Guantanamo: America's Future

Dear Mr. President,

In his column today (NY Times, p. A17), Joe Nocera reminds us that force-feeding Guantanamo prisoners continues. He mentions the newly revised 30-page manual the military put out a few months ago, the chair used to restrain prisoners while being force-fed, a chair which looks like an electric chair with shackles and restraints, the painful process of a plastic tube inserted through the nose to the stomach, the “dry cell” observation afterwards, the condemnation by medical associations, ethicists, lawyers and the UN, that force-feeding is against international law, that it is cruel and inhuman, that it is torture. (You, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who promised to end torture.) He also mentions that an anti-nausea drug, Reglan, which is apparently administered prisoners being force-fed “has a horrible potential side effect if given for more than three months: a disease called tardive dyskinesia, which causes twitching and other uncontrollable movements.” (The hunger strike has been going on for nearly 4 months.) Nocera also points out that you could transfer more than half the prisoners—the 86 already long cleared for release—back to their home countries without difficulty and that you could stop the torture of force-feeding in a heartbeat with a single phone call to the Pentagon. “After all, he is the commander in chief. Isn’t he?” Like the Guantanamo prisoners who have lost all hope, many Americans have also lost hope although hunger strikes are not part of our consciousness as a way to protest—yet. But despair is everywhere; in the disconnect with our government, with our institutions and with each other. America is broken, the game is rigged and the gap between rich and poor widens as the middle class continues to disappear. Our bridges are failing, our highways are crumbling, our planet is becoming uninhabitable, our food questionable. Our social fabric is in tatters, freedom and democracy is eroding and hope for a better tomorrow is fading. We’ve been hoodwinked, snookered and sold down the river by a slick-talking salesman who betrays without guilt, who kills without remorse and who lies with conviction. You promise peace and institutionalize war, you vow transparency and rule by secrecy in the name of national security, you preach freedom and practice indefinite detention, you promise the rule of law and continue your predecessor’s lawless ways. Sadly, the hunger strikers at Guantanamo may be a harbinger of the future for America.