Guantanamo Bay Essays (Examples)

Guantanamo ay and the United States

History of Guantanamo ay, and the U.S. Involvement with Guantanamo ay

The Legality of the U.S. Occupation of Guantanamo ay

Why Do the U.S. Hold Guantanamo ay?

The Legal Position Regarding the U.S. eing in Guantanamo ay

Recent Events at Guantanamo ay: Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta

The Legal Position Regarding Events at U.S. Camps in Guantanamo ay

The Geneva Convention and Guantanamo ay

In the last two years the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo ay in Cuba has regularly been seen in the news due to the imprisonment of hundreds of Muslims held there by the United States without trial (CSC, 2003).

It is well documented that the prisoners are held in terrible conditions and they have included minors (CSC, 2003). Cuba has surprisingly come under fire from some quarters for allowing this behaviour on their land, but it is important to explain…

S. The UN claim that the torture in these camps have reaches another level, the inmates are exposed to extreme temperatures and are fed through nasal tubes, the inmates are also exposed to extreme conditions produced by light and sound. The UN also claims that the prisoners have had mental break downs many a time and they are also denied the facility of contacting an outsider, this means that they can't even hire a lawyer for their rescue. AU.S. soldier was reported to have flushed the Koran, the holy book of Muslims in the toilet, this sparked off a protest but the same got wavered and nothing came out of it. The U.S. soldiers slam the heads of the prisoners against the cell; many more unimaginable things are done by the U.S. soldiers' day in and day out. "The U.S. says interrogations are yielding useful intelligence, including some from inmates…

" 28 U.S.C. [section] 2241-(3). Cf. United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 277-78 (1990) (Kennedy, J., concurring), and cases cited therein (Katyal, p. 1365)."

The Bush Administration says that the detainees pose a threat to the United States, and the detainees are complicit either in the September 11, 2001 attack against the United States; or that they took part in separate but no less equally threatening plots to commit acts of terrorism and make war on the United States. Early in 2002 when the detainees were being transported to Guantanamo Bay, the Bush Administration did not suffer a lot of negative feedback. As time passed, however, and when it became apparent that the status of the detainees could remain undefined indefinitely, criticism began being fired at the administration.

Enemy Combatants

The term "enemy combatant," evolved and took on a definition when one of the detainees being held at Guantanamo…

Human ights Violations at Guantanamo Bay

Hundreds

of foreign nationals are being held in prison camps at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base since January 2002 without access to any court, legal counsel or family visits. Despite repeated appeals by international organizations such as Amnesty International and Human ights Watch as well as several governments around the world, the U.S. administration refuses to grant the detainees prisoners of war (POW) status or bring charges against them under the due process of law. In this essay, I shall explain why the continued detention of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners without trial is a violation of international and U.S. law and how their human rights are being violated.

Status of Prisoners Not evealed

Most of the prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay were captured during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Other inmates of Guantanamo are those who were captured elsewhere by various governments…

Unlawful Detention at Guantanamo Bay

In his book The Enemy ithin, author Stephen J. Schulhofer notes, "In the two months following September 11, approximately 1200 foreign nationals living in the United States were arrested and detained by federal law enforcement agencies," (11). In addition to these foreign nationals, who are detained at Guantanamo Bay and other disclosed and undisclosed locations, a number of United States Citizens have been detained for indefinite periods of time: without judicial review, without adequate or private access to legal council, and often times under harsh conditions. Cases like that of Abdullah al Muhajir, an American citizen born Jose Padilla, illustrate how since September 11, the government has systematically violated national and international law, restricting the rights and freedoms of individuals. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and guarantees the nation's citizens a reasonable expectation of privacy in the…

Introduction

The United States has leased 45 square miles of land and water at Guantanamo Bay from Cuba for more than a century. Commonly known as “Gitmo,” the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay has been the source of increasing calls for its closure as no longer necessary or appropriate in the 21st century. To determine the facts, this paper reviews the relevant literature concerning Guantanamo Bay to provide the background of the issue and an analysis of this issue to determine whether the U.S. interests in Guantanamo Bay justify its continued operations. A summary of the research and important findings concerning this issue are provided in the conclusion.

Background of Issue 

The U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is 45 square miles in size and is located on the southeast end of Cuba (see map at Appendix A) (Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, 2014). The naval base at Guantanamo Bay…

Guantanamo: A Complicated Issue

Guantanamo

Naval prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been a controversial topic among American citizens and politicians ever since information surfaced about detainees being held indefinitely without charge and possibly tortured while incarcerated there. President Obama made it a key issue in his 2008 campaign, vowing to close it when he became president. He seemed to be making good on his promise in December of 2009, when he signed an Executive Order demanding the transfer of remaining prisoners to other facilities or to foreign countries and the permanent closure of the prison camp. But as of 2012, the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay remains open.

There are several difficult issues that complicate Obama's ability to close "Gitmo," as it is sometimes called. Guantanamo does not have a good reputation among Americans, and it has an even worse reputation in other countries. One of the primary…

hen an imbalance of representible matter exists, the basis of the rule of law is jeopardized.

hat may be done in war is authorized by an intermediary party. A court may review claims by Guantanamo detainees based on alleigance neither to the targets nor the suspects of terrorism, but rather to institutions that are biased toward neither side. A court cannot accept reviewing detainees who have declared war on America, just as the detainees refuse to listen to every man, woman, and child in the United States. The court is not a legitimate place to hear the testimony of a sworn enemy, and state enemies are not welcome in state courts. hat might give these detainees a place in the U.S. legal system, should we need it, is a change of name from "enemy combatant" to "terrorist." This strategy at once "brings the war home" to the United States's own…

Road to Guantanamo

The docudrama, the Road to Guantanamo, the 2006 film by Matt Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom provided a unique look at the complexities and difficulties of enforcing international cooperation. This thrilling tale of the now famous "Tipton Three" British men of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin who, through a combination of poor decision-making and violations of international law, allows the viewer to examine these modern problems using the war on terrorism as a means of telling the story. The purpose of this essay is to examine this film and highlight five separate violations of international cooperation using the articles of the Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a guide and authority of the discussion.

The first violation of international cooperation is evident at the beginning of the film. The film is taking place under the conditions at the beginning of the war on terror in…

One of the best points is brought forth by Higgins, who writes that an estimated force of 1500 men were sent to take on no less than 25,000 Cubans (Higgins 1987). "In the end, of approximately 1300 men who actually landed on the beaches from the Brigade, almost 1200 were captured and about 100 killed in combat (Higgins 149). The Brigade, if they failed, were expected to escape into the protected areas that connected to the Bay of Pigs; when in fact those areas, the conditions of the terrain, the poor training and preparation of the Brigade, made such escape impossible (Higgins 149).

Years later, declassified papers and tapes from the hite House would lend insight into the fiasco, but not clarity. One thing that was evidenced from the hite House tapes is that the Bay of Pigs continued to be a source of humiliation and annoyance to President Kennedy…

Geneva Conventions

Enacted after the horrors of World War II demonstrated the limitations of earlier treaties, the Geneva Convention of 1949 have become one of the preeminent international standards dictating the behavior of combatants and the treatment of individuals in the context of international and other conflicts, to the point that it has become a part of generally accepted customary international law. Building upon three earlier treaties signed in Geneva, the Convention of 1949 outlined rigorous standards defining and governing the treatment of civilian and military prisoners, the wounded, and civilians found in and around the war zone. Over the course of the last decade, the centrality of the Geneva Convention to international war and politics has come to the fore as a result of debates surrounding the relevance of the Convention to the United States execution of the War on Terror, especially in regards to the treatment and detainment…

" (Elsea, 2005) It was stated at the time that it would appear that "…that federal courts will play a role in determining whether the military commissions, established pursuant to President ush's Military Order (M.O.) of November 13, 2001, are valid under U.S. constitutional and statutory law, and possibly under international law." (Elsea, 2005) It is reported that in June 2008, and in the case of oumediene v. ush that the U.S. Supreme Court "overturned the portions of the law" relating to habeas corpus and stated findings that the individuals held at Guantanamo ay have "constitutional rights to challenge their detention in United States courts." (The New York Times, 2009)

III. Response of the Obama Administration

It is related that one of the first things that the administration of President arack Obama accomplished was an executive order that closed Guantanamo and one that as well "issued an immediate halt to…

Padilla v. umsfeld, Ex-Parte Quirin, and Hamdi v. umsfeld

Facts

Padilla vs. umsfeld

The synopsis of this case indicates a fact that Padilla, in the first place, did not have any reason to access a lawyer because he had been deemed a national security concern. Being an enemy combatant, Padilla did not have any jurisdiction whatsoever to be founded on the terms of an appeal as done to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (McPhee, 2006). As seen from the arguments promoted by Bush's depiction of Padilla as an enemy combatant, the court had not authority to hear the case since Padilla was supposed to be kept in the South Carolina. In the meantime, the right and possible defendant should have been a South Carolina Warden and not the Secretary of Defense Donald umsfeld (Hafetz, 2011).

Ex-Parte Quirin

The case involved eight men who were American citizens. The eight were…

They point out that if a suspected terrorist gets on a plane and gets off at a place like Copenhagen or Toronto and demands asylum, even if he is not granted asylum, he's pretty much got a safe haven to operate in because he can' be deported or extradited back to where ever he came from. They believe that such lenient 'European' laws create a huge gap in security, which need to be tightened and that human rights conventions such as the Convention Against Torture make it almost impossible for states to gain a reasonable and necessary degree of assurance against devastating attacks in an age of asymmetrical warfare against international terrorists.

Former U.S. officials such as Michael Scheuer, who helped to set up the CIA's rendition program during the Clinton administration, are more forthcoming about commenting on the nature and existence of 'extraordinary' renditions. Scheuer has in different statements…

Ethics

Criminal justice is an inherently ethical profession. The judiciary ostensibly crafts laws that reflect the ethical sensibilities and social norms of the society, which are often embedded in the American Constitution. The role of the criminal justice system is to ensure that local, state, and federal laws are applied and enforced in a manner consistent with constitutional and regional codes. Issues like the equal protection clause are also ethical matters. The core objective of the criminal justice system is built on ethical responsibility: the ethical responsibility of the system to its main stakeholders, which is the American people.

However, there are also ancillary ethical issues associated with criminal justice that are not codified. Such issues are often linked with ambiguities and philosophical complexities. Applying criminal justice ethics entails sensitivity and awareness to prevailing political and social climates. Among the most pressing ethical issues in criminal justice include those related…

Powers and ights of the Constitution

INSTITUTIONAL POWE: The Constitution gives the federal government the right to form a military service, including what is now the National Guard (Army National Guard, 2011), though it does so in cooperation with the states and localities to serve their interests as well. This section is important for a number of reasons, including the fact that it reinforces the differences between the state and the federal government without weakening the role of the states to protect and defend themselves. It also helps ensure that the troops and resources are readily available in each locality when urgent issues of various kinds result. They can be used for natural disasters, various forms of social control, helping in other times or need, as well as to address more complicated issues like war and terrorism. This latter issue has become most important recently as localities look to be…

By connecting the awarding of a peace prize with the concerns of a world in which terrorism has become a constant threat, Obama makes clear the exigency of his message when he says: "I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war."

Nobel laureates are given few formal constraints in terms of their responses but Obama faced the more general constraints of trying to meet very high expectations and the conflicting expectations of the peoples of different nations. I believe that he did a good -- though not perfect -- job in meeting these differing expectations, and so crafted a speech that served as a fitting response to the occasion.

Whether or not one believes that Obama achieved the Aristotelian concept of ethos -- the ability to make a credible ethical appeal -- depends probably more on one's own politics than the speech itself.…

Soon U.S. invasion Afghanistan 2001, Bush administration developed a plan holding interrogating prisoners

Niday, I.A. (2008). "The War against Terror as War against the Constitution." Canadian Review of American Studies, 38(1), 101-117.

There are a number of essential elements that make up the article written by Jackson A. Niday, "The War against Terror as War against the Constitution." The principle point of this article is to explore the question of whether or not the civil rights of Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was a United States and Saudia Arabian citizen detained at Guantanamo Bay during 2002 after being captured in Afghanistan in the initial stages of the War on Terror, were violated. While seeking to answer this question, the author examines the 2004 Supreme Court lawsuit Hamdi v. Rumsfield in which legal counsel on behalf of Hamdi alleged that his rights were violated as a U.S. citizen -- particularly his right…

From what I can tell Guantanamo Bay served no real purpose it its entire existence. It was a defensive move made by the Government after September 11th because they felt as though they had to do something, even though they truly did not know what that was.

eferences

Closure of Guantanamo Detention Facilities. (2009). etrieved March 25, 2010, from The White

House Web site:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/closureofguantanamodetentionfacilities/

Guantanamo Bay. (2009). etrieved March 25, 2010, from Discover the Networks Web site:

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=135&type=issue

Marguiles, Joseph. (2004). A Prison Beyond the Law. Virginia Quarterly eview. 80(4), p37-55.

Obama defends plan to close Gitmo. (2009). etrieved March 25, 2010, from CNN Politics Web

site:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/21/obama.speech/index.html?eref=rss_topstorie

s&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_

topstories+%28SS%3A+Top+Stories%29

Obama orders Guantanamo closure. (2009). etrieved March 25, 2010, from BBC News Web

site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7845585.stm

Pries, Dana and Higham, Scott. (2004). At Guantanamo, a Prison within a Prison. etrieved March 25, 2010, from The Washington Post Web site:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5918-2004Dec16.html…

United tates and Fidel Castro's Cuba, now more than forty years old, is still a source of great political and moral contention. The collapse of the oviet Union and, with it, the end of the Cold War, signaled a change in the implications of the type of socialism governing Cuba. The alleged threats that had hovered so close to the continental U.. throughout these paranoid and dangerous days of ideological impasse were now neutralized by the dismantling of the infrastructure that had brandished them. Cuba, once a unique and remote ally to the U...R., served as an outpost for anti-American hostilities and a potential vessel through which to deliver the devastating blows that may have turned the Cold War hot, now is an isolated bastion for ideals abandoned by most of the world. In the Western Hemisphere, they are alone, paying for what most American citizens will tell you is…

At the same time, they would go to social networking sites (such as: Face ook and Twitter), to reach out to similar individuals that have the same kind of views on religion. This will improve collaboration among a number of individuals around the world, who share similar kinds of views. Over the course to time, this would help to increase the outreach of the blog and it will become an alternative voice, for those individuals who share similar opinions.

The major timeline for milestones of the blog would be: when ex-religious fundamentalists began to consistently post stories / social network, the point that the site will cross one million page views for a particular story, having various bloggers make public appearances as the face of the site and when the blog is having its stories posted in the mainstream media. These different points in time are important, because they will…

blanket media coverage of U.S.-Iraq war has forced many other important national and international issues in the background. One of these is the controversial policy of the U.S. government regarding the prisoners kept in the Guantanamo Bay camps without trial. In this paper about the Guantanamo bay prisoners we shall explore the conditions under which they are kept, their rights under international and U.S. law, the possibility that some of them may be innocent, the U.S. administration's view point about the issue, and what options are being considered for their future.

Hooded and Shackled

After the Taliban regime was defeated in Afghanistan, prisoners suspected of having links to the Al-Qaeda organization were brought, hooded and shackled, to the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay. More than a year later, the U.S. government is still holding some 650 prisoners there without any bringing any charges against them. (Kay, "No Fast track...")

No…

President's Address

The counter-terrorism speech given by president Obama came with a couple of messages. His first address touched on the restrictive policy strikes using drones; of course this was not new or restrictive according to prior experience. His second focus was directed at the need to close down Guantanamo Bay detention center. The latter was also not a new stand taken by the president but it surely opposed a long standing position by the powers that be. Here are the major highlights of President Obama's speech.

esponding to the Threat: Leveraging Effective Partnerships and Targeting Terrorists

Effective response to terrorism needs a lot more than just military response and law enforcement. There is need for a concerted effort to be directed towards winning the war of ideology and the battle of will. The first item should be to complete the task of defeating the Al Qaeda forces.

Standards for…

The upreme Court found that the habeas corpus petition was filed improperly, and therefore the case was dismissed and all previous decisions in other courts overruled. The central issue regarding the power of the president was never decided.

Justice tevens presented a dissent stating that the government failed to give proper notice for Padilla's transfer to military custody I outh Carolina. The contention is that the habeas petition would have been filed properly if counsel had been informed in a timely manner. Justice tevens' conclusion is that the habeas corpus should be treated as one filed two days earlier, because government has not followed the correct procedures in providing information to Padilla's counsel.

The response to the dissent is that hypothetical events cannot be used in exercising statutory jurisdiction on the basis of misconduct by government. The dissent further contended that the Court made exceptions to the rules pertaining to…

Balance between Emergency Powers, Abuse of Law by the State and Civil Liberties of People within and Beyond the U.S.

ithin the United States of America especially after the terrorists' attack of 9/11, there seems to be a delicate balance between emergency powers, abuse of law by the authorities and the citizens' liberty. There appears to be significant connection between increase of liberty and insecurity (Gearty 1). However the question here is what security means, in some instances, security could be national threats such as terror attacks or internal forces threatening the political establishments, those that advance particular ideological ends such as those witnessed in Most North African such as Libya and Arabian countries such as Yemen. Nonetheless, in instances of such threats, civil liberties suffer and it becomes a challenge reconciling it with national security. There are many aspects of liberal democracy such as freedom of expression, association and…

The Court reversed the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and remanded the case for dismissal with no prejudice; it overruled the Court of Appeals verdict and prepared the dismissal of the case, allowing Padilla to refile the petition.

Boumediene v. Bush

The Boumediene v. Bush case was a writ of habeas corpus submission made in a civilian court of the United States. Lakhdar Boumediene was a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was held in military imprisonment by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2007/02/why-boumediene-was-wrongly-decided.php).The case disputed the validity of Boumediene's custody at the Guantanamo Bay military base as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006.

Majority of the justices brought into being that the constitutionally assured right of habeas corpus review applies to persons held in Guantanamo and to persons labeled as enemy…

Amnesty International and Human ights reports on the U.S. government fair and objective? Explain. Do they cover the full range of rights discussed in the International Bill of Human ights?

Although both organizations do seem to cover the full range of rights discussed in the International Bill of Human ights, with some rights, however, being focused on more unevenly than others, the Amnesty International and Human ights reports on the U.S. government are not always fair and objective. For instance, the Amnesty International report in May 25, 2005 claimed that the U.S. is a top offender of human rights. This was a ridiculous and blanket statement easily refuted by the White House who claimed the allegations to be ridiculous and unsupported by the facts:

The United States is leading the way when it comes to protecting human rights and promoting human dignity. We have liberated 50 million people in Iraq…

This act enlarged the labels on the cigarettes, and required that the labels on cigarettes and cigarette ads say things like,."..Cause lung cancer...may complicate pregnancy...quitting smoking now greatly reduces hazards to your health... may result in low birth weight and fetal injury." Yet despite all these attempts to educate, all the package warnings and all the public service ads, we still see that despite the millions of dollars spent on smoking prevention each year, every year sees more and more people taking up the habit, until today death from cardiovascular disease remains the number one killer in the United States, contributed in a great part by smoking. And yet we keep legislating, when then proof shows that what we are doing is not working.

Our discussion of vice-based legislation now brings us to the subject of fattening foods. In 2002, a lawyer in New York filed suit against the four…

Constitution/Homeland Security

FISA

FISA -- The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act dictates the way the United States government carries out communication surveillance (e.g., telefaxes, emails, telephone calls, Internet websites, etc.) that passes through the United States physically and both the recipient and the sender or either of the two are/is a foreign power, according to FISA definition. FISA's initial purpose, as far back as in 1978, was to make use of the FISA Court to try abuses from governmental agencies, which spied on citizens of the United States in the 70s (Standler, 2007).

Patriot Act:

The Patriot Act enables investigators to make use of the already available tools to carry out investigations on drug trafficking and organized crime. A number of the tools made available by the Act for law enforcement agencies to wage war against terrorism have been in use in the fight against drug trafficking, organized crime, and terrorism…

raq

The Honorable John Culberson

Old Executive Office Building

Washington, D.C.

Sir:

t seems there is very little we have done in raq that is in any way honorable. t is common knowledge, now, that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, and therefore precious little excuse for the war. However, it is true, also beyond question, that Saddam Hussein was a vicious and brutal dictator who kept his nation in line by virtue of excesses of every sort. One of his sons is reputed to have shredded foes in paper shredders. So perhaps the global community is better off rid of him.

None of that excuses the actions of the United States, both its top administration and its military. After exposure of their activities at Abu Ghraib Prison, and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, their activities are very little better than the unconscionable activities of the Hussein family. Perhaps it…

Powell Assertion Number Two: In his Feb. 5, 2003 speech to the U.N., Powell said: "We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program." But in October, 2002, in his memo to the White House, CIA Director George Tenet voiced "strong doubts about a claim President Bush" was about to make in the State of the Union address "that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials" from Africa. And on July 24, 2003, Spain's Foreign Minister, Ana Palacio, an ally of the U.S., said their was "no evidence" prior to the U.S. attack on Iraq of a nuclear bomb program by Saddam, according to the Hanley article in Editor & Publisher.

Powell Assertion Number Three: Powell told the U.N. he had proof that Saddam was deploying "Contamination Vehicles" associated with chemical weapons on at least two sites. Those alleged contamination vehicles turned out to be…

The Rationale for and the Efficacy of Torture during Interrogation

Although information from interrogational torture is unreliable, it is likely to be used frequently and harshly. ==John W. Schiemann, 2012

Introduction

The epigraph above is indicative of the growing consensus concerning the lack of efficacy of torture in providing interrogators with reliable concealed information Concealed information is the foundation of the majority of security issues. In most cases, concealed information is a situation wherein one individual knows something that someone else does not know. Consequently, the majority of security issues could be resolved if there was a dependable method of determining those cases in which an individual was concealing information and extracting that information effectively. To date, though, there has not been a dependable method developed.1 For instance, polygraph research has been unable to achieve an accuracy level that would make the results acceptable in courtrooms in the United States…

(2) Blockade (Kennedy, .F., 1969), which would prevent the Soviet Union from carrying out its mission of establishing a Soviet missile base on the island of Cuba, and will send the message to the Soviet Union that they are attempting to cross the line where the United States can maintain a hands-off policy (Powell, Samantha, 2003, pp. 6-7). and, should the first two fail, (3) an air strike and invasion of the island wherein the United States will seize control of the island and work towards making it either a U.S. territory, or we will work to install a democratic government (Kennedy, .F., 1969).

These are the recommendations of this council.

eferences

Donald, .(dir) (2000), Thirteen Days (motion picture), Beacon Communications, USA.

Kennedy, .F., (1969) Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York.

A www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=78888201

Powaski, .E. (1998). The Cold War…

The second signing statement put forth the Bush view that "the new legislation is not enforceable in U.S. courts and that it terminates all pending habeas corpus actions by Guantanamo Bay detainees."

POINT #4: CONCLUSION: MUSEUMS & the PUBLIC'S RIGHT to KNO

Several U.S. military personnel have been convicted and sent to prison for the abuses that took place in Abu Ghraib. But whether or not future museums will allow photos of Abu Ghraib abuses in exhibits remains to be seen. In 1995, when the Smithsonian Institution planned to show an well-illustrated exhibit depicting "the role the atomic bomb played in ending II" (Bernstein, 1995), pressure from 80 members of Congress, the Air Force Association, the American Legion, and others, caused the Smithsonian to reverse plans, according to an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "hy were the a-Bombs used?" was one question the exhibit was originally planning…

PADILLA V. UMSFELD & HAMDI V. UMSFELD

Summary of Padilla v. umsfeld

Facts of Padilla v. umsfeld

Summary of Facts

Technical History

Holding

Supreme Court easoning

Lower Court easoning

Summary of Hamdi v. umsfeld

History of Hamdi v. umsfeld

Facts

The Holding

easoning for the Supreme Court

Individuals' Civil rights of Hamdi and Padilla

Contrast and Comparison

Padilla v. umsfeld & Hamdi v. umsfeld

Summary of Padilla v. umsfeld

One of the first and interesting things about the case is to know that the espondent, Jose Padilla, is a citizen from the United States citizen who made up his mind to become an "enemy fighter." This decision was helped made by the famous President George W. Bush and was held in military custody in South Carolina by the Department of Defense. Also, President George W. Bush discovered that Padilla was working alongside with the terrorist named al Qaeda. Both of…

The fact that industrial control systems may be vulnerable to infiltration by other citizens, or international parties puts laws pertaining to intersection of systems transmission at the forefront of priorities for us all.

At present, telecommunications interference of private citizens holds an up to a five-year prison sentence by U.S. federal law. How cyberterrorism is addressed, when the stakes are heightened, leaves a whole host of opportunities for citizens, and legislators to voice their opinion as new technologies for privacy invasion come on the market.

Every ISP access point imaginable is cited within the literature on cyberterrorism, including direct access networks, maintenance of dial-up modems, and of course the internet, remote systems architectures. Exponential information like SCADA systems create an incredibly vulnerable area for hackers interested in "knowledge sharing" network data toward sabotage of industrial operations and state military interests. DHS strategic responsibilities take care of the broad brush stroke…

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is the second man in the history of the United States to have followed in his father footsteps and become the President. Bush served two consecutive terms as President, starting with January 2001. He was born in 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut, but most of his childhood, he spent in Midland, and then his teenage years in Huston, Texas. George W. Bush was the first child born in George and Barbara Bush's family. At the time of his birth, his father was an undergraduate at Yale (Bush, A Charge to Keep, 15). George W. Bush enrolled at the same university where his father studied and received a BA in history there. ater, he graduated from Harvard, receiving a MBA at Harvard Business School, in 1975. Between his studies at Yale and Harvard, Bush activated as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard (The…

(ipley 2002) There is also an increasing presence of Middle Eastern expats within the metropolitan Detroit and its suburbs. Bush genuinely, believed, according to his supporters that ideologically driven Islamic youth might perform terrorist's acts from within despite any efforts by the Transportation Safety Authorities to ensure that no terrorists came into the country from without.

This gave rise to the first critic of President Bush, invoking the American Defense Act to allow security officials to perform security related wire taps on telephones and electronic surveillance on computer activities of suspected terrorists. This was in direct violations of the FISA (Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act). The violations involved non-compliance with FISA. The FISA rule involves the ordering the surveillance of suspects only after such a surveillance is court-ordered. (Apuzzo 2007) the uniqueness of the FISA construct is that for security reasons the court does not have to be informed of the…

Fatigue Management in Aviation

Many documented incidents can be linked to pilot fatigue. A case in kind occurred on August 18, 1993, where a Connie Kalitta DC-8 crashed whilst completing its 1/4-mile base leg. The flight crew had flown for 9 hours and been on duty for 18 hours, accordingly disrupting their circadian rhythm and experiencing sleep loss (National Transportation Safety Board, 1993).

Showing how fatigue was determined to be a contributing safety factor in the event

That the accident was, to a great extent, contributory to sleep loss was confirmed by Jim Danaher, chief of the NTSB's Operational Factors Division at the November 1995 Fatigue Symposium near Washington, D.C.:

The company had intended for the crew to ferry the airplane back to Atlanta after the airplane was offloaded in Guantanamo Bay. This would have resulted in a total duty time of 24 hours and 12 hours of flight time…."(National…

U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain (1992) Supreme Court Decision

Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain (1992) that "forcible abduction of a foreign national does not prohibit his trial in a U.S. Court" dealt a body blow to international law, the implications of which are still being felt. Small wonder, therefore, that the Court's majority (6-3) decision was considered unjust by international human rights organizations and even by three of Supreme Court's own judges, led by Justice Stevens, who dissented strongly. I agree with Judge Steven's dissenting opinion for the reasons explained in this essay.

Strange Logic:

As pointed out by Justice Stevens in his dissenting opinion, allowing kidnapping of people from the territory of a foreign country, just because there is no express provision disallowing such an act in a treaty, is strange logic. By an extension of this logic every act, whether legal or illegal, moral or immoral, not mentioned…

human rights are negotiable when it comes to fighting terrorism. Different nations at different times have espoused varying policies regarding what rights are accorded to parties accused of criminal activity, typically within the boundaries of their undisputed geographical and legal jurisdictions. With the increasing levels of global cross-border travel and residency over the past century, certain international bodies have evolved to help establish protocols, guidelines and a body of law for detention and treatment of suspects in the international arena. These measures are designed to ensure consistent, appropriate treatment of persons accused of criminal activity that may span national and to help ensure the basic rights of all human beings regardless of their origin or the location of the activity in question.

In the absence of clear and universally accepted international authority, the enforcement of human rights standards in the international forum has been subject to variability resulting from the…

Hamdan v. umsfeld

Hamdan v umsfeld

Case Name and Citation: The name of the case is Hamdan v. umsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006). Salim Ahmed Hamdan is a Yemeni national, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001. He is accused of providing material support to terrorists and was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In 2002, the Bush Administration declared him to be an enemy combatant. They determined that he would stand trial before a military tribunal. However, several years have passed and he has not been allowed to consult with legal counsel. The result is that the proceedings are delayed which keeps him confined at the facility indefinitely. Donald umsfeld was the Secretary of Defense and is responsible for the administration of the prison. [footnoteef:2] [2: Hamdan v. umsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006)]

Facts: Hamdan was captured by militia forces in Afghanistan and was turned over to the U.S. military…

Of course, not all of the counterterrorism methods will work, and there will certainly be changes, alterations, and even the disbanding of some of the things the government has done to help prevent further attacks.

Clearly, the nation has learned quite a bit from the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The people learned the country was vulnerable to attacks never before imagined. They learned that thousands of people could die in a few minutes at the hands of terrorists, and that the borders, the cities, and even the rural areas were susceptible to attack. They learned that weapons such as biochemical agents and other poisons could enter the water and food supplies and could kill thousands, or even millions. They learned that the country has to be increasingly vigilant to protect the citizens and their way of life. They also learned that Americans could stand together with pride in the face…

Therefore, any war waged on a terrorist group then becomes a war to protect the personal liberties of those who can not do so themselves.

However, the United States itself has not even been able to stand up to the standards of liberated individual rights. Within the context of the most recent foreign soil wars, American soldiers in a military base have proven that the nation itself is unable to live up to its high standards of personal liberty. In a prisoner of war camp located at a military base in Guantanamo Bay, American soldiers violated international prison code standard during a humiliating act of submission where prisoners were forced to perform unlawful acts and behaviors at the behest of the soldiers on duty, (Sullivan, 2008). The very rights which were being so violently being protected in the eyes of the American public were actually being violated in our backyard.…

The court pointed out that the reason next friend status is observed to occur almost exclusively among prisoner's relatives is because a family member typically decides to step in when the competence of the prisoner is in question. The Court also argued that this case was easily distinguished from Hamdi (2002) because Newman already had a preexisting relationship with Padilla.

The government also argued that the District Court of the Southern District of New York did not have jurisdiction, since the prisoner was currently housed in Charleston, South Carolina (Padilla ex rel. Newman v. Bush, 2002). The Court rejected this argument in addition to making five other decisions: (1) Secretary of Defense umsfeld was the proper respondent to the habeas petition, (2) the Court had jurisdiction over umsfeld, (3) the President is authorized to designate Padilla an enemy combatant (without judging its merits) and therefore detain him for the duration…

Political Framing

In politics, it is advisable to apply a plethora of strategies all geared towards realizing triumph against the rivaling camp. The dominating camp and its rival camp apply various viscosities meant to injure the rivals politically. Most campaigns strategies often seek to trail the weaknesses of the rival and as a result, provide justifiable position to attack the opponents at all times. The frames seem a derivative of these stratagems. Political framing is instrumental since it aids the construction of a phenomenon that either favors the dominating camp or disfavors the opposing camp. This study will attempt to compare and contrast the equivalent frame and emphasis frame as applied in Lesbianism Gay and Bisexual (LGB) political topic. This study will construct vivid examples from past two U.S. general elections in relation to the topic. The section is segmented into two main sections. Sections one provide a background scenario…

Military Commission Act 2006 was passed by the U.S. government to provide the law enforces additional powers and certain immunities while dealing with terrorists. However, this law has drawn severe criticism as well as a fair share of support from various sections of the society. The main argument against the law is that it has the potential for the government to suspend the right of habeas corpus for non-citizens which includes legal permanent residents who are in the U.S. custody. The president of the United States or the law enforcement agencies have gained the right to detain anyone in the U.S. - including U.S. citizens, and not assign any charge against them. This power has been awarded the designation of such individuals as enemy combatants or enemy combatants who are unlawful. The law also allows the president to decide what would constitute torture. Evidence that is obtained by coercion and…

Diplomay and the Cuban Missile CrisisIntrodutionThe Cuban Missile Crisis (16 Otober 1962 to 20 November 1962) began with the disovery by US intelligene of Soviet missile launh failities in Cuba. The threat of an attak on US soil was made lear to President Kennedy by his Joint Chiefs of Staff, who urged Kennedy to take aggressive ounter-measures. Kennedys main onern was that aggressive ation on his point ould lead to even more aggressive retaliation on the part of the Soviet Union and ultimately to nulear war. Largely seen as exerising oerive diplomay to avoid a military onfrontation, Kennedys diplomati efforts in the Crisis have been praised as a defining moment in the Cold War. The reality of the situation is, however, that behind the senes Kennedy engaged in quid pro quo diplomay to satisfy Khrushhev and avert a war.BakgroundThroughout the latter half of 1962, ampaigns for the upoming Congressional eletions…

The extent of the personal involvement with Cuba among the exile community was viewed in macabre media frenzy over whether or not to return Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba. Many Cuban exiles used the young boy as a political pawn, oddly clamoring to wrest the boy from his father. The nearly insane fiasco illustrates the intensity of opinions over American foreign policy towards Cuba.

These opinions are further intensified in light of the "complex humanitarian emergency" that might result should Castro's regime fall suddenly and without institutional contingency plans (p. 83). American foreign policy towards Cuba has occasionally entertained the use of force, but Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion has since made military means untenable from a practical or a political standpoint. Still, the Bush administration championed plans that intended to "hasten" the demise of the Castro regime (p. 87). Those plans evoked frightening visions of another Iraq:…

S., become attracted to the U.S. And flee the country. Cuba certainly needs to prevent a brain drain at all costs. It could do so by encouraging the U.S. To invest in its infrastructure and for U.S. doctors to train and learn at Cuban facilities, which, by all accounts, have some of the highest standards of excellence in the world (Schoultz, 2010, 8). By helping to build up the Cuban infrastructure, further economic trade could be encouraged. This could also help both the U.S. And Cuba exploit its other natural resources by providing the necessary framework for extraction and export of its huge nickel and sugar stockpiles.

ith the coming economic recovery, the world will certainly need raw materials like nickel and steel as well as sugar to fuel the building and population boom that will more than likely follow a recovery. The political ties that bind the current U.S.…

Kant was no exception to the paradigmatic priorities (i.e. objectivity as knowledge) of the era, and brief reference to the episteme is serves accuracy in discursive analysis of this heritage within American politics and policy thought. For instance, Kant's Critique of Judgment is enormously influential in establishing a connection between judgment and political and moral precepts to conduct in communities. Intellectual lineage to Kant's model of Enlightenment 'reason" combines ritish Empiricism with Continental Rationalism; and partly explains why his philosophical proposition that the existence of persistent war against non-liberal states is a requirement to perpetual peace is reiterated in scholarly expiation since the Enlightenment period, making Perpetual Theory of War as lasting as seminal reference (ehnke, 2009, Caranti, 2006 and Murray, 2003). Discourse Analysis toward the study's cause-and-effect analysis is derived from speeches and interviews taken from the ush administration in Table 1.

Table 1

President ush -- Speeches and…

Social security is not perfect by any means, but as a program, it has good intentions, and that is one reason to trust our government to do what is right and proper for senior citizens. Many of them have served our country in many ways, and social security means they can be comfortable as they grow older.

Do the Right Thing - In many areas of government, historically they have chosen to do the right thing. Finally giving women the vote was the right thing to do, even if it took too long. Passing civil rights legislation was the right thing to do, even though it took too long, as well. Ending slavery was the right thing to do, well, you get the idea. It may take the government time to do the right thing, but it most cases, especially with really big issues, they end up doing the right…

Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations and their support from Congress. With Barack Obama the first Democratic president since Bill Clinton, there are bound to be comparisons between the two administrations. They have some commonalities, such as a desire for health care reform, that are difficult to ignore. What the Obama administration manages to accomplish remains to be seen, but comparisons to their first year in office can now be analyzed for similarities and differences.

The Clinton administration ran on a platform of being "outsiders" in Washington D.C., and they believed they could clean up Washington and give the government back to the people. Unfortunately, that did not happen. The Clinton administration was extremely controversial, especially because of the sex scandals and the Whitewater Scandal that turned up during the first year of Clinton's presidency. He may be most remembered for the Monica Lewinsky affair, but he did accomplish many things…

So far, it has been nothing short of corporate welfare free-for-all mentality with billions of taxpayer dollars being around. Today, on the news, President Obama was instructing Congress that he wanted to see budget cuts (CNN, February, 2009). He has not even implemented one of the costly campaign pledges that he ran on, assuring Americans there would be a national healthcare program, that American would close the terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay, bring home the soldiers from Iraq, and, at the same time, increase the American troop presence in Afghanistan. These are all campaign promises that have big ticket price tags attached, and at the same time that the president is asking for budget cuts. The fear that this president is in over his head is beginning to take hold.

There is no simple solution, and whether or not the bail outs will work will only be proven over time,…

Professor Dershowitz (among others) have suggested that the ethical arguments against torture may be outweighed where: (1) the magnitude of harm at issue is great enough, (2) the suspect is known to be in possession of the information necessary to neutralize that harm, and (3) the use of torture is absolutely restricted to those cases. The ethical justification is that in the modern age of, biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the safety of millions of civilians threatened by the use of WMDs outweighs any moral obligation to a single individual involved in such attacks (Dershowitz, 2002).

In such cases, a judicial authorization of a torture warrant is appropriate, pursuant to the satisfaction of common principles and criteria (i.e. probable cause), simply because any moral concern for the rights of those involved in planning large-scale terrorist attacks against civilians is far outweighed by the moral concern for…

Author Negr n notes, "Hundreds of FBI agents sealed off the town of Hormigueros, Puerto ico, where Ojeda lived with his wife. The FBI surrounded his house and opened fire, killing him. He was 72 years old" (Negr n, 2005). Ojeda had been a fugitive since he jumped bond after the Wells Fargo obbery, and he had still been active in independence organizations, including the Macheteros, and his death helped bring some of the former members closer together in a more cohesive unit, as their continued existence even today indicates.

In conclusion, this terrorist organization did not threaten the United States mainland as much as it threatened Puerto ico, but they targeted American servicemen and government officials, and Puerto icans that supported the U.S. Government, so they seemed to pose a threat to the country. The FBI weeded most of the group out in the 1980s, but the independence movement…

" (Lindsey, 2004, p.1) it is interesting to note that one of the young protestors stated: "[the world leaders] are sitting over there on Sea Island having their little party only talking about how to fix things, but we are over here actually doing something to make things better" -- Laurel Paget-Seekins (Lindsey, 2004, p. 1) the U.S.A. Patriot Act has been touted to do just this - or to make things better in terms of security of American citizens and it is certain that the provisions of this Act have served to increase levels of security for American citizens but this security has come with a cost attached and for some Americans the cost is too high and too intrusive upon their basic civil rights. One such instance of the complexity created within the security paradigm are the no-fly lists that have been implemented in U.S. airports since September…

The fundamental human rights were in fact the man's rights as covered in these acts.

However, we should consider the fact that, at least in many of the Western countries, the legislative framework, as well as the societal implementation of this, enlarged to include women, often around the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century. In this sense, although the acts and bills covering fundamental human rights do not de jure include women's rights, de facto the reality has changed so as to adapt to the inclusion of women rights.

This is however not the case for countries in other regions, but usually in these countries defending human rights is a challenge in itself, no matter whether they are men's or women's fundamental rights. A radical change of the framework would really make no actual difference in the way this framework is implemented in some…

In other words, up until the middle of the 19th century, there were no cases of note or significance that indicated that the executive branch of the UNITED STATES government had the authority to render suspects or criminals to foreign locations outside of the explicit authority granted through a signed treaty with a foreign government.

It was during the Civil War that the first major break with this established legal tradition was made. The incident involved the capture of a foreign citizen in New York City during wartime and performed by presidential authority alone. The man captured was Jose Augustin Arguelles, a Spanish subject, who captured illegal slave traders, claimed a reward, then sold the slaves to plantation owners. Under Spanish law he was a criminal, but the United States had no extradition treaty with Spain. Despite having no legal authority to do so, Lincoln authorized the capture of the…

Advising princes how to rule he states, "You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second. It is therefore necessary for a prince to know well how to use both the beast and the man" (Machiavelli 58). This is extremely telling in the current situation with the executive branch as well, in many ways.

For example, many people disapprove of the methods of security and incarceration since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. They believe many of the tenets of the Patriot Act, along with the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and other facilities are unethical and go against rights granted in the Constitution. However, these methods continue, and it could be…