Humane treatment for all

Talk Left has two stories up today, each of which should be headline news. Each of which would be headline news in any other administration, but it's just more of the same for this administration.

In the first story, all charges have been dropped against the US military personnel involved in the beating deaths of two Afghan detainees:

In December, 2002, Mullah Habibullah and a man named Dilawar died while being held for interrogation at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. Their deaths were ruled homicides, caused by blunt force trauma. In other words, they were beaten to death.

An investigation ensued but the military would not release the details. Subsequently it was revealed that both died while shackled to the ceiling of their cells, after repeatedly being kneed in the legs.

It is thought that one of those killed was an innocent taxi driver who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was arrested.

In the second story, it turns out that the force feeding of the detainees on hunger strike (referred to as a "voluntary fast" by Rumsfeld & Co.) in Guantanamo is extremely painful, bordering on torture:

New details have emerged of how the growing number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay are being tied down and force-fed through tubes pushed down their nasal passages into their stomachs to keep them alive. They routinely experience bleeding and nausea, according to a sworn statement by the camp's chief doctor, seen by The Observer...

It is painful.... Although 'non-narcotic pain relievers such as ibuprofen are usually sufficient, sometimes stronger drugs,' including opiates such as morphine, have had to be administered.