[Jeremy Kuzmarov is assistant professor of history, University of Tulsa and author of The Myth of the Addicted Army: Vietnam and the Modern War on Drugs].

The Guantanamo Bay prison has became infamous as a symbol of injustice and of the human rights abuses associated with the War on Terror. An important new book, The Guantanamo Lawyers, edited by Mark Denbeaux, a Seton Hall University law professor, and Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, provides a revealing look into the abandonment of due process by the Bush administration and horrors experienced by Guantanamo inmates, a large number of whom were detained without evidence or charge. Stephen Irving Max Schwab’s book, Guantanamo USA: The Untold History of America’s Cuban outpost, meanwhile shows the longer history of U.S. control of Guantanamo Bay and how the recent pattern of violence is far from an anomaly in American history.

On November 14, 2001, the Bush administration issued a military order for the detention and trial of non-citizens considered to be terrorists and claimed the authority to kidnap them anywhere in the world while eliminating normal legal protocols. The Guantanamo Lawyers provides testimonials from a group of courageous lawyers who, because of an abiding belief in the tenets of the U.S. constitution, provided pro-bono legal assistance to the Guantanamo detainees. Initially, prisoners were deprived of even the right to representation, although this right was eventually granted by the Supreme Court in Al-Odah V. the United States and Rasul V. Bush. Hundreds of lawyers from across the country, including many with conservative backgrounds, subsequently volunteered to represent the Guantanamo inmates. Many were shocked to discover that their clients were well-spoken, intelligent and often quite moderate in their political views – in contrast to the claim by Donald Rumsfeld that they represented the “most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.”

While some were affiliated with Al Qaeda, in a large number of cases, the detainees had been either caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, or were randomly picked up by American military forces and their proxies in the Middle-East and were the victims of extortion rackets. Ironically, some had even served in the Karzai government and with Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan, and one was a leading Pakistani doctor. Most of the lawyers found their clients nothing like the stereotyped characterization of Arab peoples in the media: they were regular human beings. They recount how their clients were grateful just to have any human contact. They had spent years on end in solitary confinement, in tiny cells with minimal opportunities for recreation or exercise (at best one hour per day in a cage) and were deprived the opportunity for contact with their families. Reminiscent of the infamous Tiger Cages in South Vietnam, some of the prisoners were kept permanently shackled to the floor causing permanent health damage. Many of the cells were infested with rats, snakes and scorpions and had no toilet facilities. Inmates described open air cages as resembling kennels.

The Guantanamo Lawyers makes an important contribution in helping to expose the wide scale of physical and psychological torture at the military prison. Many inmates showed bruises and scars from intense physical beatings. One man spoke about being beaten by the half-educated guards to the point of unconsciousness. Others were typically subjected to extreme temperatures, sensory torments and sleep deprivation. Some of the worst treatment – including being hung from the ceiling in chains – took place at pre-transfer facilities, including the American-run military prison at Baghram in Afghanistan. For many inmates, the mental torture they experienced could be just as damaging as physical beatings. The aim of the torture was to break the human spirit by creating a sense of total fear, hopelessness and despair. Many of the inmates had attempted suicide and others were deprived of needed medications and medical operations, and died while in custody. One of the victims, Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, was ironically fought against the Taliban for the Northern Alliance and was never formally charged with any crime. He died in Guantanamo of a treatable form of colon cancer for which he was only given painkillers.

The Guantanamo Lawyers provides an illuminating portrait of the hellish conditions pervading in the military prison and of the miscarriage of justice and retreat into moral barbarism that has resulted from the waging of the War on Terror. From a practical perspective, it is clear from the testimony that the facility has done little to deter future terrorist attacks but has instead created a generation of angry victims and stained America’s global reputation, perhaps irrevocably. The lone bright spot in the story is the role of the pro-bono lawyers and human rights activists in raising public awareness of the atrocities taking place and providing the legal counsel and advice that has in some cases contributed to the release of innocent detainees. These efforts unfortunately are not enough to heal the damaged psyche of the torture victims or bring back the dead.


Stephen Irving Max Schwab’s book Guantanamo USA: The Untold History of America’s Cuban Outpost provides an interesting historical perspective on how the U.S. came to acquire Guantanamo at the dawn of the 20th century. A former analyst for the CIA’s South America Division who teaches at the University of Alabama, Schwab mined the archives in both Cuba and the United States to tell the story, which as he demonstrates, is inextricably linked to the broader history of American expansion in Latin America.
American strategic planners such as Alfred Thayer Mahan, Elihu Root and Theodore Roosevelt prized Guantanamo as a naval station capable of safeguarding U.S. access to the Panama Canal and as a base for mounting incursions into Cuba to ensure a stable pro-American client after the passage of the Platt amendment in 1902. This amendment granted Cuba nominal independence after the U.S. occupation but allowed the U.S. the right to intervene, which it did on several occasions, to “restore order and stability” ostensibly to protect its economic interests. In subsequent years, Guantanamo provided a launching pad for the Wilson administration’s brutal invasions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Schwab is adept in articulating the imperialist motives and assumptions that led to the development of the base, including the pejorative attitude towards the Cuban capacity for self-government. He also notes the backlash that U.S. policies garnered among Cuban nationalists, culminating in the 1959 Castroist revolution.

In his fourth chapter, Schwab notes that Cubans themselves contributed to the growth of Guantanamo, though provides minimal evidence for the claim that it provided positive benefits to the Cuban population by creating employment for Cuban laborers and a steady flow of foreign investment. Jana Lippmann’s recent study on this topic in fact details through first-hand interviews the stark exploitation of Cuban workers on the base, some of whom, as Schwab himself notes, established pro-Castro cells and smuggled weapons and other crucial material to the guerrilla movement during the anti-Batista war.
Meanwhile, the Cuban revolution was in large part based on popular opposition to the United States’ exploitation of Cuba’s sugar resources and the dominance of its economy by multi-national corporations such as the United Fruit Company and the American mafia. In this latter context, the foreign investment expedited through Guantanamo was hardly favorable for Cuba.
During the Cold War, Guantanamo was crucial for waging clandestine operations in the attempt to overthrow Castro’s revolutionary government and was used for the launching of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs attacks. After this was repelled, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations continued to use the base for an array of illegal covert operations, including efforts to plant saboteurs in the country, foment riots, sabotage the economic system, and have Castro assassinated. Fidel frequently included Guantanamo in his inflammatory attacks on U.S. policies and denounced it before the UN General Assembly. During the Cuban missile crisis, Castro expressed repeated fear that the U.S. was plotting a full-scale military invasion from the base, which fortunately was never brought to fruition.

Not surprising for a former CIA analyst, Schwab is generally apologetic of the United States, claiming that kidnappings of U.S. naval personnel, propaganda and sabotage actions such as the attempt to manipulate the bases water supply, combined with reports of growing communist influence within Castro’s movement antagonized the U.S., justifying the hostile attitude of the Eisenhower administration and his successors. For him, American imperialism was an anomaly in the first half of the 20th century, and U.S. action in the Cold War was predominantly defensive, or at least a response to provocation. Schwab is entitled to his opinion, though his views are contradicted by the longer history of U.S. interventionism, opposition towards Castro’s land reform initiatives, and the aggressive American subversion campaign in the fifties in Guatemala against a mildly reformist regime, which set the precedent for Cuba.

Regardless of his political views, Schwab on the whole provides a well-researched account of the significance of Guantanamo Bay to U.S. foreign policy vis á vis Cuba. The trajectory of the base which he chronicles is particularly relevant in understanding that the most recent abuses have not occurred in a historical vacuum. From its origins as a way-station into the Caribbean and base for intervention in Cuban affairs, to its current status as a penal colony and site of torture for adversaries in the War on Terror, Guantanamo has served as an important venue for the projection of American power. Then, as now, it is a symbol of empire and of the violence and illegalities associated with it.