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76 Comments
- 35263526, on 10/10/2007, -3/+351) I'm British.
2) I don't hate the United States, I hate neocons, warmongers, and idiots like you.
3) Having actually done some research on the people held at the "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom" naval base rather than being content to parrot O'Reilly and co., I'm near certain that neither of us could honestly claim to be at all, let alone one hundred times, better human beings than some of the prisoners there. - Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -1/+28Amazing the only conviction to come out of this is punishment for actually reporting the abuse.
- 35263526, on 10/10/2007, -3/+25Yeah, I'm sure they appreciate that first class medical care after the forced feeding and ERFing.
- WaterDragon, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18They are no different from the 'Doctors' and 'Dentists' who served under Hitler, who did all sorts of bizarre experiments, or extracted the gold fillings from the teeth of people who were about to be killed.
- carpespasm, on 10/10/2007, -2/+18i don't think it matters if they're being served four course gourmet cuisine and sleep on beds of pure goose down. these people are largely being held without charge, have no rights as far as our government is concerned, and no one's doing ***** to help them, it sucks. A prison with golden handcuffs is still a damn prison.
- WaterDragon, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15...and if 98% of a people are treated well, and only 2% are being tortured....it is still a major atrocity!
It is like if they left most of your body alone, and only smashed your thumbs and little fingers with a hammer. It's not about any damn arithmetic! - RobotCitizen, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10Relevance?
- WaterDragon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10Going overseas and murdering people who are not attacking you...is no kind of 'service' to anything decent.
...but you wouldn't know about decency!
Your ignorance and evil attitude is an insult to America and to Humanity! - PATSCRU, on 10/10/2007, -6/+15Judging by the right-wing nutjob nature of most of 0megaMan's comments, i'd say that there's a good chance that his statement about his brother is a self-serving lie.
- carpespasm, on 10/10/2007, -3/+12i don't think it matters if they're being served four course gourmet cuisine and sleep on beds of pure goose down. these people are largely being held without charge, have no rights as far as our government is concerned, and no one's doing ***** to help them, it sucks. A prison with golden handcuffs is still a damn prison.
- Drizzit, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Honestly, if they're violating their oath's as doctors they should never be allowed to practice outside the military. I do not want some arse who looks the other way as a convince working on me someday. I can imagine these guys will be the type to take organs from non donors and claim the donor said otherwise.
- nick111, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Guantanamo is a propaganda own-goal.
It's a desecration of everything America is supposed to stand for. It's ineffective, expensive and unnecessary - and it's going to take decades to restore the damage that it's doing to US standing in the world.
I really don't get how all these supposed "patriots" can happily condone the damage that is being done to their country... apart from jumping to the all too obvious conclusion : they're as thick as ***** - wallyhartshorn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7You're overlooking the fact that those in Gitmo have not actually been convicted of anything. Many, MANY people had been held in Gitmo for a LONG time -- and then released. No charges, nothing. Being a detainee is not the same as being a terrorist. (What a strange term -- "detainee". That sort of implies that they're only being delayed for a bit, doesn't it? In my book, if you aren't released the same day, you're no longer "detained"; you're imprisoned.)
- Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9Mostly it's the BS surrounding how most of the detainees were "captured" in the first place. A lot came from random sweeps or (my personal favorite) being turned in by fellow Arabs as "terrorists" for reward money.
- OneHine, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8So you're complaining that inconvenient facts are "liberal" and therefore should be ignored.
It's comments like yours that give meaning to the statement "reality has a well-known liberal bias". - jlhoben, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7 Guantanamo is an affront to civilization.
- ZenMojo, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8We're not Nazis. We're just a completely separate group of sick ***** with much higher moral integrity.
- Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6What? OmegaMan is in favor of socialized medecine for Americans due to shoddy ER treatment? You hippie!
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Punctuation is fun
- jasonp55, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5The actual letter from The Lancet:
Biko to Guantanamo: 30 years of medical involvement in torture
David J Nicholl a, Trefor Jenkins b, Steven H Miles c, William Hopkins d, Adnan Siddiqui e and Frank Boulton f, on behalf of 260 other signatories
This week marks the 30th anniversary of the death of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko while being detained by South African security police. Initially, the Minister of Justice suggested Biko had died of a hunger strike; however, the inquest revealed that he had died of the consequences of head injuries sustained during police interrogation, and identified gross inadequacies in the medical treatment from the two doctors responsible for his care, including the falsification of records. The regulatory authorities failed to take firm action, and it was only grass-roots efforts by doctors that led, almost 8 years later, to Benjamin Tucker being found guilty of improper and disgraceful conduct and being struck off the medical register; Ivor Lang was found guilty of improper conduct and was given a caution and a reprimand.1
There are strong parallels between the Biko case and the ongoing role of US military doctors in Guantanamo Bay and the War on Terror. Last year,2 we suggested that the physicians in Guantanamo force-feeding hunger strikers should be referred to their professional bodies for breaching internationally accepted ethical guidelines. One of us (DJN) lodged formal complaints with the medical boards for Georgia and California as well as pointing out to the American Medical Association (AMA) that the former hospital commander at Guantanamo, John Edmondson, was a member.3 After 18 months, there had been no reply from the AMA, the Californian authorities stated that they “do not have the jurisdiction to investigate incidents that occurred on a federal facility/military base”, and the authorities in Georgia stated that the “complaint was thoroughly investigated” but “the Board concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to support prosecution”. Yet an analysis of the same affidavit by the Royal College of Physicians concluded that “in England, this would be a criminal act”.
The UK government has refused a request from the British Medical Association for a group of independent doctors to assess the detainees4 and, to date, there has been no formal report on the three alleged suicides in Guantanamo that took place in June, 2006.
The resolution of the Biko case was instrumental in the rehabilitation of the South African Medical and Dental Council and the Medical Association of South Africa, which had been subject to boycotts during the apartheid years. The failure of the US regulatory authorities to act is damaging the reputation of US military medicine. No health-care worker in the War on Terror has been charged or convicted of any significant offence despite numerous instances documented including fraudulent record keeping on detainees who have died as a result of failed interrogations.5 We suspect that the doctors in Guantanamo and elsewhere have made the same mistake as Tucker who, in 1991, in expressing remorse and seeking reinstatement, said “I had gradually lost the fearless independence…and become too closely identified with the organs of the State, especially the Police force…I have come to realise that a medical practitioner's first responsibility is the wellbeing of his patient, and that a medical practitioner cannot subordinate his patient's interest to extraneous considerations.”1
The attitude of the US medical establishment appears to be one of “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”
DJN reviewed the legal record of a detainee who had allegedly been denied medical treatment, at the request of his attorney, and wrote an affidavit pro bono based on this review. There was no compensation for this work.
References
1. McLean GR, Jenkins T. The Steve Biko affair: a case study in Medical Ethics. Dev World Bioethics 2003; 3: 77-102.
2. Nicholl DJ, Atkinson HG, Kalk J, et alon behalf of 255 other doctors. Forcefeeding and restraint of Guananamo Bay hunger strikers. Lancet 2006; 367: 811. Full Text | Full-Text PDF (39 KB) | CrossRef
3. Nicholl DJ. Guantanamo: a call for action. Good men need to do something. BMJ 2006; 332: 854-855.
4. Nicholl DJ and 119 other doctors, Doctors at Guantanamo. The Times Sept 18, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/debate/letters...
(accessed Aug 10, 2007)..
5. Miles SH. Oath betrayed: torture, medical complicity and the War on Terror. New York: Random House, 2006:. - ubergoose, on 10/10/2007, -4/+9probably because of OmegaMan's GENIUS insight in the above comments
- Eldavidos, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5The amount of right-wing crazies that blindly follow what their un-elected government tell them is pretty disturbing.
Listen, just because the government of the country you HAPPEN TO LIVE IN is accused of inhumane activities, it doesn't mean that its a lie. This sort of unquestioning obedience allowed similar atrocities to happen in the past. WAKE UP AMERICA. Please be like you used to. - rnwen2750, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6I find it offensive that you say that US citizens don't care about their country enough to do anything. Plenty of people march and openly speak out against circumstances.
- swrostmore, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5In Guantanimo, where else?
- spyd3rweb, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6how is it spam, no viagra or c|al1s is being advertised? ***** YOU bury button abusers
- lopla, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Conservative brains found defective in new study. LMFAO!!!
http://digg.com/political_opinion/Liberals_and_Conservatives_differ_neurologically - kufu91, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4is it better to kill a man or to push a man to kill himself?
- TheAkolyte, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Im sure every culture and every country has raped something in their own times.
Would you kindly get over yourself. - tunapez, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Don't kill the messenger, look for yourself at their synopsis....whole story if you have a 'script. A HIGHLY respected publication by PROFESSIONALS, not mongers.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet - OneHine, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7Self-serving lies are made up all the time, especially by people with no facts to support them. Do you really think 0megaman (judging from his earlier comments above) is above lies? Do you really think that he's the one neocon who's honest and truthful?
- grumpyrain, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Whoosh.
Omegaman's brother MAY work at Gitmo and he MAY have told him/her that the conditions are fine. He MAY be telling the truth and he MAY not have seen anything untoward and MAY be medically qualified enough to make that judgement. That is all irrelevant.
What is missing is one of the foundations of most legal systems - Habeus corpus? All prisoners (even suspected terrorists) should have a right to a fair trial within reasonable time, the right to legal representation and an appropriate appeals process. There should be checks and balances in place to make sure the system is not abused. Whilst detained and awaiting trial, the prisoners should be treated in accordance to Geneva conventions.
By all means, throw the book at them and if these guys are as bad as we are led to believe, those convictions will be achieved under a fair trial. Sadly, Gitmo is a just a kangaroo court designed to get convictions whatever the cost. As a civilised society we should reject that. We are better than the terrorists. - waxoff, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Yeah, I didn't look at the names on the other comments until later. I suppose even a jackass makes a point once in a while.
- Tabou, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Just a small correction. The detainees are Arabs turned in by Afghans as "terrorists" for reward money. Afghans are not Arab.
- waxoff, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Or at least why is this particular comment being dugg down. Otherwise Omega, WTF?
- khatarnaak, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Just to let a few people here know that this has ***** all to do with your like/dislike of therawstory. It is an article in the The Lancet - one of the most prestigious and high-impact medical journals in the world.
- spucky, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Do you have anything to add to the discussion or information on the information in the article or are you going to spuge your "sewage" sewage on every damn thread.
Most of the military personnel want to come home. You are the one smearing the military and it is people like you who continue to get them killed. You are a disgusting piece of crap who wants more people dead just so you and your failed policies can save a little embarrassment. You make me sick. - nick111, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3So what's it like being stupid? Is it like being really drunk all the time? Is it like walking around with a back-to front crash helmet on your head - you can't see where you're going, but it doesn't matter if you fall over... you're wearing a crash helmet.
If you'd read the article, you'd see that it's actually reporting on a letter from 260 doctors, professors of medicine and anti-torture activists to The Lancet.
So where's the lie exactly? - nodonoug, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Wow..when I read the MP comment, it almost sounded like he was a reasonable individual relaying a second-hand account of the conditions most prisoners face....now his other comments have put my trust in his honesty into serious question.
- 2reflective, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3While you are right about media dumbing-down and the camps, advocating death to anyone is hardly a solution.
- cpemma, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2This thread is a prime example of Americans going all defensive when foreigners dare to suggest they're not the good guys any more. "My country right or wrong" is for sheep.
- rnwen2750, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2So because I condemn the actions made by men who are following orders means I do not support the troops? When was the last time you sent the troops a holiday card? A handknitted scarf? Gourmet coffee?
- EmileVictor, on 10/10/2007, -5/+7Way to prove that the current practise of rendition by the USA is medieval.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yeah? well..well...we cook better.
- khatarnaak, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2It's an article in The Lancet - a world renowned medical journal...sooo you be the judge.
- CrazyDave303, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I wonder how many of these detainees are even "Terrorist" or supporter of "Terrorist"
- tunapez, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Your loyalty seems to have one upped your oath, you should be familiar with what a dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is. Why not use it in your response?
- AutoShovel, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Then god save us from your healing. Rule one is "do no harm", isn't it? This is for a very good reason. Doctors who get mixed up with such things end up damaged and their decision making becomes flawed. Doctors who assist in torture and execution start to see their patients as pieces of meat rather than as human beings.
- wilf_brim, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3I'm a professional in the same field. Too bad these "professionals" are talking out their ass about something about which they know nothing.
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