Hayden and “Rectal Hydration”
Via The Hill: Ex-CIA director defends rectal rehydration
“These were medical procedures,” Hayden said during a tense interview on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” He added that the method was used because detainees were dehydrated, and that giving them intravenous fluids with needles would be dangerous.
”I’m not a doctor,” he said. “What I am told is that this is one of the ways that the body is rehydrated.”
From page 144 of the report:
After approximately three weeks, the CIA developed a more aggressive treatment regimen “without unnecessary conversation.”Majid Khan was then subjected to involuntary rectal feeding and rectal hydration, which included two bottles of Ensure. Later that same day, Majid Khan’s “lunch tray,” consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins, was “pureed” and rectally infused. Additional sessions of rectal feeding and hydration followed.
While I am not that kind of doctor, I am pretty sure that what is described above in bold does not amount to any kind of legitimate medical option. Indeed, in general the very idea of “involuntary rectal feeding” cannot possibly be an appropriate action unless, of course, the goal was to abuse a detainee to the point of creating pliancy and hopefully garnering information from that detainee. In a word : torture. It does not sound, at all, like a “medical procedure.”
Beyond that, I am not sure that pureeing dinner is the most effective process here, either.
According to The Hill, this technique was used on five detainees.
Also: if it is possible to subdue a person to the point that they can be treated rectally, I am pretty sure it is possible to subdue them to the point that an IV could be used.
Hayden’s detached, dismissive approach to all of this is disgusting. And, again, simply a straight-forward defense of torture.
Mengele used “medical procedures” too…
@Yolo Contendere: Indeed. That was my first thought upon reading that quote and then I forgot to mention it when writing the post.
Hayden suffers from optical rectalitis. He’d better cancel any plans he had to travel outside the U.S.
Ockham’s razor:
Mr. Hayden is ok with involuntary rectal insertions because he is ok with involuntary rectal insertions. I do wish he would not use my country’s safety and honor as a pretext for his kink.
maybe he was a little kinky?!
Practically every word out of Hayden’s mouth is some kind of lie. He said this (link):
There is no rectal feeding or rectal hydration “at Guantanamo.” Another lie from a serial liar.
No doubt this was following through on a threat to “eat your food or we’ll stuff it up your ass.”
And here’s some more misinformation from Hayden. He said this (link):
He said “e-mail” three times. No, it was not an “e-mail.” The relevant statement was made in an interview with the CIA IG. From the report (pdf; scroll to p. 108 in your pdf reader):
A footnote indicates that the source of this is an interview, “Office of the Inspector General, 27 March 2003.” A statement in an interview with CIA IG has a lot more weight than “one half-assed unwarranted comment in one e-mail.” Hayden’s “don’t you think they should have talked to someone” is an attempt to suggest that Chief of Interrogations was never interviewed and never had a chance to explain himself. But he was interviewed, and he did explain himself, and “total control over the detainee” is what he chose to say.
Tapper said this:
That’s Tapper the hack stupidly regurgitating a bogus GOP talking point. He forgot to mention that the interviews didn’t need to be done again because they had already been done. Link:
PDF:
And if she had done the interviews over again, I’m sure there would be lots of complaints about how it was wrong for her to do them over again. Heads you win, tails I lose.
Medical procedure? No one does this in medicine. If we need to feed anyone, we do it through an NG tube. Hayden should know this since there have been objections to forced NG tube feedings of Gitmo prisoners on hunger strike.
There was a South Park episode in 2002 built around people eating things by sticking them up their rectums.
Now we know where the CIA is getting their ideas.
And here’s another example of Hayden’s dishonesty, since they are so easy to find. He said this (link, scroll to 3:04 in the video):
No, that’s not what KSM said. What that ICRC report actually says is this (link):
Hayden himself told Congress that a waterboard “session” could last up to two hours. He also told Congress that “one application cannot exceed 40 seconds.” Do the math. Five two-hour “sessions” is enough time for 900 waterboard ‘applications.’ So the ICRC phrase “five different sessions” tells us very little about the number of instances of waterboarding, and it doesn’t tell us that KSM was waterboarded only five “times.”
Where are all the torture enabler today?
Is our entire government made up at best of sociopaths and in some cases outright psychopaths?
Makes you wonder what kind of security a lot of the members of the old administration have to avoid being “Eichmanned” in front of an independent court.
@Ron Beasley:
When performance is judged solely based on results, a more ruthless person will do better than a less ruthless person, because the more ruthless person will be able to accomplish anything the less ruthless person can, plus some additional things the less ruthless person simply refuses to do.
This leads to the more ruthless person being seen as more effective, and over time the organization will end up entirely populated with the most ruthless people in all of the leadership positions.
Not just torture, but rape as well.
@anjin-san:
I dunno, Joyner’s had a light posting schedule.
Above I explained how Jake Tapper is promoting a bogus GOP talking point. This brings us to the supposed centrist David Gergen. Link:
This is a lie. The report is indeed “based upon” many interviews “with CIA agents.” Those “millions of documents” include transcripts of interviews. Those interviews were done by CIA IG. Feinstein used those interviews. It is one thing to say Feinstein did not do those interviews herself. It is another to suggest that such interviews never happened. Tapper, Gergen and many others are doing the latter.
ABC’s Jonathan Karl is another right-wing hack masquerading as a journalist. Link:
And just as with Tapper and Gergen, there is no mention of the fact that the interviews had already been done, and were used. That darn liberal media.
@jukeboxgrad: I don’t know what your problem is with the media. They are just complaining that the CIA was never given the chance to obfuscate, prevaricate, and well, just outright lie.
Well, it’s even worse than that. “Never given the chance” isn’t even true. They’re complaining that Feinstein didn’t give them an extra chance to do that, and they’re concealing the fact that she didn’t need to do so because CIA IG had already done so.
they were, in fact, medical procedures, specifically linked to hunger strikes being staged by those the procedure was administered to.
@Eric Florack: Ah yes, medical necessity.
And certainly the choice to use this technique and not an IV for rehydration or an NG tube for forced feeding is just a coin flip (nothing at all degrading or violative about anal feeding).
This does not even get into the issue of whether force feeding a hunger striking detainee is acceptable or not.
Choosing the anal route is hardly just some dispassionate medical option.
I really never want to hear you talk about limited government or the tyranny of taxes and the like ever again.
Fiction, as usual. Link:
Link:
Link:
Your turn. Cite your medical authority who claims that rectal feeding is ever a legitimate “medical procedure.”
Yup.
See, a government that tries to enforce court orders against a scofflaw rancher is a government that is too powerful and a threat to liberty. True patriots must defend Cliven Bundy’s right to be a freeloader. Likewise for the right to not photograph a gay wedding, and the right to not pay for health insurance that covers contraception. Stand up for freedom from government tyranny! On the other hand, a government with the power to torture (and then cover it up) is not too powerful and not a threat to liberty.
‘Conservative’ rhetoric has so many contradictions that even the contradictions have contradictions.
(Apologies to those who have already heard this from me.)
This morning Martha Raddatz interviewed Hayden on ABC’s This Week. Does she ask him to defend his absurd claim that rectal feeding is “a medical procedure?” Nope, the subject isn’t mentioned. Link. That darn liberal media again.
@Steven L. Taylor:
::stands and claps::
That was beautiful.
In Bithead’s defense, his head is up his ass so often he’s lost the ability to distinguish one orifice from the other.
@anjin-san:
Asked and answered. Out from under the slimiest rock in the creepiest corner of OTB comes bithead.
I also presume, therefore, that Florack and his allies would not mind one bit of US citizens were anally fed should they find themselves in the custody of a foreign power?
This one is going out to florack and all the other torture fanboys…
@jukeboxgrad:
Looks like I was right…
@Eric Florack:
Florack is into anal rape.
@Eric Florack:
Well, Eric, looks like you’ve gone and totally disgusted Steven, now. Good job, buddy.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Limited Goverment and the tyranny of taxes are abstractions that mean nothing.
You can bet that Florack isn’t about to waive his SS or Medicare benefits.
And so it is too with anti- choice laws and torture.
“While I am not that kind of doctor, I am pretty sure that what is described above in bold does not amount to any kind of legitimate medical option.”
‘Legitimate’ is key; I’m willing to bet that a torture doctor did sign off on this.
I’ll file this with ‘British intelligence has learned……’