men in cages?

Jason Leopold of Truthout writes about 'Guantanamo Detainees Stage Hunger Strike to Protest Confinement Conditions'. These guys are in cages, some since 2002. That in itself is a remarkable statement about our America: We have kept men in cages for almost 10 years, with no criminal charges against them, no trials, nothing. Feed them, make sure they don't kill themselves, and everything is good. Well, actually, not that good, if you're used to living without the cage. And, as Jason says, part of the incentive for these caged men to stop eating is that our president, Barack Obama, has signed an 'indefinite detention' order for all prisoners still at Guantanamo. In other words, they can be kept in those cages for as long as the American people will allow. Is that unbelievable, or what?

Equally hard to believe is that men like Shaker Aamer, a former UK resident and 'enemy combatant' and who has been seriously tortured and kept in solitary confinement and has never been charged with any crime... these men are force-fed by US military personnel in what DoD calls 'a lawful and humane manner'.

Lawful and humane force-feeding? "In January 2009, Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Human Rights Program, sent a letter to Robert Gates (Sec of Defense) calling for an end to the force-feeding policy (then, 25 men were on a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention), which requires guards and medical personnel to strap a detainee into a chair and secure his head to a metal restraint."
Then they put a tube down his throat and pour in stuff.
Dakwar said, in his letter, that such 'force-feeding is universally considered to be a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment' and cited a UN report that considers force-feeding to be "... a matter of grave and distinct human rights concerns."

So, my fellow Americans... is this something that we should worry about? Actually, I think it is. The fact that Obama signed the 'indefinite detention' order is horrendous. Add to that the regimen of force-feeding hunger strikers... even after they've been held, without hope, for 9 years... if you treated you dog like that, you'd be jailed. But we can catch men on the streets of Pakistan or Afghanistan and put them in cages for... well, as long as we like. Seems to me like we need to get loud about this situation. That is my plan. I hope you'll join me.

Namaste.

Kirk