Judge Orders Release Of Footage Showing Gitmo Prisoner Being Force-Fed AP | By Pete Yost | Posted: 10/03/2014 2:26 pm EDT Excerpts: WASHINGTON (AP)- "A federal judge on Friday ordered the public release of 28 videotapes of a hunger-striking Guantanamo Bay prisoner strike being forcibly removed from his cell and force-fed. Lawyers for the prisoner, Abu Wa'el Dhiab, have challenged his treatment as abusive. Numerous news media outlets, including The Associated Press, had asked the court on June 20 to unseal the tapes. U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler granted the news media's request, although Kessler said the tapes will remain sealed until some information on them is redacted. The material to be removed includes identifying information of everyone on the tapes except for the prisoner. She said faces other than Dhiab's will be obscured, as will voices and names. "We are very gratified by this decision, which will enable the American people to see with their own eyes the sorts of abuses that are being heaped on these peacefully hunger-striking detainees," said Dhiab's lawyer Jon Eisenberg. "Once the truth is fully brought to light, we believe these terrible practices will come to an end," Eisenberg said. On Thursday, the judge rejected a request by the Obama administration to close a hearing into Dhiab's case scheduled for Monday. Dhiab, a Syrian prisoner, has been held at the Navy-run prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since August 2002. The Obama administration has been in court for months seeking to limit the amount of information released in Dhiab's case. "The court is well aware, as the government has emphasized, that in no case involving Guantanamo Bay detainees has any court ordered disclosure of classified information over the government's opposition," Kessler wrote in a 29-page opinion ordering release of the tapes. "However - to be clear - that does not mean that in a given factual situation no court has the discretion to do so if warranted," the judge added. The former Navy commander at Guantanamo Bay, Rear Adm. Richard Butler, said in a court declaration filed in July that even though the forced cell extraction videos are lawful, humane and appropriate, they "are particularly susceptible to use as propaganda and to incite a public reaction because of their depiction of forcible ... guard interaction with detainees." The videos that also contain footage of forced-feedings could be used "to foment anti-American sentiment and inflame Muslim sensitivities as it depicts ... personnel providing medical care to a detainee while he is restrained," Butler said in the declaration. Making public a video showing a detainee receiving medical care while restrained "would exacerbate the world's perception of detainees in U.S. custody," Butler added. "Public release, in whole or in part, of videos showing forced cell extractions" or feedings would cause "serious damage to national security." In her ruling, Kessler disputed many of Butler's points. "This court viewed the initial 28 videos made by the government, and has read, re-read and carefully analyzed" the Butler declaration, which contains the government's justification for opposing disclosure of the videotapes. "The court finds - as it will now detail - that most of them are unacceptably vague, speculative, lack specificity or are just plain implausible." The government has already released substantial information relating to the feeding process, including the layout of and equipment in the feeding space. "It strains credulity to conclude that release of these videos has a substantial probability of causing the harm the government predicts," Kessler wrote. In his declaration, Butler said releasing the videos poses risk to military personnel because detainees and other enemies with such information could develop countermeasures to force-feeding tactics. The government's claim that release of the videos would lead to unspecified countermeasures is implausible," wrote the judge. 'The detainees are already familiar with the tactics used to extract them from their cells and feed them, and detailed descriptions of the procedures are publicly available on the Internet.' " read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/03/gitmo-prisoner-force-fed_n_5928610.html ...... IMO: It seems the former government attorney Rear Adm. Richard Butler overstated the case to the extreme in a written memo, allowing Judge Gladys Kessler to rule as she did in ordering the photos of forced feedings be made public to the American people. Butler said that no previous information was shared with the public, and the Judge said the numerous reasons against disclosure of the tapes were unacceptably vague, speculative, and just "plain implausible." That both the detainees and the public were aware of the forced feeding procedure and are available on the Internet, that the release of these feeding tapes would cause harm to the government strains the credulity of the Court. So after some of the names, and other information on the guards, and prisoners who receive the forced feedings are redacted, the photos will be made public to scrutinize. I think it is a start in the turnover of other photos showing beatings, torture, and killings that were every day procedure during the G.W. Bush Tenure which have been heretofore guarded meticulously from public scrutiny, and will finally be made public.
When Ray Rice was first punished by the NFL he received 2 games, after the video was released, he received an indefinite and possibly lifetime ban. Video has a shock value that words do not. Everyone who cares to know what really happened has already read the reports, this will just be pushed into the public light to enflame. Video has a way of making this situation worse, why open old wounds? This judge is either incompetent, or wants a war. The lives lost by the release of these videos are on the judge's hands.
I have a totally different take on that article. I think they're charging Obama with torture. I get that from this line: "The Obama administration has been in court for months seeking to limit the amount of information released in Dhiab's case." Why would Obama care about saving Bush's butt? No, he's trying to save his own. If true, isn't that rich??
IMO, this is about the way our legal system works. Someone files an action which is followed by discovery. Discovery Motions are made and generally heard by a judge. The judge should rule on a discovery motion based on the relevance and legality of the discovery item(s) Seems like this is little more than that. Of course there will be suspicions by both side questioning who and for what reason this is being driven and if this judge tainted. Also seems politics, at times, drive the legal system.
I agree with the OP, we should have let these people starve themselves to death. Simply lock their door and walk away if that's what they want. Return in a month to dispose of the rotting corpse. Good call Agent, we finally agree on something.
AH yes, this pathetic, hateful rot. People who think and actually post crap like this are sick pups, period.
Interfering with ones right to die, should have many different view points. IMO, keeping someone alive against their will is very similar to executing one who desires to life.
What public interest does this serve? anyone can google force feeding and see how its done. I agree that this will only build hate in the muslim world when we are trying to save these morons lives.
There is a considerable national security risk incentive in that releasing the video may help fuel terrorist recruiting efforts. Personally I think we should release the video and own up to our country's mistakes. But that's a very clear reason why the Obama Administration would want to keep these tapes sealed.
...... 1) Domestic Abuse is a national perpetual brutality foisted upon women and children...the hell with Ray Rice 2) You mean that you are willing to keep these videos secret from public scrutiny in order not to inflame anyone? Don't you think it is the government's duty to be transparent in everything in a true Democracy? This Bush/Cheney/Libby/Rice menage' Iraq thing never made it to court....it is the elephant sitting in every American's living room. The government that ordered the torture, forced feedings, deaths of prisoners not only in Guantanamo prison but many secret torture camps around the world is causing the . You cannot keep this from American citizens, or we are doomed to repeat it....Bush, Cheney, Libby, Rice should all be brought before the World Court to answer for what they have done.to the American people, the prisoners, 3) And the responsibility of the billions of lives lost in 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the 2 Bush Wars, the prisoners, Iraqi civilians, and the numerous secret torture camps.where torture, forced feedings where death was a daily occurrence should lay at the feet of the people who did it, not the American people.
...... When asked why prosecution was not an honorable solution, newly elected President Obama stated that he preferred to look to the future, rather than bring up the past. It would be difficult to try to pin it all on Obama who was a Senator at the time, and voted against the Iraq War. I believe he thought if nothing got out, the American people would forget...but we lost too many of our fine young men and women to death, injury, suicides and mental health to forget the Iraq War just as Iraqi parents lost their families in the rubble left by the G.W. Bush bombs.
You do realize this happened recently right................. this is not Bush torture as you wish it to be. A judge ruled the force feeding was ok..........
LOL at you too...........this force feeding happened on Obamas watch........... you should get your news from a real source Bush killed BILLIONS now huh? you imagination runeth wild
..... It is really pathetic when people will opt for silence rather than flush out the guilty with the truth...how u doin' way2convey?
..... Any videos collected from the Iraq War contain evidence of forced feeding and will be brought to light, President Obama has closed down other torture camps since he became president, but has done little to charge Gitmo prisoners with any crime some have been there since 2003 because no country will take them. We should send them all to Bush and Cheney's houses and not make President Obama the scapegoat for what some republican president and vp did in 2003.
What would the Muslim world say if they all starved to death? That we did it? How would we look to them then? Do you think they would believe us? Damned if we do and damned if we don't. We're better off doing it.
Why not bring them to America like Obama wants to do and then when we have to release them and no one wants them, we have to release them in our country. How about that? Is that ok with you?
Yep, remember folks; 'America does not torture'...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6LtL9lCTRA What a noxious, malodorous and lying skidmark on America's underpants that man is.
And why not, considering the laughably pathetic number of guilty verdicts to date? Only 7 (seven) of the original 779 detainees were convicted of anything. Of those remaining in detention (149), only 6 (six) face charges. http://www.hrw.org/features/guantanamo-facts-figures
Please show me the definition you are using to show that Domestic Abuse = man vs woman. That or just admit this is another Bush flamebait thread where you just push the man hating crap you usually do.
What you posted as fact, isn't. It isn't flushing out the guilty, either. What it is a boldfaced lie and a damn twisted sick one at that.
I just don't understand the big deal? He was in Gitmo and there was clearly a reason he was being force fed. (Even prisoners in the correctional facilities in America get forced fed)
How about that worthless war we fought in Vietnam and we lost over ten times as many people killed and had nothing to show for it.
