Why today's court decision ordering release of Guantanamo force-feeding videos matters

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I can’t imagine how awful this is going to be. When I was in nursing school, we practiced placing NG tubes in each other, and that was one of the worse feelings ever, and I was a willing participant.

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Yup - people should see what their government is perpetrating, especially if they support the act.

Also, please take a moment and read about Irom Chanu Sharmila, a rights worker who is India’s longest-incarcerated political prisoner. She is also supposedly the world’s longest hunger striker and has been repeatedly arrested and subject to forced feeding:

Force-feeding someone who is abstaining due to matters of conscience is a human rights violation, and a breach of medical ethics by the practitioners.

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I seem to recall they were even doing this during Ramadan, which would be particularly satanic.

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Uh, no. Not “satanic”.

Religiously/culturally insensitive? Yes.
Sadistic? Maybe (that depends upon state of mind).

While I can guarantee that seeing vids of slaughterhouses would do very little to turn people veggie, I fully agree that the more disclosure of torture and abuse the better.

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I’m confused. Why is it torturous and sadistic to force feed someone? What’s more evil letting them starve to death? Or would we rather just say ‘Hey that’s a shame, let’s just let everyone go’? What are the ramifications of them not being force fed? Is it torture when we shove a feeding tube down an invalids throat? Did they ask for it? Do we just assume we’re doing them a favor so it’s different? I’m sorry; the ‘Sheep of the World’ would be upset either way and then jump on the bandwagon of how wrong it was to starve them. I always see criticism but what is the alternative? The world isn’t rainbows and unicorns and sometimes things are ugly but need done. Media and social media have brought this ugliness to the light and nobody can stomach the actual truth about what it takes. If slaughter houses were made of glass we’d be vegetarians because we no longer would be under the delusion that beef is made in the store and we would actually know something died for that delicious steak we’re stuffing in our gullet. Life by it’s nature is violent and ugly, the world is violent and ugly. It’s safer for people worried about the ugly and violent truth to return to their bubbles and protect their sensibilities. The Internet is full of cat pictures.

While viewing the force-feeding of prisoners who are being held indefinitely without trial or charges, in a prison camp we run in a country we don’t recognize as legitimate, and some of whom have been tortured by us, always remember, we call ourselves the good guys.

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I don’t know, did they? This is your hypothetical, why are you asking us?

Or are you asking about an invalid who for some reason is not capable of giving consent, which would be entirely different from a capable human being making a conscious choice not to eat?

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Reality check. Do slaughterhouse employees eat meat?

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I don’t know about slaughterhouse employees, but I grew up in a rural area where we raised (and slaughtered) our own pigs. I was probably 9 years old when I was given my own pig to raise. He was named Homer and I recall that I did indeed cry when it was time for the slaughter. Or at least I did until a few hours later when I smelled the meat cooking. (The second one was named Breakfast.) I love bacon, pork ribs, sausage and other pork products, even though I know from where they came.

All this aside, I want my government actions to be completely transparent.

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Mmmmmmm bacon! I am a city boy but had a couple brushes with rural places so also had some experience. Though never owned a pig.

At one summer camp I was, one of the games involved the three teams coming to a forest clearing. There were three chicken there, nice and plump and white. The instructions were, “this is your dinner”. My group had a girl from a village, and after a little circus with catching the bird she handled it like a pro; hold its legs, spin it a few times so it loses consciousness not unlike a fighter pilot at negative-g, cut its head. (I did my second-level volunteering, aka I’ll do it if nobody else who actually knows what to do will; didn’t have to.) Then gather firewood, butcher the bird, cook it. A few found the whole task quite shocking. I found it tasty.

Same here! They have no right to hide what they are doing, double so that they are a government.

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Watch this. Then ask that question again.

I had to do a swallowing test that involved a tube being passed down my throat while I had to take sips of water, then I had to have an NG tube passed so a probe could be put in my esophagus to measure acid levels for 24 hours. That was, so far, one of the worst experiences of my life, and I’ve had kidney stones. By the end of it I was just helplessly crying and gagging.

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I hope this is true and I’m glad they’re making the footage public.

Still, I have to wonder if it will really have that effect
 after all, people used to get tortured to death in public squares as a form of mass entertainment.

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The “force” part.

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Which is why we are droning the shit out of Afghanistan now. Dead men don’t go on hunger strikes.

Touché.

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