The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law [Hardcover]

Mark Denbeaux (Editor), Jonathan Hafetz (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0814737366 | ISBN-13: 978-0814737361 | Publication Date: November 9, 2009

Read free excerpts from the book at http://www.theguantanamolawyers.com and explore the complete archive of narratives at http://dlib.nyu.edu/guantanamo

Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the United States imprisoned more than seven hundred and fifty men at its naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. These men, ranging from teenage boys to men in their eighties from over forty different countries, were detained for years without charges, trial, and a fair hearing. Without any legal status or protection, they were truly outside the law: imprisoned in secret, denied communication with their families, and subjected to extreme isolation, physical and mental abuse, and, in some instances, torture.

These are the detainees’ stories, told by their lawyers because the prisoners themselves were silenced. It took habeas counsel more than two years—and a ruling from the United States Supreme Court—to finally gain the right to visit and talk to their clients at Guantánamo. Even then, lawyers were forced to operate under severe restrictions designed to inhibit communication and envelop the prison in secrecy. In time, however, lawyers were able to meet with their clients and bring the truth about Guantánamo to the world.

The Guantánamo Lawyers contains over one hundred personal narratives from attorneys who have represented detainees held at “GTMO” as well as at other overseas prisons, from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan to secret CIA jails or “black sites.” Mark Denbeaux and Jonathan Hafetz—themselves lawyers for detainees—collected stories that cover virtually every facet of Guantánamo, and the litigation it sparked. Together, these moving, powerful voices create a historical record of Guantánamo’s legal, human, and moral failings, and provide a window into America's catastrophic effort to create a prison beyond the law.

An online archive, hosted by New York University Libraries, will be available at the time of publication and will contain the complete texts as well as other accounts contributed by Guantánamo lawyers. The documents will be freely available on the Internet for research, teaching, and non-commercial uses, and will be preserved indefinitely as a historical collection.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This collection of stirring narrative, government data and testimony, edited by two of the lawyers for those detained by the Bush administration as unlawful combatants at Guantánamo, puts America on notice about the issues of civil liberties and constitutional freedoms. Denbeaux and Hafetz have edited together accounts from 100 other detainee advocates into a chronological narrative of legal battles: to gain access to their clients, to establish the detainees' right to habeas corpus, to describe the occupants of Gitmo (at its peak, 750 from 40 countries) and the torture and mistreatment of detainees. They describe their clients as underlings, working stiffs and not the high officials of any terrorist group. Plowing through legal red tape, bureaucratic mumbo jumbo and political maneuvering, Denbeaux and Hafetz fight for the men who are isolated without diversions or outside contact. The desperate words, quoted here, of Gitmo detainees on torture grab the heart and do not let go. This compelling book on the American penal colony and its residents is a cautionary tale of overzealous executive wartime power and the awful mess it sometimes leaves behind. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"The most compelling reason to read is that the legal questions created by Guantanamo have not yet been fully resolved. President Obama's promise to close the prison has so far gone unfulfilled, and John Paul Stevens, who will perhaps be remembered more for his writings on Guantanamo than any other subject, will leave the Court at the end of this term. No matter how the Guantanamo question is resolved, historians will no doubt benefit from Denbeaux and Hafetz's excellent book."-Tyler D. Helmond, in The Champion (NACDL),

"Perhaps the appeal to enlightened national interest was the best strategic means of accelerating the end of Guantánamo; but it necessarily de-emphasized in the public discourse the great cost imposed on the detainees. The many stories told in The Guantánamo Lawyers, which make Guantánamo's human cost much more tangible, go some way towards redressing this."-Concurring Opinions,

"A new and remarkable book... made up of the written accounts by more than a hundred of the lawyers who provide detailed accounts of their meetings with their clients inside the prison... an informative and telling chronicle of what Guantanamo is really like..."-The New York Times,

“Provides an invaluable perspective—or more accurately, perspectives, since more than one hundred lawyers contributed to the volume. These men and women, all working for nothing, have gained intimate access to those whom the United States sought to keep hidden behind strictly closed doors….The stories these lawyers have been able to tell, adroitly edited by Mark Denbeaux and Jonathan Hafetz, offer a multifaceted portrait of life on the base.&8221;
-New York Review of Books

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“A valuable contribution to the record of an unfinished story bound to reverberate for years to come.”
-Kirkus Reviews

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See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (November 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814737366
• ISBN-13: 978-0814737361
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #543,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Law > Current Affairs

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The story behind the propaganda, April 5, 2010

By 

Dienne (Cicero, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law (Hardcover)

I've read many amazing books in my life, but this is the first time I've been moved to write a review. I often highlight books as a left-over habit from school. Most books I've read have a bit of highlighting every 20 to 40 pages. This one has highlighting on nearly every page.

This story couldn't be told as fiction - no one would believe it and every editor would bounce it as completely unrealistic. But this story isn't fiction. It's what our government has done, right under our very noses, for the past eight years.

We all know the story of Guantanamo Bay - or think we do. In the fear-filled days after September 11, 2001, hundreds of men were swept up on or near battlefields, from their homes, from refugee camps, and from many other places. They were accused of being "enemy combatants" who committed acts of "hostility" against the United States. They were "the worst of the worst" and we needed a secure place to house them until the "end" of the "war on terror".

But the stories told by the lawyers who compiled this book tell a far different story. These men, far from being "the worst of the worst" are more accurately "the least of the least". Most are completely innocent - guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those who are guilty at all are low-level functionaries of al Qaeda, mostly forcibly conscripted. Housed in unspeakable conditions, never charged with crimes, given no opporunity to prove their innocence, these men have languished and many have slowly descended into madness and ruinous health. Even today hundreds still linger, cleared of all charges, but with nowhere to go because no government, including our own, will take men declared to be "the worst of the worst".

The most important part of this work is that it's impossible to dismiss it as simply a "liberal hit piece". Of the books' 100+ contributors, many are current or former military lawyers. Most of the rest hail from large conservative law firms. None of them set out to indict the Bush administration; they simply set out to do what lawyers do - even "the worst of the worst" are entitled to representation. But their experiences, and the government's own documents which they were able to access, led them to that conclusion. Furthermore, the book is not significantly kinder to the Obama administration than to the Bush administration. Despite his promises to close Guantanamo and open up government records for greater transparency, Obama has continued on a foreign policy course, including his policies with respect to GITMO, which is strikingly similar to that of the Bush administration.

I've read many books regarding such horrors as Nazi Germany, the Inquisition, etc. and I'm always left with a pit-of-the-stomach sick feeling - how can humans be so cruel to other humans? This book left me with a similar sick feeling, only much worse. I can't dismiss this episode of history as "those people". This was and is being done by my country within my own lifetime. We as Americans need to speak out. It's well past time to reclaim our once-proud name.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We Are Better Than This!, November 14, 2009

By 

Nicholas Bryan (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law (Hardcover)

Yes, we have all heard about the abuse of detainees in Guantanamo. As reported by third parties, the details of abuse and torture are horrific, yet fail to convey the emotional impact of these events on human beings. In The Guantanamo Lawyers, we hear through their attorneys the actual words of detainees as they describe the terror and hopelessness that comes from being imprisoned under wretched circumstances with no sense of future. Some have been driven to hunger strikes and suicide. Extraordinarily, many in our country including some of our leaders have told us that what is happening in Guantanamo is fine. They tell us that the detainees are the worst of the worst. Yet, there is much evidence in this book to the contrary. Most of the detainees, we learn, were not picked up on any battlefield. Many came into American custody as the result of being turned in by others for large bounties. Nevertheless, at the prompting of our leaders, we are told to believe that these people are so evil as to warrant no access to courts, the Geneva Conventions,or civilized treatment. The rule of law does not apply! Speaking against our use of torture, John McCain said that "we are better than this." Hopefully, readers of this book and political leaders will agree with McCain and become advocates of American values in the treatment of the detainees.

What is heartening about this book is that we also learn of patriotic American lawyers, both civilian and military, who are so offended by detainee government policy that they have spent time, energy, and great effort to bring the true story of Guantanamo to our attention and to represent the detainees. Military lawyers have even resigned in protest. They represent the better angels of ourselves and the true warriors for American values. Their story is an important reminder of how we, as Americans, respect the rule of law and the humanity of all people even as we are frightened by awful events of 9/11 and other violence against our citizens.

I urge you to read this book.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth reading, December 4, 2009

By 

Bruce (Albany, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law (Hardcover)

This book is an excellent collection of brief statements (a few pages each) by lawyers and others such as interpreters who have been involved in the litigation process at Guantanamo. It is not an in depth analysis, but rather a series of reflections on various aspects of the process. It helps define the problems of United States with respect to the Guantanamo Detainees and the Judicial process divised to determine whether there is any guilt for the particular detainee. It helps flesh out the details of how they were captured, how much (or how little) the government initially did to determine the significance of the detainees, and how the prosecution, such as it was, was attempted and modified. The statements are clear and well written. There clearly is a unifying perspective that the process was faulty. However, the diversity of the people writing the statements strengthens the conclusion that the process was flawed. There are corporate lawyers, lawyers from small private firms, and even military lawyers, including one who headed a tribunal.
The book documents serious flaws in the process (if your are someone who still believes that the United States still should have a committment to rule of law and justice for all). It also demonstrates the patriotism and commitment to American Ideals of the numerous lawyers and others who donated their time for minimal if any compensation. As such, it also demonstrates the strength of the United States to correct its errors. Unfortunately, too few people currently are as committed to these ideals as the people in this book. A number of people who are otherwise educated and up to date on current events are largely unaware of the events and issues detailed in this book. Reading this book should enlarge one's understanding of the situation, and perhaps lead to a greater commitment to these ideals.