Posted on 03/26/2005 4:23:47 PM PST by InvisibleChurch
Saturday, March 26, 2005 6:22 p.m. EST Nazis Used Starvation to Kill
Confounding all conventional wisdom and human experience, many liberal groups and even some medical experts have argued for Terri Schiavos death.
They claim that starvation and dehydration is not painful or discomforting for her or anyone undergoing the experience.
In fact, they allege that such victims begin to experience "euphoria as the victims draw close to death. If such claims are true, we may have to rewrite the history of such notorious events as the Holocaust where starvation was the key process by which millions died and were later placed in crematoriums.
The internationally-accepted Geneva Convention which identifies starvation as a war crime also will have to be rewritten. Ditto for many statements made by reputable organizations many of them liberal, who have condemned the practice for decades.
Strange Bedfellows
Remember that statement about politics making strange bedfellows? Perhaps such is the case with liberal activists who want Terri to die from starvation and the Nazis who killed 13 million people.
As it turns out, starvation was the primary means of killing unwanted peoples.
Shortly after World War II, a U.S. congressional committee investigated the Nazi Holocaust and found that starvation was the main instrument of torture in the concentration camps.
The Committee notes the prisoners' daily diet "consisted generally of about one-half of a pound of black bread per day and a bowl of watery soup for noon and night, and not always that."
The report continued, "Notwithstanding the deliberate starvation program inflicted upon these prisoners by lack of adequate food, we found no evidence that the people of Germany as a whole were suffering from any lack of sufficient food or clothing. The contrast was so striking that the only conclusion which we could reach was that the starvation of the inmates of these camps was deliberate."
If we believe the New York Times, whats so bad about the Nazis starvation tactic?
A Times article relating to Schiavos death cited several "experts who offered the new view on starvation.
"From the data that is available, it is not a horrific thing at all," Dr. Linda Emanuel, the founder of the Education for Physicians in End-of-Life Care Project at Northwestern University, told the New York Times.
The Times also cites Dr. Sean Morrison, a professor of geriatrics and palliative care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, who insists that starvation victims "generally slip into a peaceful coma."
"It's very quiet, it's very dignified - it's very gentle," he adds.
Despite the Times desire to turn the truth upside down, the facts speak for themselves:
To begin with, there is the long standing and internationally accepted Geneva Convention: "The prohibition to starve civilians as a method of warfare is included in Article 54 of Protocol I and Article 14 of Protocol II."
According to the International Criminal Court, starvation as a means of killing is a war crime. The Court noted: "Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions' is a serious violation of the laws and customs of war [52]."
The liberal human rights organization, Amnesty International, has long cited starvation as inhumane. For example, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the group claimed that "scores of civilian deaths, predominantly among children, from starvation and injuries [were] sustained during the conflict." Amnesty International stated at the time that it "condemns in the strongest terms the use of starvation as a weapon of war against civilians as a clear and serious violation of Geneva Conventions that Laos has ratified."
Amnesty International also blasted North Korea after the UN reported that some 2 million North Koreans have died from starvation, adding that in total, 50 percent of the population doesn't have enough to eat.
Work And Progress, a liberal Web site, was critical of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan in 2001, and even claimed the U.S. military action there had caused up to 7.5 million Afghans to be threatened with starvation. The site went on to note: "Starvation is, quite literally, torturous. And the equation will seem just about right to many people: the atrocity that the U.S. government is willing to subject a handful of people to on U.S. soil, it is willing to subject millions to in some far off land."
In 2001, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., a member of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, offered up House Resolution 102, backed by three other lawmakers, noting that during World War II, the Axis Powers Germany, Italy and Japan noting that many of the 18,745 American soldiers captured during the war "were subjected to barbaric prison conditions and endured torture, starvation, and disease." The treatment of American POWs "violated international human rights principles," said the resolution.
In a report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, regarding the "Definition of the Right to Food," the commission recommended "the right to food and nutrition was a human right." The commission also advocated "the right to food in emergency situations" should "be taken into account," to "include the obligation of states to grant access to impartial humanitarian organizations to provide food aid and other humanitarian assistance."
The New York Times may well be remembered as the newspaper that was most outraged over photos of Iraqi terrorist suspects being mistreated by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison but claimed that starvation was a benevolent way to die.
Of course, if the Times is right - and starvation causes "little discomfort" - the paper may have uncovered a valuable new tool in the war on terror.
One wonders how the Old Gray Lady would react if U.S. interrogators began to starve terrorist suspects in a bid to extract information.
NO. She NEVER had a Brainscan/EEG(?) or MRI! Just heard it on tv finally. IF people knew the facts they would be outraged.
just so YOU get a clue...this isnt about abortion
To be shown and to see are two very different things. It is clear that 'Judge' Greer has been shown all the facts, but has not seen anything since he long ago decided that Terri Schaivo was in a Persistent Vegetative State (as defined by a since-revised medical definition) and that (on the basis of her husband's testimony and that of his brother and sister-in-law) that in her youth TS had evinced a wish not to be maintained by extrordinary means.
The rest of the judiciary has been defending his (and their) imperial position in our society, as the one branch of government without any check on its power.
Read the history of the case--judges both state and federal have disregarded the plain sense and legislative intent of at least three statutes (two state and one federal) to bring us to this point.
By the structure of our appelate system, only Judge Greer has had any obligation to consider facts, or rather he and the federal judge who was bidden by federal statute to consider the facts of the case de novo, and proceded to violate the plain meaning of the new federal law by refusing to hear the case.
I think we need to move to a system where the infirmed have the same right to have their case considered by a jury of their peers as have those accused of a crime, or the disputants in most civil cases.
What jury of ordinary folk would have sided with the say-so of an adulterous husband who stood to reap a financial windfall from his wife's demise? What jury of ordinary would have allowed a 'guardian' to place an infrimed woman in an environment without any sensory stimulation (no music, flowers, drawn shades), and denied medical tests to fully determine what she was capable of? What jury of ordinary folk, even if they regarded removal of a feeding tube as ending 'extrordinary medical intervention' would also forbid the succor of an infirmed woman with ice-chips, a glass of water, or jello?
We should also impeach judges who disregard the plain sense of laws for judicial misconduct, and perhaps consider abolishing a court here and there when its judges decide to make law rather than interpret it, thereby sending all of the judges on it back to private law practice. (We can't do that to the SCOTUS, but a few such actions would put them on notice, too.)
If she must die,she should be done in quickly.
It took my cousin three and a half weeks to die when her feeding tube was removed. She looked like the picture posted above. It was horrid.
This is so sad. I pray God will take vengeance on all who have participated in killing this woman. Vengeance belongs to God, he will repay.
Comparing a brain dead woman with no hope of getting better/healthier to that of a infant?...yeah...that makes sense
Anne Frank and her sister Margot were weak from starvation during their last days in their concentration camp, which made them susceptible to typhus. A witness who survived reported that the sisters were seen holding onto each other and crying. That was the last time they were seen alive.
No, it's about killing those whom we find less than human in a very painful way, that's nothing like abortion [/sarcasm]
Interesting scenario.
Is Terri Schiavo being treated in a medical facility?
Are the people who work there used to this sort of thing?
Other than a book of fiction or a movie, I never had to think about it before.
Oh, and by the way, do you thing it would be ok if I starve my retarded daughter to death? She's never going to get any better. I mean after all, she's just a useless eater. Maybe you'd like to do it for me? *sarcasm off*
You are just so incredibly vulgar. Why don't you just call it a night? You aren't doing yourself any favors.
less than human? Shes dead....we bury the dead
And the pathetic morons actually want to take that bet.
1) She's not brain dead. Stop lying.
2) "no hope of getting better/healthier". That describes just a lot of people over the age of 40, other than those just starting to get over the flu.
Agreed, they shoukd just pump her full of morphine instead of drawing it out the way they are, she cant feel anything so just giver her a OD and let her rest in peace
You must hate the world the way you post. I pity you.
Been studying melodrama at the community college have we?
Once they saw the Bush brothers wanted to spare her life, many liberal groups decided she should die.
It conformed to conventional wisdom and human experience.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.