Now, force-feeding doesn't really sound nice, but most of us probably just imagine something like when we make the cat swallow a pill. But yesterday, actor Yaslin Bey (aka Mos Def) released a video recreating a force-feeding. The thing has gone viral now and the Twitterverse is alive with discussions about what is happening there in Cuba. The issue of how the prisoners will be force-fed through Ramadan has also been brought up by many. The U.S. insists that they will try to only force-feed after after sunset, but many think this just won't be possible, given that it takes between 45 minutes and two hours to force-feed a prisoner a can of Ensure, and they do it twice a day.
The Pentagon has responded predictably, saying that Mr. Bey is an actor and the video was a "theatrical performance." That really just begs the question though.* To date, no actual video of a force-feeding in Guantanamo has been provided (ahem, Wikileaks), so most of us have no reference point. Bey's video at least puts a face to the practice.
It also seems to have people talking about the prison camp, which seems like a good thing. Since the first prisoners were brought there in January of 2002, the camp's existence has just become another fact of American life. President Obama ran on promises to close the prison, but that priority has lagged. Most of us are ill-informed about Guantanamo and it seems we'd rather not think about what goes on there.
Here are a few of the most pertinent facts:
- Of the 166 remaining prisoners at Gitmo, 86 have been cleared for release, yet they still remain imprisoned.
- The majority of detainees do not have demonstrated ties to terrorist organizations.
- Only 7 of the total 779 prisoners that have ever been held in the prison camp have been convicted by the military commission set up to try them. This is more remarkable for the fact that they are not afforded full legal rights that American citizens would expect.
- Each prisoner costs about $800,000 a year to house. This compares to $25,000 for the average federal prisoner.
The "international community," such as it is, feigns occasional outrage over the prison camp, but what can they do? The Geneva Conventions only define individuals as "combatants" or "non-combatants," but the U.S. has simply by-passed these classifications by redefining the prisoners as a third unnamed category. This seems like a pretty clear flouting of international law, but our lawmakers hide behind sovereignty and dare anyone to challenge them on the issue. And because the "War on Terror" is, by definition, a never-ending "war," it may be that these prisoners will be detained permanently and never be repatriated.
According to a recent poll, most Americans are in favor of keeping the prison open and almost half think that all of the prisoners pose a threat to the U.S. — in spite of the fact that only nine of the current prisoners are even charged with a crime. Why is this?
Apart from a general xenophobia that we as Americans are guilty of, there seems to be a concerted effort in dehumanizing the prisoners in the public eye. They have, from the beginning, been called extremely dangerous, although we've sent over 500 of them back home. The military has limited the public's access even to images of the prisoners, as well as the detention camp itself, all in the name of "national security." This may be why the Congress has blocked efforts to even bring them to U.S. soil and incarcerate them in federal prisons. Out of sight is well out of mind for most of us.
We would like to believe the very best about our soldiers who work at Guantanamo, but we should have learned to be vigilant after Abu Ghraib and other abuse scandals. In my mind at least, the recent letter from Prisoner 329, Abdelhadi Faraj has a ring of truth. And if force-feeding is anything like what we have seen in Bey's video, a lot of us would classify that as torture as well. (In a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the American Medical Association has said that the practice "violates core ethical values.)
America should be better than this. Our founding documents anticipated human rights abuses and sought to prevent them. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth amendments might be invoked were we being treated in like fashion in a criminal proceeding. Supporters of the camps argue that those rights do not extend to the prisoners in Cuba, failing to grasp that their capture and transport to foreign soil only further indicts our actions. Were American soldiers captured and transported across the globe and held in indefinite detention and deprived of basic human rights, we would be justifiably outraged.
Arguments that these rights do not extend to the detainees also demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of "rights." Were one to ask the average American where our rights come from, he or she would hopefully not say from the Constitution, much less from the government or military. The framers of our government said that all men were endowed with these rights and though they failed mightily to live by that creed when it came to the non-white population, it is their legacy to us.
If we likewise fail, history will judge us more harshly. Whatever their race, language, religion, or place of birth, the 166 detainees in Guantanamo Bay are men. They are our fellow travelers here and even those who may have committed crimes against us should be treated with dignity. Perhaps it is due to the decline of religion in our lives, but past generations would have seen the image of God in each of the prisoners. That's a very Christian idea, and one probably not espoused by the prisoners themselves, who are likely circumspect in not "ascribing partners to God." Perhaps we don't need to go that far either. Perhaps it would be enough if we could just see ourselves in these men.
Beyond what it means for the prisoners, our ability to respond with dignity to even those we number among our enemies humanizes us. It seems we have become dull and do not easily hear the better angels of our nature speaking within us. We are diminished by that prison camp in Cuba and as a people are more base and savage with each day it remains open.
Yet I am hopeful that as a nation we will progress toward our ideal of extending life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to the entire human family. Let's begin in Guantanamo.
[*I think this is a correct use of the phrase "begging the question." I checked on Grammar Girl and everything. Forgive me if it's not.]
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