.

Source--Reprieve: Director Asif Kapadia; Yasiin Bey/Mos Def.

Last Week at the American Enterprise Institute, Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) of the House Intelligence Committee discussed his thoughts on the future of the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. His discussion with AEI fellow Marc Thiessen comes on the heels of recent build-up of media attention surrounding the hunger strike being held at the camp, where as of today 78 prisoners are continuing the strike and 46 are being tube fed under the procedures shown in the above video.

AEI’s talk follows President Obama's recent speech at the National Defense University where he revived his pledge to close the prison, as well as Pompeo's return from a trip to the facility, both taking place at the end of last May.

In Pompeo’s remarks he supported the existence of Guantánamo as "a national asset" in the "continued war on terror" as a mechanism through which to gain intelligence on "the gathering storm" being cultivated by al Qaeda and other multinational terrorist organizations. He continuously referred to the detainees at Guantanamo as "enemy combatants captured on the battlefield" who, during their detention, are treated in a manner "consistent with international law and certainly consistent with the American ideals and notions of fairness and rule of law." Remarking on current national discussions of similarly polarizing issues like IRS partisan-based scrutiny and NSA data mining, Pompeo also somewhat ironically lauded the importance of maintaining a core of truth in one's arguments.

Compliance with International Law and American Notions of Fairness

Whether he was aware of it or not, Pompeo's remarks held some clear-cut mistruths of their own. The above video documents the procedures under which Guantanamo detainees on the “enteral feeding list” are force-fed. Despite Pompeo’s remarks on the certainty of Guantamo Bay’s compliance with standards of fairness held by international law and the American public, there are no shortage of international political and institutional leaders who have explicitly condemned the facility’s indefinite detention of prisoners without charge or fair trial, explicitly condemning the continued force-feeding of those participating in the current hunger strike as illicit under international law as a form of torture. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Colin Powell, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, the American Medical Association, Amnesty International, and increasing numbers of U.S. Congressional Representatives are among those voicing their disturbance at the detention facility’s procedural behavior and continued operation.

“Humane, Painless, and Lawful”: Force-feeding at Guantanamo

AEI Fellow and moderator Marc Thiessen neglected to turn the conversation towards any acknowledgement of the ongoing hunger strikes and subsequent allegations of human rights abuses until the final 6 minutes of the conversation, but when they did Pompeo was ready to defend the procedures, vaguely citing a “briefing from the medical team” assuring the a “humanely...painlessly...and lawfully” administered set of processes and procedures. Thiessen even joked about hearing that “actually most of the people who receive the force-feeding are very happy to receive [it], and didn’t resist, and were even given a choice of...flavor of liquid Ensure.”

When compared with contrasting accounts of force-feeding procedures at the camp supported across international media outlets, institutions, and organizations alike, and as bravely undergone by Yasiin Bey in the featured video above, these comments resonate as crass, ignorant, and out of touch.

Pompeo disregarded accounts of human rights abuses at the camp by arguing in favor of keeping the facility open as part of a U.S. obligation to acknowledge “the prohibitions of returning someone to a country in which they may be tortured.” Apparently he disagrees with the 19 organizations (including the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Human Rights) who recently wrote to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel urging him to end force-feeding as a practice “which constitutes cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.”

The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.

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Video Wednesday: Dissonance over Guantánamo Hunger Strikes

Global Business or International Corporate as Art
July 17, 2013

Source--Reprieve: Director Asif Kapadia; Yasiin Bey/Mos Def.

Last Week at the American Enterprise Institute, Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) of the House Intelligence Committee discussed his thoughts on the future of the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. His discussion with AEI fellow Marc Thiessen comes on the heels of recent build-up of media attention surrounding the hunger strike being held at the camp, where as of today 78 prisoners are continuing the strike and 46 are being tube fed under the procedures shown in the above video.

AEI’s talk follows President Obama's recent speech at the National Defense University where he revived his pledge to close the prison, as well as Pompeo's return from a trip to the facility, both taking place at the end of last May.

In Pompeo’s remarks he supported the existence of Guantánamo as "a national asset" in the "continued war on terror" as a mechanism through which to gain intelligence on "the gathering storm" being cultivated by al Qaeda and other multinational terrorist organizations. He continuously referred to the detainees at Guantanamo as "enemy combatants captured on the battlefield" who, during their detention, are treated in a manner "consistent with international law and certainly consistent with the American ideals and notions of fairness and rule of law." Remarking on current national discussions of similarly polarizing issues like IRS partisan-based scrutiny and NSA data mining, Pompeo also somewhat ironically lauded the importance of maintaining a core of truth in one's arguments.

Compliance with International Law and American Notions of Fairness

Whether he was aware of it or not, Pompeo's remarks held some clear-cut mistruths of their own. The above video documents the procedures under which Guantanamo detainees on the “enteral feeding list” are force-fed. Despite Pompeo’s remarks on the certainty of Guantamo Bay’s compliance with standards of fairness held by international law and the American public, there are no shortage of international political and institutional leaders who have explicitly condemned the facility’s indefinite detention of prisoners without charge or fair trial, explicitly condemning the continued force-feeding of those participating in the current hunger strike as illicit under international law as a form of torture. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Colin Powell, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, the American Medical Association, Amnesty International, and increasing numbers of U.S. Congressional Representatives are among those voicing their disturbance at the detention facility’s procedural behavior and continued operation.

“Humane, Painless, and Lawful”: Force-feeding at Guantanamo

AEI Fellow and moderator Marc Thiessen neglected to turn the conversation towards any acknowledgement of the ongoing hunger strikes and subsequent allegations of human rights abuses until the final 6 minutes of the conversation, but when they did Pompeo was ready to defend the procedures, vaguely citing a “briefing from the medical team” assuring the a “humanely...painlessly...and lawfully” administered set of processes and procedures. Thiessen even joked about hearing that “actually most of the people who receive the force-feeding are very happy to receive [it], and didn’t resist, and were even given a choice of...flavor of liquid Ensure.”

When compared with contrasting accounts of force-feeding procedures at the camp supported across international media outlets, institutions, and organizations alike, and as bravely undergone by Yasiin Bey in the featured video above, these comments resonate as crass, ignorant, and out of touch.

Pompeo disregarded accounts of human rights abuses at the camp by arguing in favor of keeping the facility open as part of a U.S. obligation to acknowledge “the prohibitions of returning someone to a country in which they may be tortured.” Apparently he disagrees with the 19 organizations (including the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Human Rights) who recently wrote to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel urging him to end force-feeding as a practice “which constitutes cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.”

The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.