Guantanamo Bay and National Security
Chapter One: Introduction
Introduction to the Chapter National security in the United States is more significant than ever before. With recent terrorist attacks in Europe, the Middle East, and within the United States, politicians as well as citizens have questioned how safe the country is compared to prior to the events of September 11th, 2001. The opening of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as a detention facility in 2002, serve the purpose of housing suspected terrorists and criminals that were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. These criminals included suspected member of the Islamic fundamentalist faction, the Taliban, and those thought to be responsible, members of al-Qaeda. However, throughout the nine years that it served as a detention facility, it was under extreme scrutiny, controversy, and ethical and legal dilemmas over the treatment of the prisoners.
When President Obama announced the Guantanamo Bay would close on January 22nd, 2009 and issued the executive order to promptly close the facility, it was met with mixed emotion and criticism. While, the closure of the detention facility has yet to be fulfilled, there have been hundreds of prisoners released, or transferred to their countries, and presently less than one hundred remain in the detention facility. What this research chooses to explore is, if the Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) detention facilities are closed entirely how it will impact the United States national security?
Cuba, only 400 miles from Miami Fl, is an island in the Caribbean and is renowned for its excellent climate. There are beaches for swimming, scuba diving, snorkeling, fishing, and boating opportunities. The island has it’s dark secrets as well, there is Guantanamo Bay, a prison nearby, where the detainee’s right are stripped away and they are beaten daily. Closing Guantanamo Bay has been a big debate over the past few years. President Although what they are doing is technically legal, it is still unconstitutional on U.S. soil. Obama promised us that during his term he would close it. Obama has said that "Keeping this facility open is contrary to our values. It undermines our standing in the world. It is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law." Guantanamo Bay is an embarrassment to our country and has been since it opened. The camp was repeatedly criticized by human rights and humanitarian organizations all around—including Amnesty international, Human Rights Watch, and the International committee of the Red Cross—as well as by the European Union and the Organization of American States(OAS), for alleged human rights violations, including the use of various forms of torture during interrogations. We need to close Guantanamo Bay because it costs a lot of money to keep it open, it is unconstitutional, and we can contain the prisoners in the U.S.
Hamdi et al. v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al. could prove the undoing of the Bush administration’s legal defense of the abuses at Guantanamo Bay. In this case, four British citizens are suing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as well as a host of Army and Air Force Generals and policy apparatchiks for allegedly authorizing the use of torture in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. The four were captured in Afghanistan, either by Americans or America’s ally, the Northern Alliance, and transported to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where they were held for over two years. Their status there was not as enemy combatant, which guaranteed them certain protections under the Geneva Convention, but rather as
Did you know, as American taxpayers, maintaining the prison at Guantánamo has costed $4.8 billion since it had opened in 2002? Well this al back to “ The Global War on Terror” under the Bush administration that,. response to the 9/11 attacks, targeted middle eastern regions of the world;, collecting men from left to right by heavily armed American soldiers. Unfortunately, some of them are destined to pay for another man’s crime by serving time in Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo Bay, located within a naval base in Cuba, became a facility purposed to hold alleged enemy combatants and terrorists alike. Because of later documented injustices reported against detainees, it gained negative spotlight by both citizens and world leaders. When Obama succeeded in presidency, closing the facility became one of his priorities for a number of reasons.
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba houses some of the most dangerous people. The people being held have ranged in committing various crimes. What makes Guantanamo Bay well known is how the time period a detainee has spent in prison without a trial. While in prison for an extensive period of time, a detainee is bound to receive discipline for not following the guards. There are often a variety of different methods that the guards use to teach discipline to the detainees. All who follow Guantanamo Bay as institution often criticizes the measures taken. What makes Guantanamo Bay an ironic place to start this journey is because Guantanamo Bay is at the center of attention to a very important, controversial law passed in 2006. The controversial law was
The United States military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been occupied by over 700 Middle Eastern men suspected of terrorism since 2002. It has been home to some of the most heinous suspected terrorist to ever walk on this Earth. What to do with this military base, has been a major source of conflict within our nation and with other nations for over a decade, with no real reasoning substantial enough to close the base. Although our government has come forward and declared that interrogation methods used on some of the detainees has been unethical and has broken some United States laws. But closing Guantanamo Bay is a task that should not be pursued, because it causes more problems to our countries people, our diplomatic and
Our nation’s actions toward seeking justice and preventing any attacks of this scale from happening again came with quick notion, “Less than a week later (following the 9/11 attacks), Congress authorized the President to use military force ‘against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks,” (Yin). In essence, Congress gave the president the ability to use the military to seek out and detain terrorists responsible for 9/11, showing our country’s dedication to ending these attacks and those who initiated them for good. Overall, this tragic event revealed the need for stricter defense regulations against non-state actors (terrorists). For this reason, 9/11 was the catalyst for the beginning of the War on Terror and, consequently, the opening of Guantanamo Bay.
On September 11, 2001, the world as Americans where familiar with changed forever. As one of the world’s great super power nations Americans were sure that no one would ever raise a hand against them. Even before that day attacks made on American were small, or thwarted, or the culprits were quickly named and brought to justice. The terrorists who attacked American that day changed the game book, changed the way Americans felt about their safety and began a war that has no real face, no easily identifiable agenda, and no quick ending in sight. To protect the country President George W. Bush signed into law the Patriot Act and help create the office of Homeland Security. Guantanamo Bay was deemed the place to hold those arrested for
Every person has the right to undergo a judicial hearing to avoid illegal detention. However, if that person poses threat to the society and the state, there are instances that the said right is overseen where these types of people are quickly detained after capturing. The writ of Habeas Corpus gives the rights to the captured people to undergo judicial trial. But there is also an article in the U.S. Constitution that states that the writ of Habeas Corpus can only be lifted if the people being questioned in involved in a rebellion or pose a threat to the safety of the public. That is why the administration of the previous U.S. President Bush detained all of the people whom they tagged as terrorist and were captured in the war on Afghanistan in 2001. The question now is to what extend must be the actions of an individual in order to undergo proper trial hearing or to just be put in imprisonment without any hearings or trials done? The purpose of this paper is to review issues within Habeas Corpus and GITMO, discuss how policies changing over time affect the dynamic state of United States, and how these changes can make a big impact to the future law making and practice of the country that is why this issue must be evaluated and examined.
This paper will explore three separate cases, providing facts about the apprehension and detention of enemy combatants, assessing the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and will explain whether any rights were denied or granted in contrast with each other. Anyone engaging in aggressive or hostile behavior towards a country is held to several political and constitutional legalities as explored in the three following cases.
The Supreme Court firmly staked out its territory in the war against terrorism and decided on June 28, 2004. They viewed collectively, the decisions represent a new better and forcible rejection of the administrations assertion that it can detain enemy combatants without any meaningful judicial review. Viewed historically, they’d represented a significant step forward from the court traditional response of near- total deference. “The court sent a clear message that judges cannot and should not abdicate their responsibility to inforce the rule of law merely”, but to the president’s wartime judgments. Because the government relies on the vocabulary of war and invokes the menace of terrorism.
This article will discuss the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA's) Enhanced Interrogation Program that was created following the attacks of 9/11. This program violated not only domestic law but international law as well. First introduced will be the reasons for the initiation of the CIA’s interrogation program. Then this article will explain the “ticking time bomb” philosophical argument that validates torture. Next, It will discuss the violation of the constitutions eight amendment and the Geneva Conventions international rules that prohibit torture. Lastly, the effectiveness of the program will be analyzed to examine if the pain and infliction that the program caused were of any use to prevent imminent terror attacks.
In Part Three, Cole and Dempsey focus on the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, a forerunner to the Patriot Act that helped to establish the legal framework for today’s domestic war on terror. The act allows the State Department to designate Foreign Terrorist Organizations in a process that is highly politicized and lacking sufficient objective criteria. It also makes it possible for government prosecutors to bring cases against individuals without proof that they have engaged in terrorism, aided or abetted terrorists, or planned to commit terrorism. Under the 1996 act, the government may freeze the assets of designated terrorist groups and use secret witnesses against those suspected of having links to terrorists.
Guantanamo Bay, though started with good intentions, only highlights America’s negative side. Marine Major General Michael Lehnert, who played a significant role in the opening of Guantanamo, has drastically changed his opinion and said that it, “Validates every negative perception of the U.S.” (Sutton 1). One example of this occurred in 2006, when President Bush justified the use of “physical coercion” (torture) during interrogations (Fetini 1). Some of these torture methods include isolation, beatings, sleep deprivation, and general abuse. Other tactics such as disrespect for Islamic symbols or sexual provocation are used to encourage stress in detainees (Bloche 1). These immoral methods led to an international outcry. It was later remarked that the Cuban territory upon which Guantanamo is located is being used as a “concentration camp” of sorts (Fetini 1). Guantanamo and its unethical values are being recognized by nations around the world, displaying America in a bad light.
Guantanamo Bay is a detention camp located in the southern tip of Cuba operated by the U.S. military. The detention facility was created after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, when Americans felt threaten by the uncertainty of terrorism. President Bush established the detention facility to campaign the elimination of terrorism and their support networks. Guantanamo Bay was established to hold individuals’ captive during military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ever since Guantanamo Bay has been under a storm of controversy whether it should be closed or stayed open. Whether it closes or stay open, it is evident that action must be taken to improve human right to the detainees. On his second day in office President
After the events of September 11, 2001, the United States had a unique dilemma. America was engaged in what would be called a “War on Terror”. This new conflict was unlike any in American history. Previously, in the context of war the United States had always fought a nation or group that had defined boundaries as to where they resided. This new conflict went away from these rules of the past. Terrorist groups were not bound to a region, but were instead united by an ideal. September 11 marked the first time in which terrorism would rise to the forefront of the nation’s agenda. This emergent wave of conflict required a different strategy than the those of the past because of the unorthodox nature of the opponent. One of the major innovations fostered by the “War on Terror” was the expansion of torture. The dramatic rise in terrorism sparked the unethical advancement of interrogation techniques in order to more effectively acquire information. The emergence of the “War on Terror” required government officials acquire intelligence in a new way thus spawning the emergence of “enhanced interrogation” methods, however, the morality of these techniques would come into question as they were revealed to the public.