Guantánamo Bay and its effects on the international standing of the United States
To what extent did the operation of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp affect the United States’ international standing between 2002 and 2010?
Joe Sothcott
Introduction and Background:
The events on 9/11, and the subsequent American invasion of Afghanistan, had effects that reverberated around the globe. One such effect was that the Bush Administration discovered it needed a location to transfer captives with high intelligence value for further interrogation. On 11 January 2002, the first detainees arrived at that location: the Guantánamo Bay detainment camp.
Guantánamo was the subject of almost immediate international controversy. The territory was a perpetual lease from Cuba outside of the US borders. This meant that US laws did not apply at Guantánamo, and the Bush Administration took advantage of this by removing the right of detainees to bring their cases before US courts as well using enhanced interrogation techniques, which would have been restricted under US law (Fogarty, 2005, p. 3).
This webpage assesses how these two most notable aspects of the controversy surrounding Guantánamo Bay affected the international standing of the United States between 2002 and 2010. It makes use of digital elements not possible in traditional scholarship to illustrate the globality of Guantánamo Bay and its ramifications. It also presents a counterview, which suggests that the effects of Guantánamo Bay on the United States’ international standing have been greatly exaggerated.
The events on 9/11, and the subsequent American invasion of Afghanistan, had effects that reverberated around the globe. One such effect was that the Bush Administration discovered it needed a location to transfer captives with high intelligence value for further interrogation. On 11 January 2002, the first detainees arrived at that location: the Guantánamo Bay detainment camp.
Guantánamo was the subject of almost immediate international controversy. The territory was a perpetual lease from Cuba outside of the US borders. This meant that US laws did not apply at Guantánamo, and the Bush Administration took advantage of this by removing the right of detainees to bring their cases before US courts as well using enhanced interrogation techniques, which would have been restricted under US law (Fogarty, 2005, p. 3).
This webpage assesses how these two most notable aspects of the controversy surrounding Guantánamo Bay affected the international standing of the United States between 2002 and 2010. It makes use of digital elements not possible in traditional scholarship to illustrate the globality of Guantánamo Bay and its ramifications. It also presents a counterview, which suggests that the effects of Guantánamo Bay on the United States’ international standing have been greatly exaggerated.
An interactive chart displaying the Countries of Citizenship for Guantánamo Bay Detainees, revealing a genuinely global issue (note: Israel has been used for the Palestinian detainees, and Myanmar for the stateless Rohingya detainee due to the lack of options for these states within the Google software that has been used).
Source: The Guantánamo Docket (New York Times)/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/Guantánamo-bay-detainees.html
Source: The Guantánamo Docket (New York Times)/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/Guantánamo-bay-detainees.html
The removal of detainee rights to question in US courts the legality of their detention
Under the Geneva conventions, prisoners of war (POWs) are entitled to a number of rights, including the right to challenge their detainment in court. This posed an issue for the Bush administration, which feared that lengthy legal actions could interfere with the war in Afghanistan. As such, whilst Bush “acknowledged the existence of international humanitarian laws”, he “determined that the Geneva Conventions only applied to states and not to al Qaeda as a terrorist organisation” (Birdsall, 2010, p. 686). Therefore, those fighting on behalf of al Qaeda were not entitled to rights under the Geneva Conventions. Nor were Taliban detainees. Despite Afghanistan—and by extension, the Taliban—being party to the Geneva Conventions, Bush argued that “the Taliban [had] failed to meet its treaty obligations for lawful fighting” and were, therefore, unlawful combatants, which did not qualify as POWS (Birdsall, 2010, p. 686).
Instead, detainees were tried by Military Commissions, a “type of US military tribunal” which had “not been used since WWII for the trial of spies, saboteurs and war criminals” (Fogarty, 2005, p. 6). The benefit of these commissions was that Bush Administration was able to set all the rules and standards of the Commissions, including setting a far lower standard of evidence that was admissible (Fogarty, 2005, p. 8). This sparked controversy even in the United Kingdom, where the British government insisted that British detainees who went through the commissions had their cases reviewed by civilian courts (Fogarty, 2005, p. 8). This indicates that removing detainee rights even lowered the United Kingdom’s estimation of the United States, despite the ‘special relationship’ between the two countries.
Eventually, the US Supreme Court held that “some kind of review process had to be introduced on a statutory basis”, and the Combatant Status Review Tribunals came into force, and the necessary legislation was passed by the US congress (de Londras, 2011, pp. 617–618). Whilst this was intended to grant detainees the privilege of habeas corpus, detainee experiences of the tribunals were very different. Leaked transcripts of the tribunals reveal that detainees were dissatisfied with the tribunal process itself, viewing them as an unfair trial which left very little chance of any change to their detainment (Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10020, 2007, p. 3). Analysis of the outcomes of the hearings reveals that almost all detainees had no change to their status and remained combatants who were to be detained. The realisation of indefinite detention had profound mental and emotional effects on detainees, “who realized that nothing [they do] matters and there is no way to end, foreshorten or even know the duration of [their] incarceration” (The United States’ Compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with Respect to the Continued Detention Without Charge or Trial of Prisoners for an Undefined Duration at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility, 2006).
The ramifications of the United States’ prolonged efforts to strip detainees of their rights was to reduce its international legitimacy. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) labelled the practice as “disgraceful”, highlighting the “prolonged and indefinite detention of individuals, who have not been convicted of any crime by a competent and independent judicial authority operating under any due process of law” as particularly heinous (‘Disgraceful’ Guantánamo Bay detention facility must be closed now, say UN experts, 2021). Therefore, it is manifestly evident that the removal of detainee rights to question in US courts the legality of their detention resulted in dwindling American legitimacy within the international community.
Under the Geneva conventions, prisoners of war (POWs) are entitled to a number of rights, including the right to challenge their detainment in court. This posed an issue for the Bush administration, which feared that lengthy legal actions could interfere with the war in Afghanistan. As such, whilst Bush “acknowledged the existence of international humanitarian laws”, he “determined that the Geneva Conventions only applied to states and not to al Qaeda as a terrorist organisation” (Birdsall, 2010, p. 686). Therefore, those fighting on behalf of al Qaeda were not entitled to rights under the Geneva Conventions. Nor were Taliban detainees. Despite Afghanistan—and by extension, the Taliban—being party to the Geneva Conventions, Bush argued that “the Taliban [had] failed to meet its treaty obligations for lawful fighting” and were, therefore, unlawful combatants, which did not qualify as POWS (Birdsall, 2010, p. 686).
Instead, detainees were tried by Military Commissions, a “type of US military tribunal” which had “not been used since WWII for the trial of spies, saboteurs and war criminals” (Fogarty, 2005, p. 6). The benefit of these commissions was that Bush Administration was able to set all the rules and standards of the Commissions, including setting a far lower standard of evidence that was admissible (Fogarty, 2005, p. 8). This sparked controversy even in the United Kingdom, where the British government insisted that British detainees who went through the commissions had their cases reviewed by civilian courts (Fogarty, 2005, p. 8). This indicates that removing detainee rights even lowered the United Kingdom’s estimation of the United States, despite the ‘special relationship’ between the two countries.
Eventually, the US Supreme Court held that “some kind of review process had to be introduced on a statutory basis”, and the Combatant Status Review Tribunals came into force, and the necessary legislation was passed by the US congress (de Londras, 2011, pp. 617–618). Whilst this was intended to grant detainees the privilege of habeas corpus, detainee experiences of the tribunals were very different. Leaked transcripts of the tribunals reveal that detainees were dissatisfied with the tribunal process itself, viewing them as an unfair trial which left very little chance of any change to their detainment (Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10020, 2007, p. 3). Analysis of the outcomes of the hearings reveals that almost all detainees had no change to their status and remained combatants who were to be detained. The realisation of indefinite detention had profound mental and emotional effects on detainees, “who realized that nothing [they do] matters and there is no way to end, foreshorten or even know the duration of [their] incarceration” (The United States’ Compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with Respect to the Continued Detention Without Charge or Trial of Prisoners for an Undefined Duration at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility, 2006).
The ramifications of the United States’ prolonged efforts to strip detainees of their rights was to reduce its international legitimacy. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) labelled the practice as “disgraceful”, highlighting the “prolonged and indefinite detention of individuals, who have not been convicted of any crime by a competent and independent judicial authority operating under any due process of law” as particularly heinous (‘Disgraceful’ Guantánamo Bay detention facility must be closed now, say UN experts, 2021). Therefore, it is manifestly evident that the removal of detainee rights to question in US courts the legality of their detention resulted in dwindling American legitimacy within the international community.
The use of enhanced interrogation techniques and torture
The second key issue regards the use of enhanced interrogation techniques at Guantánamo Bay. In August 2002, the US Justice Department narrowed its definition of torture” stating in a leaked memorandum that “physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture… it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g. lasting for months or even years” (Bybee, 2002, p. 1). This allowed the United States to utilise interrogation techniques tantamount to torture, despite having ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture which previously established the definition of torture as much broader (Birdsall, 2010, p. 689).
These techniques, and their compliance with the US federal prohibition on torture, are discussed in a later memorandum sent to the then CIA general counsel John A. Rizzo. The techniques included pushing detainees into a wall, forced nudity, confinement in cramped spaces, prolonged standing in stress positions, sleep deprivation and waterboarding (where water is poured over a detainee’s face, which is covered by a cloth to simulate the sensation of drowning) (Bradbury, 2005). Later, the forced feeding of mentally competent hunger strikers was also permitted, where detainees were “strapped into a metal chair and immobilized” as a plastic tube was “forcibly inserted up the detainee’s nostril, down his oesophagus and into his stomach, whereby liquid nutritional supplement is forced down the tube” (The United States’ Compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with Respect to the Continued Detention Without Charge or Trial of Prisoners for an Undefined Duration at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility, 2006). This, too, is considered a form of torture detainees at Guantánamo Bay were subjected to.
Noha Aboueldahab has written powerfully on the US use of torture at Guantánamo Bay, arguing that its use sent a “message of tacit endorsement to authoritarian governments around the world that systematically torture their own citizens—often in the name of counterterrorism” (Aboueldahab, 2021). The United States had built a reputation as the leading liberal democracy in world affairs, taking ethical stances against issues such as torture. It required legitimacy when pursuing its foreign policy, but this legitimacy was compromised when it began to promote practices such as torture domestically whilst condemning it elsewhere (Epstein, 2020). An example of this was in Egypt, where Egyptian officials ignored the US urges to “end torture, improve prison conditions, and release prisoners held for exercising their free speech rights” (Epstein, 2020). Indeed, Aboueldahab’s view was supported by the OHCHR who stated that American “impunity only generates more abuses as States do not feel compelled to stop engaging in illegal practices” (Guantánamo Bay, 14 years on – Rights experts urge the US to end impunity and close the detention facility, 2016). This indicates that the operation of Guantánamo Bay significantly affected the international standing of the United States.
To more fully grasp the atrocities of what was occurring at Guantánamo Bay, the following is a series of annotated images of drawings by Abu Zubaydah, who remains detained at the camp. Zubaydah was the first person subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques and released a series of self-portraits revealing what the techniques entailed. It is clear, from these drawings, that the techniques were egregious breaches of all law surrounding torture, and it leaves little doubt that the United States’ international standing was affected by its attempted legitimisation of such techniques.
The second key issue regards the use of enhanced interrogation techniques at Guantánamo Bay. In August 2002, the US Justice Department narrowed its definition of torture” stating in a leaked memorandum that “physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture… it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g. lasting for months or even years” (Bybee, 2002, p. 1). This allowed the United States to utilise interrogation techniques tantamount to torture, despite having ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture which previously established the definition of torture as much broader (Birdsall, 2010, p. 689).
These techniques, and their compliance with the US federal prohibition on torture, are discussed in a later memorandum sent to the then CIA general counsel John A. Rizzo. The techniques included pushing detainees into a wall, forced nudity, confinement in cramped spaces, prolonged standing in stress positions, sleep deprivation and waterboarding (where water is poured over a detainee’s face, which is covered by a cloth to simulate the sensation of drowning) (Bradbury, 2005). Later, the forced feeding of mentally competent hunger strikers was also permitted, where detainees were “strapped into a metal chair and immobilized” as a plastic tube was “forcibly inserted up the detainee’s nostril, down his oesophagus and into his stomach, whereby liquid nutritional supplement is forced down the tube” (The United States’ Compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with Respect to the Continued Detention Without Charge or Trial of Prisoners for an Undefined Duration at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility, 2006). This, too, is considered a form of torture detainees at Guantánamo Bay were subjected to.
Noha Aboueldahab has written powerfully on the US use of torture at Guantánamo Bay, arguing that its use sent a “message of tacit endorsement to authoritarian governments around the world that systematically torture their own citizens—often in the name of counterterrorism” (Aboueldahab, 2021). The United States had built a reputation as the leading liberal democracy in world affairs, taking ethical stances against issues such as torture. It required legitimacy when pursuing its foreign policy, but this legitimacy was compromised when it began to promote practices such as torture domestically whilst condemning it elsewhere (Epstein, 2020). An example of this was in Egypt, where Egyptian officials ignored the US urges to “end torture, improve prison conditions, and release prisoners held for exercising their free speech rights” (Epstein, 2020). Indeed, Aboueldahab’s view was supported by the OHCHR who stated that American “impunity only generates more abuses as States do not feel compelled to stop engaging in illegal practices” (Guantánamo Bay, 14 years on – Rights experts urge the US to end impunity and close the detention facility, 2016). This indicates that the operation of Guantánamo Bay significantly affected the international standing of the United States.
To more fully grasp the atrocities of what was occurring at Guantánamo Bay, the following is a series of annotated images of drawings by Abu Zubaydah, who remains detained at the camp. Zubaydah was the first person subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques and released a series of self-portraits revealing what the techniques entailed. It is clear, from these drawings, that the techniques were egregious breaches of all law surrounding torture, and it leaves little doubt that the United States’ international standing was affected by its attempted legitimisation of such techniques.
(Rosenberg, 2019)
Counterview
There is an alternative view that Guantánamo Bay was a positive influence in the world between 2002 and 2010 and, as such, had no effect on the United States reputation. It has been argued that interrogation at Guantánamo Bay revealed intelligence regarding al Qaeda that helped prevent plans for attacking the United States and other nations (Fogarty, 2005, p. 8). This, however, has been contended, as it quickly became apparent that detainees fabricated much of the intelligence that had been gathered to avoid being further subjected to the torture of the enhanced interrogation techniques (Ochab, 2017).
Another school of thought suggests that a clean slate of sorts was presented to the United States when the Obama Administration came into power in 2008. Indeed, most detainee resettlements occurred during the Obama Administration, which initially suggests that the international community were still willing to help the United States despite its continued operation of Guantánamo Bay. The below interactive chart indicates that the United States retained partnerships that enabled the resettlement of detainees, an activity that requires international legitimacy.
There is an alternative view that Guantánamo Bay was a positive influence in the world between 2002 and 2010 and, as such, had no effect on the United States reputation. It has been argued that interrogation at Guantánamo Bay revealed intelligence regarding al Qaeda that helped prevent plans for attacking the United States and other nations (Fogarty, 2005, p. 8). This, however, has been contended, as it quickly became apparent that detainees fabricated much of the intelligence that had been gathered to avoid being further subjected to the torture of the enhanced interrogation techniques (Ochab, 2017).
Another school of thought suggests that a clean slate of sorts was presented to the United States when the Obama Administration came into power in 2008. Indeed, most detainee resettlements occurred during the Obama Administration, which initially suggests that the international community were still willing to help the United States despite its continued operation of Guantánamo Bay. The below interactive chart indicates that the United States retained partnerships that enabled the resettlement of detainees, an activity that requires international legitimacy.
An interactive chart displays the countries that Guantánamo Bay detainees have been transferred to after being released from detainment. It can also be compared to the chart depicting Guantánamo Bay detainees' citizenship to evaluate trends, patterns, and discrepancies.
Source: The Guantánamo Docket (New York Times)/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/Guantánamo-bay-detainees.html
Source: The Guantánamo Docket (New York Times)/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/Guantánamo-bay-detainees.html
However, this assessment falls short under further scrutiny. Rather than transferring detainees to fellow fully developed liberal democracies, the United States transferred 87% of detainees to countries that were not full democracies, including many authoritarian states “considered to be human rights violators themselves” (Rietveld, van Wijk and Bolhuis, 2021, p. 63). Many of these states were incentivized by the United States’ pragmatic carrot-or-stick approach to negotiation, such as Palau or Bermuda, which received up to $200m USD in development funding for resettling Uyghur detainees (Rietveld, van Wijk and Bolhuis, 2021, p. 63). As such, it is clear that it was the United States’ wallet rather than its partnerships and international standing that allowed for its Guantánamo Bay resettlement process. Therefore, it remains likely that the operation of Guantánamo Bay negatively impacted the United States’ international standing.
References
- Aboueldahab, N. (2021) ‘It’s Time for a Reckoning on Torture’, Foreign Policy, 15 September. Available at: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/Guantánamo-bay-closure-torture-biden-administration/ (Accessed: 11 December 2021).
- Birdsall, A. (2010) ‘“A monstrous failure of justice”? Guantánamo Bay and national security challenges to fundamental rights’, International Politics, 47(6), pp. 680–697.
- Bradbury, S.G. (2005) ‘Memorandum for John A. Rizzo Senior Deputy General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency’. Office of the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Available at: https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/pdf/PDF%2016%20[Bradbury%20Memo%20to%20Rizzo%20Certain%20Techniques%2010%20May%20200.pdf (Accessed: 14 December 2021).
- Bybee, J.S. (2002) ‘Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales Counsel to the President’. Office of the Assistant Attorney General. Available at: https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/pdf/PDF%2019%20[Bybee%20Memo%20to%20Gonzales%20Standards%20Interrogation%201%20Aug.pdf (Accessed: 1 February 2022).
- ‘Disgraceful’ Guantánamo Bay detention facility must be closed now, say UNexperts (2021) OHCHR. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26649&LangID=E (Accessed: 13 December 2021).
- Epstein, E. (2020) ‘Guantánamo’s Ugly Stain on US Diplomacy’, Human Rights Watch, 13 February. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/13/Guantánamos-ugly-taint-us-diplomacy (Accessed: 12 December 2021).
- Fogarty, G.P. (2005) Guantánamo Bay - Undermining the Global War on Terror. U.S. Army War College.
- Guantánamo Bay, 14 years on – Rights experts urge the US to end impunityand close the detention facility (2016) OHCHR. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16935& (Accessed: 13 December 2021).
- de Londras, F. (2011) ‘Can Counter-Terrorist Internmet Ever be Legitimate?’, Human Rights Quarterly, 33(3), pp. 593–619.
- Ochab, E. (2017) ‘Dissecting Claims That Torture Works’, Forbes, 27 February. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/02/27/dissecting-claims-that-torture-works/?sh=33cff5f924db (Accessed: 17 February 2022).
- Rietveld, G., van Wijk, J. and Bolhuis, M.P. (no date) ‘Who wants “the worst of the worst”? Rationales for and consequences of third country resettlement of Guantánamo Bay detainees’, Crime, Law and Social Change, 76.
- Rosenberg, C. (2019) ‘What the C.I.A.’s Torture Program Looked Like to the Tortured’, The New York Times, 4 December. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/us/politics/cia-torture-drawings.html.
- The United States’ Compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with Respect to the Continued Detention Without Charge or Trial of Prisoners for an Undefined Duration at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility (2006) Center for Victims of Torture.
- Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10020 (2007). Guantánamo Bay Naval Base: American Civil Liberties Union.