Why is force feeding hunger strikers a bad thing?

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Sincere question. With the release of the Senate intelligence report regarding the US treatment of the CIA detainees, why is it considered a bad thing that those in charge force fed those individuals on a hunger strike? Is the outcry because of the method of forced feeding (rectally)? Or is it about the actual idea of feeding someone whose protesting his detainment?

Don't get me wrong. I am and will always be against torture but this supposed medical necessity to keep the detainees from starving themselves to death? It may not be a good thing but it doesn't seem to fit as torture. Does the criticism exist simply because there are better ways to force feed nutrients to detainees on a hunger strike? Or is it a case of where people are squeamish about the method used (ground up food injected rectally)? Which is a technique that sounds very cringeworthy. .( ̵˃﹏˂̵ ) A possible skit taken from South Park.
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Type: Discussion • Score: 16 • Views: 6,039 • Replies: 68

@tsarstepan,

A fair portion of it can be seen as a power game. When one is being force fed up the arse, one doesn't feel very much in control of anything any more, I suppose.

It's very much like being violently raped, I would guess.

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@tsarstepan,

tsarstepan wrote:

I am and will always be against torture but this supposed medical necessity to keep the detainees from starving themselves to death? It may not be a good thing but it doesn't seem to fit as torture. Does the criticism exist simply because there are better ways to force feed nutrients to detainees on a hunger strike?

Yes. The optimum way to force feed is intravenously. The rectal approach was directly focused at controlling and breaking the will of the victim.

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@engineer,

The senate report is such hard reading, is so shameful that we have allowed this to happen by our country. I honestly do not know how we can ever talk about humane rights with a straight face after this report has been released with all the details.

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@tsarstepan,

First of all, force feeding is a violation of rights. You have to make the decision that the rights of the person refusing to eat are lesser than the rights of those keeping that person alive.

Once you make your first rights determination then you move on to how to feed them. In this case, it seems the entire point was to remove all dignity and rights from the person refusing to eat.

This flies in the face of what the US was founded on.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

First of all, force feeding is a violation of rights.

So what should the captors do when faced with a hunger strike? Thatcher let Irish hunger-strikers die and was harshly criticized for doing so:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike#Deaths_and_end_of_strike

It would seem the only suitable answer left is to give in to strikers' demands, no?
(Or you could force feed them, though I agree the method used in this case was inappropriate.)

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@Kolyo,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_Spence#Idle_No_More_and_hunger_strike

this approach is fairly standard in Canada
encourage them to end the hunger strike
maybe talk to them about their demands
but no direct interference with the hunger strike itself

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@Kolyo,

Which is why I stated you had to balance that right. As captors, jailers or general person in charge of the well being of the person on hunger strike, you do have to deal with it. There are a lot of ways of helping to mitigate problems without force feeding or capitulating to the demands.

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@parados,

I agree, and it ain't often.

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@Kolyo,

Kolyo wrote:

parados wrote:

First of all, force feeding is a violation of rights.

So what should the captors do when faced with a hunger strike? Thatcher let Irish hunger-strikers die and was harshly criticized for doing so:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike#Deaths_and_end_of_strike

It would seem the only suitable answer left is to give in to strikers' demands, no?
(Or you could force feed them, though I agree the method used in this case was inappropriate.)

This is what I'm thinking in terms of patients and detainees on hunger strikes. True, their respective captors shouldn't have forced fed the detainees rectally but they should have forced fed them intravenously.

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@tsarstepan,

I'm on the Canada side on this one, in the way that ehBeth expressed it.

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@Kolyo,

Kolyo wrote:

parados wrote:

First of all, force feeding is a violation of rights.

So what should the captors do when faced with a hunger strike?...

This misses the point. This one isolated thing may be arguable, but the report is filled with practices that are nothing but torture. Stripping a prisoner naked and running him up and down a long hall while slapping and punching him cannot be construed as being for his own good.

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@ossobuco,

Me too. Seems completely reasonable. Sometimes I just wonder why the US has such trouble having reasonable people in charge of things like this? It always seems like we are behind or backwards or something.

I also agree with Brandon on the torture issues.

I have been wondering if the UN nations could bring charges or if they would now that there is a report outlining the abuses? I suppose though, it would be hard to identify the exact CIA interrogators also whether the interrogators got a direct command or just told to be creative in their "enhanced interrogations." Surely in a just world the previous administration Cheney in particular plus the in house lawyers (whatever) who used such twisted legal wording to allow for those "enhanced interrogations" could be brought before a world tribunal or something?

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@revelette2,

Bobby Sands was allowed to die, if a prisoner is not mentally ill and they want to refuse food it's their right. Surely allowing them to die is not going to produce more negative publicity than anally feeding them.

On a side note, notorious murderer Ian Brady was recently denied the right to go on hunger strike because he is mentally ill. Personally, I'm not going to lose any sleep over his rights being violated.

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

I have been wondering if the UN nations could bring charges

The same UN nations who never do anything when American soldiers are tortured?

In any case, no they can't.

revelette2 wrote:

Surely in a just world the previous administration Cheney in particular plus the in house lawyers (whatever) who used such twisted legal wording to allow for those "enhanced interrogations" could be brought before a world tribunal or something?

Actually I think it's about time Congress adjusted the statute of limitations and appointed another special prosecutor for Bill Clinton.

I think a 30 year prison term would be about right for the number of felonies that Clinton committed in the White House.

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@izzythepush,

I am not sure why you are addressing this to me when I agree completely with you on this issue, and have agreed.

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@revelette2,

I wasn't arguing, yours was the last post and was about hunger strikes. I'm sorry if our history has made you think otherwise, but I don't always mean to argue when I reply to you.

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@izzythepush,

Oh, I am sorry. I have been so touchy lately on this forum. In any case, I agree on the force feeding, I do not believe it falls into the same category as the torture necessarily so much as a bad decision which I hope is corrected in the future. In fact, I am hoping soon, there will be need for any of it, I am still hopeful Obama will finally be able to close the awful place down even if he goes over the heads of congress on his last days in office to do it. Or maybe it will simply close down in 2016 when the combat stage is over in Afghanistan. (From my understanding they are leaving some force there to help train and advise the Afghanistan troops but for the main part most of the troops will be out.)

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@tsarstepan,

What was/is the purpose of force feeding someone who is a CIA detainee and tortured to no end? So they can continue their torture?

Force feeding them was another means of torture.

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

I am still hopeful Obama will finally be able to close the awful place down even if he goes over the heads of congress on his last days in office to do it. Or maybe it will simply close down in 2016 when the combat stage is over in Afghanistan.

The only way it will be closed is if we set up an identical facility on US soil.

Hopefully if such a thing is done it will be paid for by a tax on anti-war protesters so that normal Americans won't have to pay for the needless duplication.

1 Reply

Why is force feeding hunger strikers a bad thing?

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