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History of guantanamo bay essay
Guantanamo Bay and human rights abuses
Guantanamo Bay and human rights abuses
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The “War on Terror” that began days after the September 11th attacks was declared by President George W. Bush and has continued under President Barack Obama. President Bush wanted to restore the security of the United States. Many of the policies he enacted, while controversial, are still used by the current administration. One of these policies was the operation of the Guantanamo Bay detention center. While it has had far reaching domestic effects it is still a foreign policy issue by nature. The prisoners that have been held in Guantanamo come from all over the world, including Algeria, China, and Pakistan. The governments of these countries and many others are interested in seeing Guantanamo Bay emptied and shut down, either because they have citizens who are being held there or because of the human rights’ abuses that have been perpetrated there (these abuses were standard policy at this facility in particular, separating it from any other with a similar purpose). This essay will look at the history and respective policies of the Bush and Obama administrations concerning Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and the effects those policies have had on U.S. foreign policy.
The Guantanamo facility came into being as a result of the United States’ military operation in Afghanistan and the capture of suspected terrorists that occurred during that time. On January 11, 2002 the first prisoners from Afghanistan arrived at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba, under the orders of President George W. Bush. Throughout the next several weeks the number of detainees at Guantanamo reached 600 (Dahlstrom, 2003, 674). According to the Bush Administration only the “worst of the worst” were to be housed in this new offshore prison. However, it was soon esta...
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...o the actions of both presidents and may never be able to recover. In reality, the anti-American sentiment that has been created because of Guantanamo has made the U.S. less secure that it was before it was created.
Works Cited
Dahlstrom, K. (2003). The Executive Policy Towards Detention and Trial of Foreign Citizens at Guantanamo Bay. Berkeley Journal Of International Law, 21(3), 662
Daskal, Jennifer. (2007). How to Close Guantanamo. World Policy Journal. 29-37.
McCrisken, Trevor. (2011) Ten Years on: Obama’s War on Terrorism in Rhetoric and Practice. International Affairs 87:4. 781-801.
Roth, K. (2010). Empty Promises? Obama’s Hesitant Embrace of Human Rights. (United States President Barack Obama). Foreign Affairs, (2).
Tung, Y. (2011). “Anything But Bush?”: The Obama Administration and Guantanamo Bay. Harvard Journal Of Law & Public Policy, 34(2), 453-492.
Jeffrey David Simon, The Terrorist Trap: America's Experience with Terrorism, 2nd ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001), 188-89.
Host: On September the 11th 2001, the notorious terror organisation known as Al-Qaeda struck at the very heart of the United States. The death count was approximately 3,000; a nation was left in panic. To this day, counterterrorism experts and historians alike regard the event surrounding 9/11 as a turning point in US foreign relations. Outraged and fearful of radical terrorism from the middle-east, President Bush declared that in 2001 that it was a matter of freedoms; that “our very freedom has come under attack”. In his eyes, America was simply targeted because of its democratic and western values (CNN News, 2001). In the 14 years following this pivotal declaration, an aggressive, pre-emptive approach to terrorism replaced the traditional
The United States embargo of Cuba has its roots planted in 1960, 53 years ago, when “the United States Congress authorized President Eisenhower to cut off the yearly quota of sugar to be imported from Cuba under the Sugar act of 1948… by 95 percent” (Hass 1998, 37). This was done in response to a growing number of anti-American developments during the height of the cold war, including the “expropriation of United States-owned properties on the island… [and] the Soviet Union [agreeing] to purchase sugar from Cuba and to supply Cuba with crude oil” (Hass 1998, 37). Bad sentiments continued to pile up as Cuba imposed restrictions on the United States Embassy and especially when, after the United States “officially broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba, and travel by United States citizens to Cuba was forbidden ... Castro openly proclaimed his revolution to be ‘socialist’” (Hass 1998, 38). The day after this, the Bay of Pigs invasion occurred, but it failed in its job to topple Castro (Hass 1998, 38). Left with no diplomatic options and a failed military attempt, the United States decided that the only way to end Castro’s socialist regime was to sever all ties, and from 1961 to 1996, a series of acts were passed prohibiting the majority of trade and interaction with Cuba. (Hass 1998, 38).
US forces were already involved in Vietnam when Lyndon Johnson engineered the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964, and George Bush Senior agreed in a two-day Senate debate on US intervention in the Persian Gulf, but George W. Bush has surpassed his predecessors in the assumption of imperial powers--most obviously, perhaps, in his tendency to conflate America's war against terrorism with his own existential destiny. "I will not forget this wound to our country," he told the nation shortly after September 11. "I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people." In assuming this pivotal role, moreover, Bush has made it clear that he will allow no boundaries not even on his exercise of national power. The president made the arbitrary decision to designate as a foreign “enemy combatant” Some Americans are being held incommunicado in a military brig without due process of law and without charges... in suspect of being related to al-Qaeda and possessing a dirty bomb[2].
26. Glover Julian, “Guantanamo piled lie upon lie through the momentum of its own existence” in The Guardian, April 25, 2011
September 11, 2001 was one of the most devastating and horrific events in the United States history. Americans feeling of a secure nation had been broken. Over 3,000 people and more than 400 police officers and firefighters were killed during the attacks on The World Trade Center and the Pentagon; in New York City and Washington, D.C. Today the term terrorism is known as the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives (Birzer, Roberson). This term was clearly not defined for the United States for we had partial knowledge and experience with terrorist attacks; until the day September 11, 2001. At that time, President George W. Bush, stated over a televised address from the Oval Office, “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.” President Bush stood by this statement for the United States was about to retaliate and change the face of the criminal justice system for terrorism.
Harris, H. (2017, March). The Prison Dilemma: Ending America's Incarceration Epidemic. Foreign Affairs, pp. 118-129.
A Writ of Habeas Corpus is an authoritative order forcing governments to provide the “body” of the detainee in which the legality of their detention and individual liberties will be challenged. Historically associated with civil liberty violation and the injustice of illegally detaining potentially enemies of the state, jurisdictional issues regarding their detaining location have made justice difficult to administer and deliver. Detaining enemies for their participation, involvement, and/or ties to threats of terror towards the United States will result the confinement of combatants, as solidified by the US Constitution, however, to what extent will they be forced to stay?. Residents of Guantanamo Bay are just; enemies of the state, accused individual that have been arrested and detain with minimal civil human rights to our jurisdictional due process that we American’s hold dear; with only a Writ of Habeas Corpus as their life line to legality and freedom. Although controversial in its conception and implementation by US presidential administration, judiciary members have cordially interpreted cases of questionable detention and the legality of doing so. It is truly unfortunate when individuals are tossed into confinement illegally with no help and/or the promise of their restorative freedoms (ACLU, 2014).
Response to terrorism. FreeRepublic, LLC, 10 Febuary 2001. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/537799/posts.
The book’s title, with its dry allusion to the separation of powers, does not do it justice. “Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power” represents the best account yet of what Mr. Margulies calls “a human rights debacle that will eventually take its place alongside other wartime misadventures, including the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts during World War I, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War.”
Roberts, M. R. (2011, September 08). "A broad terrorism plan". American City & County, Retrieved from http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.
BENAC, N. (2011). National security: Ten years after september 11 attacks, u.s. is safe but not
On September 11, 2001, this country was under attack and thousands of Americans died at the hands of terrorists. This action caused the U.S. Military to invade Iraq because of the idea that this country was involved in harboring terrorist and were believed to have weapons of mass destruction. This was an executive order that came down from our government, for us to go in and attack Iraq while searching for those who were responsible for the death of American lives. This war brought in many prisoners whom were part of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, whom the military took into custody many of its lower level members to get tips in capturing higher level members. During the detainees stay at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, many of these prisoners
VonHofer, H. and R. Marvin. Imprisonment Today and Tomorrow: International perspectives. The Hague, The Neatherlands: Kluwer Law International, 2001. Print.
On September 11, 2001, the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon changed the mindset and the opinion of nearly every American on the one of the most vital issues in the 21st century: terrorism (Hoffman 2). Before one can begin to analyze how the United States should combat such a perverse method of political change, one must first begin to understand what terrorism is, where it is derived from, and why there is terrorism. These issues are essential in America’s analysis of this phenomenon that has revolutionized its foreign policy and changed America’s stance in the world.