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Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power | 
 enlarge | Author: Joseph Margulies
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 512096
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 0743286863
Dewey Decimal Number: 342.73062
EAN: 9780743286862
ASIN: 0743286863
Publication Date: July 3, 2007
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Product Description
The detention system established by the Bush Administration at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba is like no other in our nation's history. Joseph Margulies traces the development of this detention policy from its ill-conceived creation in 2002 as "the ideal interrogation chamber" to its present form, where most prisoners are held without charges in a super-maximum security prison, even though the U.S. government has acknowledged that many have been cleared for release and most of the others are not even alleged to have committed a hostile act against the United States or its allies.Margulies, who was the lead attorney in the Supreme Court case Rasul v. Bush, writes that Guantanamo and other secret CIA and Defense Department detention centers around the world have become "prisons beyond the law," where the Administration claims the right to hold people indefinitely, incommunicado, and in solitary confinement without charges, access to counsel, and without benefit of the Geneva Conventions. Weaving together firsthand accounts of military personnel who witnessed the interrogations at Guantanamo along with the words of the prisoners themselves, Margulies exposes the chilling reality of a "war on terror" that masks an assault on basic human rights -- rights to which the United States has always subscribed.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Historical First October 5, 2008
If only we had had human rights lawyers preserving the rights of German, Italian, and Japanese prisoners of war. That would have advanced the war effort during WWII. FDR and Truman must be characterized as war criminals too given the narrow criteria of the author. It is merely mincing words to describe the detainees as somehow different than prisoners of war. The UN has failed to create a category for insurgents and militants in regards to combat and capture. They are not common criminals deserving a trial. It would be rational for the UN to create a category for such combatants, so they could be placed in prisoner of war camps until the duration of the conflict, but without a recoginized status of traditional soldiers. Without such criteria, my hat is off to the President for making a difficult decision knowing the human rights activists would attack him. I might add that in past conflicts, combatants not in uniform were shot on the spot.
Having served for 28 years as an Army officer and in multiple war zones, I can honestly say the detainees are treated much better than the military service men and women. Both in training and in conflicts, we endure sleep deprivation, often live in the elements for weeks at a time, sleep on the ground, miss meals, and are away from our families. I guess we've been tortured all these years. Where are our human rights lawyers? Don't tell me we deserve it because we volunteered. The detainees volunteered to join al Qaeda, Taliban, and other extremist organizations. I'm glad they are in Gitmo and other prisons. I hope they rot there for all the innocent people they've killed.
 eye-opening look at Guantanamo January 8, 2008
This book made me sad. Because it is so well-written about subject matter that was beyond my belief, I have been shaken out of my idylls. Worse still it is so well documented that every item can easily be looked up and confirmed.
What brought me to this book was my reading in German the book by Murat Kurnaz, "Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo" in July of 2007. Not a detail of the legal matters mentioned by Margulies is in conflict with Mr. Kurnaz's first-hand account of his experiences as a prisoner. Margulies' book should be required reading for every Congressman and Senator in Washington, DC. I will not be able to rest now until justice is meted out to those who have committed such horrendous crimes against humanity.
Mr. Margulies and Mr. Kurnaz point out that "harsh interrogation" is far more than "water-boarding." Mr. Kurnaz was physically picked up and his head was placed under water while he was punched and kicked in the stomach. He was suspended from the ceiling for days, until he passed out. US physicians attended him, not to give relief from his suffering, but to keep him alive for more torture. He witnessed prisoners killed by US torture.
Margulies' book is an opportunity for education. May we all be better educated.
Confronting a black hole of injustice October 22, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The author was the lead counsel for Rasul and other detainees in the noted Supreme Court case of 2004, Rasul v. Bush. The question in that case underlines the whole bitter debate with the Bush Administration: whether detainees at Guantanamo have the right to challenge their indefinite detention in a fair way. The other big issue in this book involves torture and how the detainees are treated.
The author notes that the United States has always been at the forefront in upholding the Geneva Conventions. Even during the Korean War when the North Koreans treated American POWs barbarically, the U.S. upheld the Conventions. Even during the unconventional Vietnam War when the Viet Cong did not wear uniforms and hid among civilians or when American fliers were tortured in North Vietnam, the U.S. honored the Conventions. According to the Red Cross everyone in enemy hands has some status, either as a POW under the Third Convention or as a civilian under the Fourth Convention. In the past the U.S. has served as a model in upholding these laws of war and had until recently established the moral high ground in the face of lawless torture around the world.
Bush keeps insisting to the American people: "We do not torture." He is not lying according to the narrow definition established in the Justice Department's legal opinion known as the "torture memo" by Yoo and Bybee, and subsequent revisions to that opinion. The author notes the veil of secrecy over the inner workings of Guantanamo, the careful screenings given to visitors, but Time Magazine obtained leaked records concerning the interrogation logs of Mohammed al-Qahtani, which reveal the kind of methods used: solitary confinement, sensory overload, induced hypothermia, sleep deprivation, various devices used to cause severe disorientation, various forms of humiliation; in other words, a systematic breakdown of the human personality, a psychological assault that can be done without laying a hand on the prisoner, intended to lower the detainee not just to the sub-human level but even to the sub-animal level (the chilling comparison by the interrogator to banana rats). The question becomes what else would be found if other interrogation logs were made available.
Secretary Rumsfeld referred to the detainees as "the worst of the worst." But are they really? Beyond the locked gate of national security, the author refers to numerous voices from the military and intelligence services who state that only a minority of the detainees have yielded intelligence of any significant value, that there have been "no big fish", that the majority were "dirt farmers from Afghanistan", or in the case of the author's clients, impressionable youth who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The author notes that only 5% of all detainees were captured by Americans. The rest were rounded up by the Northern Alliance or by war-lords who were more interested in settling scores. The roundup was made even more of a farce by a Defense Department campaign to distribute leaflets offering a bounty for any terrorist.
In response to the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul for judicial review of Guantanamo detainees, the Administration undertook to set up CSRTs (Combatant Status Review Tribunals) in order to determine whether a detainee is an "enemy combatant". But the CSRTs have been so skewed in the interest of national security that evidence is withheld and charges are often hidden in a farcical way. The detainees are also prevented from presenting evidence or testimony unless it is "reasonably available". An example of the absurdity of this process is an exchange quoted here from the petitioner Ait Idir, a petitioner in the forthcoming Boumediene v. Bush Supreme Court case, in which the name of the accuser, an alleged al-Qaeda operative, is not named for security reasons.
The author describes the outlandish charges made against his client Mamdouh Habib from "confessions" he gave after his rendition to Egypt to be tortured. Fortunately for Habib, when they tried to render him to Egypt for a second time, the lid of secrecy was blown off by the press, and he was released without any charges and flown back to his home in Australia after three years of incarceration.
A powerful and important book August 29, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book deserves a much wider audience. No matter how bad you think things are in Guantanamo, this book makes clear that the reality is ten times worse. Margulies is extremely knowledgeable about the issues, and he's a fine writer. It is hard not to feel ashamed -- and outraged -- by the injustices that are occurring under our flag. Let me add that I do not know (and have never met) the author, Joseph Margulies.
Extremely well-written, intelligent arguments. July 12, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
One of the few books I've read about any controversial topic that resists the temptation to start name-calling, insult-slinging and obvious political agendas.
Dr. Margulies succeeds in explaining legal arguments in a way that is engaging and not condescending. He addresses every question you could have about torture and then some. He does something many authors fail to do: he argues his point in a greater context than the argument itself. That is to say, anyone can argue torture in the context of laws or the Geneva Convetions. Dr. Margulies goes further and discusses torture in the context of security for civilians and soldiers and foriegn policy, and then also provides the background for the writing of the Geneva Conventions and why we have refrained from torture in the past.
Absolutely enlightening.
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