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Guantanamo: What the World Should Know

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This book consists of interviews of Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, by writer Ellen Ray, plus relevant UN and other documents. Ratner was co-counsel in Rasul v Bush, which the New York Times called "the most important civil rights case in half a century" because on 28 June 2004 the Supreme Court ruled against President Bush that the US military could not hold what it called `enemy combatants' indefinitely, without charge and without access to legal representation. The Court ruled that the prisoners had the right to challenge their detentions in civilian courts.

The Bush government then set up `combatant status review tribunals', supposedly to decide whether the detainees had been correctly designated as enemy combatants and therefore were being rightfully detained according to the laws of combat. However, the administration breached the Supreme Court's ruling that the prisoners had the right to challenge their detentions in civilian courts, since all the tribunals' members are military officers.

Guantanamo is `an interrogation camp', which is flatly illegal, under US and international law. It harks back to Stuart Britain's offshore penal colonies which were beyond the reach of law, forms of executive imprisonment which the 1679 Habeas Corpus Act made illegal. The US detention centres in Iraq, Afghanistan and Diego Garcia and on board US aircraft carriers are modern Devil's Islands.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has reported that US forces had inflicted on the 550 prisoners illegally held at Guantanamo Bay psychological and physical coercion that was `tantamount to torture'. It said, "the construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture." At least three children, between 11 and 13, were held at Guantanamo; some are still there today.

The British state is guilty of collaboration and connivance with these illegal US state actions. British courts, like US courts, are using as evidence statements made under duress and torture in these US-run camps, thereby condoning the use of torture.

This book provides a really concise, clear and powerful explanation of the American interrogation camp at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. The author who represents some of the detainees and has interviewed them paints a vivid picture of their hideous treamtment. He demonstrates that the camp is not only outside the law, but a threat to the safety of us all. If you want to know why Guantanamo has become iconic in the Muslism world for everything wrong with the US, read this book.

This book puts another nail in Bush's coffin. It exposes the shameful scandal of Guantanamo, America's torture base in Cuba, where over 600 persons from some 40 countries have been held , with no lawyers, no charges, for over two years. Attorney for several of the prisoners and President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, tells the sordid story of torture and secrecy to veteran movement journalist Ellen Ray in a book that is as compelling to read as Michael Moore's movie was to watch.

This is the clearest indication yet of where the Bush administration is heading in terms of putting in place a system of totalitarian justice. The authors show how the President, under his authority as "Comander in Chief" can designate anyone, including American citizens, (that includes you!) as enemy combatants in the US "war on terror." Once designated as such, you have no recourse to a lawyer or an impartial hearing. The recent Supreme Court decisions have upheld the right of "detainees" and so-called "enemy combatants" to the courts but the Administration is trying to do an end-run by bringing them in front of miliary panels--no lawyers--to determine their fate. This is a must read for anyone who is concerned about our civil liberties and international law. It is also a frightening expose of the conditions under which the Guantanamo detainees are held,including testimony by released prisoners about the abuse and torture they have suffered. Buy this book and then buy another to give away to your next door neighbor! There is no time to waste!

You need to read this book. Since the suicides of last week, the US government has sealed off Gtmo from the world - no lawyers, no press. It is vitally important that we understand what is going on there and close Gtmo down. Michael Ratner and Ellen Ray have collaborated to produce a highly readable "primer" on this disgraceful period in US history. I used this book in my human rights courses.
Susan Gzesh, Director, Human Rights Program, the University of Chicago

If you want the the history, and the Constitutional and legal facts about Guantanamo, in one concise package, this is the one to read.

With the exception of those on the payroll of the United States Government, Michael Ratner (with staff he directs at the Center for Constitutional Rights and volunteer lawyers he assembled) knows more about Guantánamo than anyone.

The book is a quick read at 93 pages of text.

For those who have grown up believing that the rule of law is central to our democracy, it is a chilling read.

Published in mid-2004 it reviews a broad array of the issues which had arisen as of that time and which continue to inform the realities on the ground at Gitmo today. It provides a careful analysis of the ways in which "rule by executive fiat" deviated from the U.S. Constitution, the entirety of the Anglo-American legal tradition, the Geneva Conventions, and international law.

He discusses how a great percentage of persons were selected to be prisoners at Guantánamo, a great many by bounty hunters capturing persons far from any battlefield, the bounties paid for by U.S. tax dollars. He discusses extraordinary rendition of prisoners rendered to countries known to torture, the "outsourcing" of torture.

He recounts the abuse and torture suffered meted out to those interrogated at Guantánamo and links the methods used there to those later made infamous by the exposé of interrogations at Abu Ghraib.

The more serious reader will appreciate the 66-pages of primary source documents collected in the appendix covering a broad range of topics from the original lease of Guantánamo from the Cuba to relevant parts of Geneva Conventions to a series of memoranda issued by various departments of the executive branch which framed some of the major issues that the detentions at Guantánamo present for our country.

For anyone concerned about the state of our democracy, this is an important book.