See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

there is no excuse whatsoever for collaborating in torture, particularly among members of the medical profession...

Health care workers in the U.S. military seem to have put their loyalty to the state above their duty to care for patients — and American regulatory bodies have done nothing to remedy the situation, said the letter that appeared in The Lancet [a prestigious British medical journal].

It was signed by some 260 people from 16 countries, nearly all of whom are doctors.

The letter compared the ongoing role of U.S. doctors working at Guantánamo, who have been accused of ignoring torture, to the South African doctors involved in the case of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who died while being detained by security police.

"The attitude of the U.S. medical establishment appears to be one of 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,'" the letter charged.

so, what are the docs accused of doing to provoke the rebuke...?

Guantánamo's reputation has been tarnished by hunger strikes and suicides. Detainees began refusing food at the prison in August 2005, although the number of prisoners on hunger strike has fluctuated. The forced feeding of detainees, who are strapped into restraint chairs and fed through tubes reaching down their throats, has been particularly controversial.

The letter's authors argued in The Lancet last year that the forced feeding was "degrading and unethical." Commentary published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in July called on doctors not to participate in the practice.

Military officials have described the hunger striking as a "voluntary fast" intended to draw international sympathy, and have praised the efforts of medical staff to keep the detainees alive as heroic.

the "voluntary fast" terminology is the same crap spin used to characterize detainee suicide attempts as acts of "assymetric warfare..." how have we sunk so low...?

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