Hunger Strikes at GITMO Prison

For John, BLUF:  GITMO has to go.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Listening to Democracy Now I am hearing a Professor George Annas and I find him to be an arrogant and class conscious pedant.  He was talking on the force feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo.

He looked down on certain members of the medical profession, including nurses.  He questioned whether those other than medical doctors could hold the same high ethical standards as doctors.♠  His argument was that they are not empowered by the Hypocratic Oath.♥  In the interest of full disclosure, my late Mother was a Registered Nurse and one of the most ethical people I have known.

Oh, and news reader Amy Goodman referred to The [Manchester] Guardian as being "The Guardian of London.

By the way, this is the same program I heard yesterday, on the same LTC channel, in the same time slot.

As for the prison at GITMO, I am of the opinion that the prisoners should be, to the extent possible, released back to their own nations and the rest should be moved to the United States as Prisoners of War—not that they merit such status, but it would be good foreign policy to grant them that status.

As for hunger strikes, we have to decide if we are going to put up with it and what it is going to cost us.  The hunger strike is a very powerful tool, as prisoner Bobby Sands demonstrated at Long Kesh back in 1981.  This was a situation where the Provisional IRA scored a major propaganda coup against the British Government.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Maybe he isn't old enough to remember the Fee Splitting scandal of the 1950s.
♥  The powerful magic of the oath only applies to medical doctors, apparently.