Suicide Prevention or Torture?

Apparently, Obama feels that the forced feeding of Guantanamo inmates is preventing them from committing suicide.  The U.N. Human Rights Commission has said in the past that forced feeding is torture and violates international law. Hundreds of physicians around the world have spoken out on behalf of the World Medical Association -- in addition to the American Medical Association -- in saying that what the U.S. is doing is inhumane.

Here's the procedure we are following: We shackle the inmate's wrists and ankles to a chair, snake a tube up his nose, down the back of his throat, into his stomach, and pumps a can of Ensure inside.  This is done twice a day.

Brian Mishara, Director of the Center for Research and Intervention on Suicide and Euthanasia in the Psychology Department at the University of Quebec, has these thoughts as to whether we are preventing suicide or torturing,  "In the case of Guantánamo, intervening to save or prolong a person's life without trying to change the person's reasons for wanting to die cannot be considered suicide prevention. Suicide prevention would involve intervening to change the person's desire to die (despite his circumstances) or changing the situation that he feels is intolerable. From the news reports I have seen, those steps are both absent, and therefore the military's force-feeding does not constitute suicide prevention."

Obama and company disagree.