Guantanamo an issue?
Treatment of detainees raises questions for some
By Dominic Desmond, news editor
Posted on November 6, 2006

Senior Nicole Snyder won’t be going home to Kentucky on Tuesday to vote. More conveniently, though, she’ll be casting an absentee ballot, but she’s very concerned that the ballot won’t be counted.

If her ballot is counted, her vote will go to Democratic congressional candidate John Yarmuth, because she said he’s “passionate” about the issues surrounding the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay.

Specifically, Snyder is worried about allegations of detainee mistreatment on the U.S. base. Snyder is also the president of the JMU chapter of Amnesty International and said her organization is attempting to educate people about detainee treatment.

“It’s an issue that hasn’t really been addressed,” she said. “People don’t know what’s going on. They’re concerned with finding terrorists, but they don’t realize there are 10-year-olds in Guantánamo.”

Justice studies professor Ari Kohen said international human rights organizations have suggested that problems arise from holding prisoners indefinitely and without being formally charged, which is the case for some detainees at Guantánamo. He also said this base has gained “incredible notoriety” because of the high-security detainees being held there.

Kohen said since U.S. bases are on U.S. soil, the cases there should be handled the same way they are in America.

“There have been all sorts of controversies that have arisen about [the United States] trying to circumvent the Geneva Convention,” Kohen said. “If we apprehended somebody here, the assumption is they went to an American court and an American detention facility, they would have these rights, but maybe not elsewhere.”

In October, Congress passed the Military Commission Act  — a bill that would effectively eliminate habeas corpus for terrorist suspects being held in U.S. custody and would allow the president to determine who an unlawful enemy combatant is.

“That’s dangerous, considering who our president is,” senior Matthew Crawford said. “In fact, let’s have him write all the laws and interpret them.”

Sophomore William Thomas Webb, member of the College Republicans and regional political director for the Shenandoah Valley for the Republican Party, doesn’t think Guantánamo is on the top of the electoral docket.

“It’s not in the forefront of voters’ minds,” Webb said. He did say, however, if the Republicans stay in power after the election, Guantánamo will stay open.

On the other side of the aisle, the Democrats are looking into the long term, said the College Democrats’ president Jessica Killeen.

“Americans want security now and in the future,” she said.
Killeen said the there is no oversight when it comes to the Military Commissions Act.

Kohen said Guantánamo is not a partisan issue.

“You shouldn’t like torturing people,” Kohen said. “It’s a no-brainer. We don’t do those things.”