious physical deterioration is real and imminent, and that Petitioners have satisfied the requirement of facing irreparable harm unless injunctive relief is granted." Kessler's conclusion was that these prisoners have a right to challenge their detentions, as the Supreme Court ruled; and to have meaningful access to their lawyers and the Court. Moreover, from now on, the government must inform the prisoners' lawyers "within 24 hours of the commencement of any forced feeding." And the government must provide "medical records spanning the period beginning one week prior to the date forced feeding commenced," and must also continue providing medical records, "at a minimum, on a weekly basis until forced feeding concludes."

Meanwhile, Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on torture, has asked Donald Rumsfeld for permission to bring a team of U.N. human rights investigators to Guantánamo to interview the prisoners. Rumsfeld said they could come, but could not see the "detainees" privately. Nowak, refusing to come, said mordantly, "He said they have nothing to hide." Ah, but Rumsfeld is allowing an International Committee of the Red Cross delegation to have private meetings with the prisoners. That, said Nowak, is because Red Cross investigators cannot declare their findings publicly. The U.N. team can.
Rumsfeld says of the hunger strike that these "detainees" are merely "fasting" for brief periods in rotation with each other.

Then this today……
Pilgrimage to Guantánamo
by DAN BELL
The Nation
On December 7 twenty-five Christians set out from Santiago de Cuba on a seventy-mile pilgrimage to Guantánamo Bay. Their mission is simple: to meet with more than 500 men who have been held without trial, virtually incommunicado, for nearly four years. If they are turned away, they will fast in support of Guantánamo's hunger strikers and hold a three-day vigil at the prison gates.
Got to their website to find out more: witnesstorture

And now from me…..
What naughty “media whore” Christians trying to get on teevee with their socialist antics! I say, these are not true Christians. How can they be? Christians, true brothers and sisters in Christ, do not get up in public and contradict their brothers and sisters for the entire world to see…especially not one in such a leadership position! These are obvious commies using our religion for their treasonous reasons. I say, you want up close and personal, dearie? You want to see how these poor, mistreated terrorists live? Well, get on in there wit ya! Live with’em you al-kai-duh lover! Makes me sick………

Actually…ahem….just kidding. All I can say is, onward Christian soldiers! You rock! I fasted for the people of Darfur twice and thought, around 3 o’clock that I might, in fact, die! I don’t think anyone can truly fathom where someone would have be mentally to inflict that kind of pain on himself. How desperate life must be there. I saw a quote from the Amnesty International website from a 14 year old boy who had been incarcerated at the Bay. He was told that he would never leave, that he wouldn’t be killed because they can’t cause misery to dead people. He would be taken to the brink often and allowed to linger so that they could take him there again. That kid was the same age as my son now. 14. What kind of country puts fourteen year olds into a place with no contact with his family, limited contact with lawyers, refuses to charge them with anything, and forces such a sentiment of despair that they feel no reason to live? Oh, that’s right! My country! The fact that we did this to a kid is bad enough, but to continue to dismiss the devastating conditions these people (people, that’s right, enemy combatants is a term we made up that isn’t real, it’s just a way to get around the rules) with ridiculous dodging, ducking and weaving of legitimate questions and inquiries into what is being done in our name is grounds for dismissal. Seriously. I jest not. Don’t we prosecute CEOs and other heads of business for this kind of gross negligence and dereliction of duty?
I don’t understand why we are still in Iraq. I really don’t. I don’t understand why we went in, but for the life of me I can’t comprehend why there is no timetable. How long does it take to train a recruit into our armed forces? They go through a boot camp that lasts what? Six weeks? There are other areas that require more training – like fighter pilot and, gosh, I don’t know, scud missile operator or something, but the basics are taught in roughly six weeks. How long is police training? Twelve to twenty weeks? So let’s be generous. Four months training should be enough to get these guys ready as they are willing and able to do the work (especially considering the fact that the unemployment rate is an abysmal 70% - that’s leaving a lot of people idle, which we all know leads to all kinds of very unfavorable things). On the job training is the best kind to have anyway. Hand over their economy to them – is that too much? I mean, certainly this possibility has been considered. I wonder if we be slightly agitated if another country came in, blew everything up, and then brought their people in to fix everything while we languished unemployed or worse were kidnapped from our homes and were whisked away to an all expense paid vaca in Hotel Hell in some place ending in –stan. I wonder if we would feel slighted if our grannies and kiddos were being treated like enemy combatants, sprayed with toxic gases. I ponder whether we might boil a bit if our dead weren’t even counted….or buried. We wouldn’t be insurgents then, boy! We would be the Resistance! We would be the Patriots fighting for God and Country! We would have entire networks of people united in removing the occupiers, the unwelcome guests from our country by any means necessary. Wouldn’t we? I would. I see myself as being that kind of person. The one that sneaked Jews out of wherever they were away from the nazis. The one that would hide escaping slaves in my attic or barn, and helped them to get somewhere safe. I would be the one that stuck my foot out when the guys with the boxcutters ran down the aisle of the airplane and if that didn’t work, I would have rolled with the guys. I would be the person that jumped on the two disgruntled, disenfranchised students with rifles walking through a school shooting at students. I want to believe that I would be that person. Not because I’m heroic by any stretch of the imagination, but because I am kind of impulsive. But more importantly, I have a strong sense of what’s right and wrong, what’s fair and what’s not, and what’s good and what’s bad. And I always, always go with the underdog. So, give’em back their work, their sense of worth, their country, after training their guys for four months, and I guarantee you that they will work it out, and we will be able to hold our heads high again, because right now, I just feel like I need to apologize….a lot.