Arguments Against Guantanamo Bay

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The forty-five square miles stretch of earth and sea at the southeastern tip of Cuba—Guantanamo Bay—has served a controversial role in history. Guantanamo Bay primarily served as a strategic logistics base for the U.S. Navy’s Atlantic Fleet to support Caribbean counter-drug operations and process undocumented aliens for US refugee repatriation/status to their host country but since 2002, it has also served to detain and interrogate international terrorist suspects (Schwab). (Previous Thesis) The United States’ decision to maintain a prison camp in Guantanamo Bay was mainly justified by the ___threat?? along with the ???? although the treatment of prisoners can be classified as torture. Although the military claims that the treatment of prisoners …show more content…
(classified as torture) BTS—(one side) the treatment is classified as torture and shouldn’t be allowed b/c it violates the established Conventions (other side). Former Vice President Dick Cheney defended the prison, remarking that the detainees were treated by the U.S. better than they could expect “by virtually any other government on the face of the earth” (Bumiller). General Jay W. Hood, the top commander of the camp stated in an interview that in Guantanamo, there was “no demonstrated or consistent trends of abuse” and “certainly nothing rising to the level of torture” while Colonel Mike Bumgarner noted that the guards “treat the detainees humanely” (Mayer). Hood’s and Bumgarner’s response show their belief that the treatment of prisoners is justified. According to the UN Convention Against Torture, torture refers to “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person...” (UN) In Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. used forms of

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