The force feeding torture at Guantanamo can stop–if the President wants it to
by David Atkins
The President’s defenders commonly argue that the President would close the prison at Guantanamo Bay if he could have his way and allow for civilian trials in the United States, but that Congress won’t let him. There is something to be said for that argument. But short of that, there are many issues related to Guantanamo that due fall within the direct purview of the Executive Branch. The appalling force feeding of hunger striking prisoners is one of them:
A federal judge who rejected a legal bid by a Guantanamo prisoner seeking to block his force feeding there during the Ramadan holiday is calling on President Barack Obama to confront the issue of whether the practice violates international norms.
In a ruling issued Monday (and posted here), U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler said a law passed by Congress strips her of jurisdiction over claims relating to the treatment of detainees. However, she quickly turned her attention to Obama.
“Even though this Court is obligated to dismiss the Application for lack of jurisdiction, and therefore lacks any authority to rule on Petitioner’s request, there is an individual who does have the authority to address the issue,” Kessler wrote.
The judge noted that in May, Obama declared: “Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike. . . Is that who we are? Is that something that our founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave to our children? Our sense of justice is stronger than that.”
Kessler said a resolution to the force feeding situation is within the president’s reach.
“Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution provides that ‘[t]he President shall be the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States….’ It would seem to follow, therefore, that the President of the United States, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority—and power—to directly address the issue of force-feeding of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay,” she wrote.
The President can, in fact, step in to stop this. Will he? And if not, how are we to judge the sincerity of his other claims about the shameful legal and moral black hole that is Gitmo?
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