Summary
Title: Guantanamo: The War on Human Rights
Author: David Rose
Publisher: New Press
ISBN: 1565849574
Pro:
• Short, engaging prose
• Draws together information from a variety of sources to provide a general overview
Con:
• Already somewhat dated
Description:
• Analysis and history of detentions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
• Argues that America has undermined many of its basic principles in the war on terror
• Explains how detentions at Guantanamo violate the rule of law and international treaty
Book Review
Government officials originally described the inmates in Guantanamo Bay as “the hardest of the hard-core” of Al Qaeda terrorists, people who would kill many Americans if they had the chance and who needed to be detained for everyone’s safety. Over time, though, it has turned out that few if any the detainees matched this description — and many were innocent of any wrongdoing.
At best, the camp at Guantanamo Bay is a morass of contradictions: designed to hold terrorists, it has imprisoned innocent people; set up by a government defined by principles of justice and the rule of law, it’s a place where no law applies and no justice conceived; created in the wake of spreading democracy in the Middle East, it contravenes the democratic principles upon which America was founded; created to protect Americans from terrorism, it and other camps like it seem to exacerbate and encourage fanatical hatred of America.
The reasons why detainees were brought to Guantanamo, what the government expects to achieve by keeping people there, and how well it is fulfilling its mission are explored in David Rose’s book Guantanamo: The War on Human Rights. As you might gather from the title, Rose is not a cheerleader for Guantanamo Bay — and for good reason. Rose’s research has uncovered actions and attitudes which must infuriate anyone who cares for civil liberties and human rights.
Defenders argue that harsh methods are necessary to combat terrorism, but there is no evidence that this is the case — and substantial evidence that it can hurt anti-terrorism efforts:
- “Thirty years ago, the United Kingdom’s use of detention without trial against the Provisional IRA in Ulster proved to be the best recruiting sergeant the terrorists ever knew, as the government’s own assessments later admitted. Although the policy was ended after less than two yeas, it led directly to the bloodiest phase of Northern Ireland’s troubles, and a period, in the mid-1970s, when the province was effectively beyond control.”
Why was Guantanamo originally chosen? Aside from the ability to keep everyone under tight military control, there was a basic reason why it was chosen over any other spot on earth: the government had legal advice that detainees here could be treated however the government wanted because no laws would apply. The American government complains about Cuba’s abuses of human rights, but America chose to detainee people on Cuba precisely because it allowed them to ignore laws on civil and human rights.
