Nurse who refused to force feed at Guantanamo back to duty

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Nurse who refused to force feed at Guantanamo back to duty

Updated 9:22 pm, Tuesday, May 3, 2016

MIAMI (AP) — A Navy nurse has been allowed to resume full medical duties by the military nearly two years after he refused to take part in force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, his lawyer said Tuesday.

The nurse is working as a nurse at a Navy medical facility in New England, said the lawyer, Ronald Meister. He declined to provide the officer's name or his duty station.

Last year, the commanding officer of Navy personnel rejected a commander's recommendation that the nurse appear before a board of inquiry that could have resulted in his removal from the service. But Meister said officials began the process of revoking his security clearance, which is required for him to perform his full duties.

The lawyer said the Department of Defense recently informed the nurse that his clearance was restored and the officer will be able to serve the remainder of his service until he retires in December after a 20-year career.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-at-Guantanamo-7391314.php

[Dustlawyer]

1. He should be given a medal!

They are taught to obey "All lawful orders." He sounds like the only one that was brave enough to do the right thing. He knew "...just following orders" crap doesn't fly for torture. He risked his freedom, his pension and threw away any promotions or raises he might have received otherwise. That has to be tough.

[cstanleytech]

5. I havent been following this case to close so am wondering when it was ruled that force feeding them

was an unlawful order? Keeping them prisoner for years in a jail without trial I can see as being unlawful because that is clearly against the Constitution and the justices who have allowed that to go on who are sitting on the the SCOTUS are clearly pieces of shit.

[Little Tich]

8. Yup. He deserves a medal. n/t

[Ilsa]

2. Good for him. He has to think about

His license, too, not just his orders. I hope he has a happy retirement with a good pension.

[IronLionZion]

3. Not sure how I feel about the policy of force-feeding

since people die on hunger strikes. And they probably would rather die than stay in that hellhole. But it is to prevent people from dying.

Of course the nurse should have the choice not to participate in it without punishment if it's against his values.

[eggplant]

4. Because keeping them alive so we can continue to torture them is moral, or something.

And let's not forget that "force-feeding" isn't a plain old humane IV of nutrients or even a feeding tube into their tummy. No, it's a whole yummy meal run through a food processor, and then "fed" to them via an enema.

Really conjures a picture of humanity, doesn't it.

[Leontius]

7. Nasogastric is a tube placed thru the nose to the stomach not a tube up the ass.

I do agree with the nurse though should have let them starve to death.

[eggplant]

9. Neogastric tube. That's quaint.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-report-rectal-feeding-detainees

They should have the right to starve themselves to death. We capture them, force them to live in a prison without being tried for any crime, with no expectation of ever getting out, and their only recourse is their ability to refuse to eat.

And we take that away too. Because, damn it, if we're going to go through all the trouble of extraordinary rendition, building a military prison offshore where they have zero rights, lock them up forever, and whip up a yummy batch of butt-chow, the least they can do is to let us strap them down and force them to endure it.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

11. Many of these prisoners were not linked to terrorism!

Seriously crazy absurd situation. This nurse is my hero.

[LanternWaste]

12. The same sentiment was said in regards to the London suffragettes

The same sentiment was said in regards to the London suffragettes incarcerated in Prison Holloway early in the twentieth century.

(Source: Suffragette, the Autobiography of Emmeline Pankhurst)

[Ash_F]

6. Courage.

[Judi Lynn]

10. You may recall hearing about force-feeding tactics used in Guantanamo. This, from Jeremy Scahill,

the article posted by excellent DU poster, magbana:

Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama

By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet

Posted on May 15, 2009, Printed on May 15, 2009

. . .

Force Feeding as a Form of Torture

The IRF teams were also used to force-feed hunger-striking prisoners at Guant�namo, including in August 2005. Deghayes was among the hunger strikers, writing in a letter, "I am slowly dying in this solitary prison cell, I have no rights, no hope. So why not take my destiny into my own hands, and die for a principle?"

While the U.S. government portrayed a situation where the hunger strikers were being given medical attention, lawyers for some of the men claim that the tubes used to force feed them were "the thickness of a finger" and "were viewed by the detainees as objects of torture."

According to attorney Julia Tarver, one of her clients, Yousef al-Shehri, had a tube inserted with "one holding his chin while the other held him back by his hair, and a medical staff member forcibly inserted the tube in his nose and down his throat" and into his stomach. "No anesthesia or sedative was provided to alleviate the obvious trauma of the procedure." Tarver said this method caused al-Shehri and others to vomit "substantial amounts of blood."

This was painful enough, but al-Shehri, described the removal of the tubes as "unbearable," causing him to pass out from the pain.

According to Tarver, "Nasal gastric (NG) tubes by placing a foot on one end of the tube and yanking the detainee's head back by his hair, causing the tube to be painfully ejected from the detainee's nose. Then, in front of the Guantanamo physicians � the guards took NG tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitization whatsoever, reinserted it into the nose of a different detainee. When these tubes were reinserted, the detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from the other detainees remaining on the tubes." Medical staff, according to Tarver, made no effort to intervene. This was one of many incidents where IRF teams facilitated such force-feeding.

More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x15292

Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently a Puffin Writing fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing and reporting is available at Rebel Reports.

If you will remember, his book on Blackwater was a huge seller, widely read.