Camp X-Ray by Jim Kennison

   

September 11, 2001 is a date in history, which will not be forgotten any time soon.  It was the day that the Al Qaeda let the rest of the world know who they are and what they stand for.  The affects of the horrible events that took place on that day have caused shockwaves through the world.  Also, many new issues have arisen since this historical date.  Many of these new issues have caused great difference in opinion and outrage across the entire globe.  One of these new issues that have struck my attention is the on going situation in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  The United States has set up a military facility there that is being used as a prison for captured Al Qaeda soldiers.  The name of this facility is Camp X-Ray.  Here in Cuba, the United States military is holding over 200 prisoners.  These captives are, for the most part, natives of Afghanistan.  However, there are a few soldiers from other countries, including Great Britain.  There is a raging debate over whether or not these captives should be considered to be Prisoners of War (POW’s).  Many people are saying that the treatment of the soldiers is inhumane and not up to standards with the Geneva Convention.  Of course, in order for these prisoners to be treated according to the Geneva Convention, they must be proven to be POW’s.  President Bush disagrees with the notion that the captives are POW’s.  Bush believes that these soldiers are “battlefield detainees” and “unlawful combatants”.  This topic is very relevant to the history of the world.  Many other countries see this as an absurd outlook on the situation, including many countries in the United Nations.  The United States’ decision on how they are going to handle this situation is a very important one for this country.  The long-term affects of this decision will be geared towards the treatment of captured U.S. soldiers.  If the U.S. government doesn’t break down and agree to treat these prisoners as POW’s, then I am sure that many countries will remember this when they have our soldiers in captivity.  Depending on how the U.S. government acts on this issue will set the standard for what will happen to any American Soldier caught in battle by another country.  If we don’t adhere to the Geneva Convention, then why should any other country in the future?  Of course, if another country ever did this to American troops, the U.S. government would consider it a travesty and declare war on that country.  The decisions of our government will seal the future treatment, whether it is good or bad, of American captives in other countries.  President Bush should consider this strongly, and maybe even swallow a little bit of his ego for the benefit of those who fight for our homeland both now and in the future.   

 

            The history behind Camp X-Ray actually began on September 11, 2001, when terrorists, under the command of Osama Bin Laden, carried out kamikaze missions and destroyed the Twin Towers in New York City.  This terrorist attack hit home for all Americans.  The death count was well over 3,000 people, and we should feel lucky that it was not an even higher tally.  This terrorist act prompted the United States government to declare a “War on Terrorism”.  This of course was seen as the only appropriate action that the United States could take in the minds of most Americans.  The U.S. military then moved in on the country of Afghanistan, where Bin Laden was believed to have been located.  There were strategically placed air strikes and ground attacks using Special Forces in most cases.  Of course, sooner or later the U.S. military would capture some of the opposing soldiers and have to keep them in captivity somewhere. 

            Sometime in late December of 2001, the reports started flowing in from across the globe that there was a secret prison being built in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by the U.S. military.  The prison was named “Camp X-Ray”.  It was named so because of the physical attributes of the facility.  The prison is constructed mostly out of chain link fence, holding prisoners in mere 8-by8-foot cells.  These cells have concrete floors and wooden roofs.  The facility is virtually see-through, hence the name “Camp X-Ray”. 

            In the early stages of development, the U.S. military was holding slightly under 200 prisoners in Camp X-Ray.  The prisoners were soldiers who were from many different parts of the world, including Saudi Arabia, Britain, Australia, Russia, Yemen, Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt, Belgium, and Denmark.  The country with the most prisoners in Guantanamo Bay is Saudi Arabia with about 50.  Up to the present date there are approximately 300 men being held there.  They were captured in Afghanistan and shipped out to Cuba almost immediately.  All of the captives were suspected terrorists according to President Bush and the U.S. government.  The captives were seen by reporters when they were being led off of the planes and into their current home.  They were noticeably groggy and sluggish, aside from being blindfolded in most cases.  Some of them had even urinated all over their own clothing.  It was a dismal sight for most, and the photographs and stories started to spread almost immediately.  Many people were shocked and amazed at what seemed to be brutal and inhumane treatment of these soldiers.  There were also reports in the news across the world that the U.S. soldiers were using excessive force on all of the detainees.  Nations and their communities were outraged.  They demanded an explanation from the United States government. 

            The first statement that the U.S. government wanted to get across to the world was that the detainees in Cuba were being treated in a very humane manor.  It was even insisted upon that the conditions that the captives were living under were better than those that they had lived under when they were free and living in Afghanistan.  This is an interesting point.  It may seem like the captives are better off where they are now, but that is the view from an American point of view.  The government is not focusing on the idea that what makes the prisoners happy may not be the best conditions.  What is considered to be good conditions in America is not always what is considered to be conditions in other countries.  The detainees may be happier living a totally different lifestyle than the one that Americans see as fit.  It is very closed-minded of the U.S. government to ignore this idea.

The U.S. government made sure that the world knew about all of the rights and treatment of the detainees.  They claimed that the detainees were being feed better than they had been fed for most of their lives.  They also told us that the captives were allowed to practice their religion without any persecution at all, although I find that it might be hard to practice your religion in a normal fashion under such circumstances.  They were clothed properly and were given crayons to write with.  They could not be given pens or pencils for security reasons.  The only alleged right that was taken away was their right to smoke cigarettes; this was supposedly due to reasons of security and safety as well. 

            The rest of the world seemed to doubt the truth behind the U.S. government statements.  There were new photos and rumors that not only were the detainees still being treated inhumanely but that the detainees were being interrogated and even tortured.  Photographs began circulating in the media of prisoners being carried away from interrogation booths on stretchers.  The U.S. government insisted that the accusations were false, and that the prisoners on the stretchers needed medical attention and were being carried away to medical huts for treatment.  This may be true in some instances due to the fact that a number of detainees went on a hunger strike and were recently forced to be fed intravenously in order to stay alive. 

If the prisoners were to become classified as POW’s, then the U.S. military would lose the right to interrogate the detainees in the manor that is believed to have been used thus far.  I’m sure that the government doesn’t want that to happen any time soon, so that they can drag as much information as possible out of the detainees using almost any method they see as being helpful in their cause.  There is another idea that must be taken into consideration when pondering this issue.  Many of the countries that want the U.S. to stop their supposedly harsh interrogations of the detainees, may only care because they might have some information known by the captives that they cannot afford to have leaked out.  Some countries may have ties to al Qaeda that they do not want the U.S. to find out about.  This may seem far-fetched, but it is a more of a possibility than many people care to believe. Who to believe, I know not.  One thing that I am sure of, is that the U.S. government is not letting us in on the whole truth of the situation.  They are not reporting all of the facts and I am sure that they are withholding a boatload of important information about the happenings at Camp X-Ray.  By not giving the citizens of the United States access to the entire truth, the citizens cannot attain all of the necessary information to make their own decisions about the case at hand.  By not telling all of the facts, the U.S. government is doing itself a miss-service because now many of their official explanations become questionable, whether they are accurate or not.      

            There was a raging debate brewing over the status of these detainees.  Many countries and governments believed that these captives had to be considered as Prisoners of War (POW’s).  These countries said that the U.S. was obligated to do so under the guidelines of the Geneva Convention.  The Geneva Convention was created in 1949, and took affect in 1950.  It’s purpose was to govern the treatment of the wounded and sick members of the armed forces both in the field and at sea, prisoners of war, and civilians in times of war.  The United States government disagreed with this claim, saying that their status should not be as POW’s.  The U.S. government says that the Geneva Convention does not apply in this case because these captives are “battlefield detainees” and “unlawful combatants”.  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued, “The detainees did not belong to a country or behave as an army, and neither wear uniforms nor have an insignia…they are a terrorist network.  It would be a total misunderstanding of the Geneva Convention if one considers al Qeada – a terrorist network – to be an army.”  He also stated that there wasn’t “any question in my mind … that they would not rise to the standard of a prisoner of war.”  President Bush said that these captured fighters are not POW’s because “al Qaeda is not a known military.  These are killers, these are terrorists, they know no countries.”  However, there are many captives who have no shred of evidence against them that points towards them being terrorists.  Yet these prisoners are still being held at Camp X-ray and are being interrogated daily.  Many governments, such as the German government, believe that these captives should be treated as POW’s under the under the Geneva Convention no matter what their status is at the time.  As for the results of the interrogations, American investigators are only slowly determining the identities and nationalities of the prisoners and are not releasing their names or confirming names even if their native countries have identified them.  Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said in the New York Times “there are still a lot of people down in Guantanamo that we don’t know who they are…And that’s a fact.  It’s very difficult work.”

            The U.S. government talks about these detainees as not being part of a recognized armed force and labels them as “unlawful combatants”.  This may be true, but this also may not mean that the captives should be excluded from the treatment provided under the Geneva Convention.  Up until I began to study the actual context of the Geneva Convention, I was very unsure about the specifics of the documents.  However, after reading it over a couple of times, I came across a statement in it that jumped right out at me.  I have to consider this statement as very important in the eventual outcome of the matter, and it forces me to lean a bit towards believing that the captives should be considered as POW’s.  The statement is found in Article 4A: (3) “Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power…” This is one of the descriptions of the detainees who should be considered as POW’s under the guidelines of the Geneva Convention.  Maybe I’m interpreting this all wrong, but isn’t the al Qaeda “an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power…”?

 

 

The map above is a full view of Cuba.  Guantanamo Bay is located on the southeastern tip of the island nation.  Camp X-Ray seems to be the ideal spot for the U.S. military to set up a prison.  It is a very tough location to escape from if you are a prisoner.  The climate also favors a prison location.  It is a tropical climate, which lessens the costs of building the facility.  The cells could be constructed out of chainlink because the climate provides comfortable living conditions.  The U.S. also has to give the detainees less clothing, which is better for security aspects.

            Like any location that has a military prison, especially one of this sort, the area itself and surrounding locations are at risk for attacks by the countries that have captives being held in the facility.  The U.S. is putting the natives of Cuba at risk, but a somewhat low risk because Camp X-ray is located in a fairly remote region of the country.  Hopefully the location chosen by the U.S. government for Camp X-Ray will not severely affect the geographic or demographic aspects of Cuba.

 

            The research material for this project was at times plentiful and at other times merely non-existent.  During the good times there were many different resources that supplied many different opinions and many different ways to look at the situation at hand, which is Camp X-Ray.  Of course, I knew going into my research that the story would be portrayed differently in each newspaper or on each web-site, as well as in separate regions of the world.  What was surprising was how much these news sources differed in their approach to covering the story.  It was both somewhat unexpected and interesting.  My research for this project has led me to some new opinions about the media both here in the United States and in other parts of the world as well. 

            The New York Times was my main resource derived from the American press.  When the whole story broke on Camp X-Ray the New York Times contained articles that weren’t exactly tackling the issue from a worldwide point of view.  In fact, the articles didn’t even represent what the popular opinion on the situation was in the minds of the American people.  The articles in the Times took the perspective of the U.S. government on every issue brought up about the detainees being held at Camp X-Ray.  The Times quoted Colin Powell as saying “whether or not the prisoners are being treated humanely is not even a question…”.  The entire article seemed to mirror this opinion, believing that the only question was whether or not the captives were POW’s, and even that wasn’t really a question in the view of the U.S. government and the Times.  The Times seemed to always portray the government as being right in the situation, rather than stating that maybe the U.S. government could be wrong on this issue.  It’s as if the New York Times is acting as a big brother to the U.S. government, always sticking up for them and explaining why they are right.  I’m not saying that the articles found in the New York Times are not worth reading, because they are still very informative in some aspects.  It’s just that the Times is writing what most Americans want to read and believe, that the U.S. government is right.  This may be the case, but much of the story that is vital to discovering the truth is being held back by the Times.  This is no coincidence.  The government is telling the Times exactly what and how much to say in their publications.

            The Middle East Times is another major news source that I used for research.  Copies were tough to come by, but the articles are easily accessible on the Internet.  The articles found in the Middle East Times were more open to many different views.  However, I'm sure that they weren’t exactly telling all that they knew in their articles either.  In their articles I found many more quotes from the average person in many different societies.  The Middle East Times had views and opinions from leading officials in many different governments.  It was very noticeable to see how there was a different spin on the articles in the foreign news source.  There were many views and opinions that differed from those of the New York Times, and at the same time they would throw in a quote from a middle-class Egyptian citizen who says “The prisoners in Cuba are being treated a lot better than they would be treated here” in Egypt. 

            There were many other web-sites that I used for information.  CNN.com seemed like a carbon copy of the New York Times, but was a great resource for learning about the Geneva Convention.  ABCnews.com went as far as to right an article on an Aussie asylum camp that they describe as being far worse than Camp X-Ray.  This is an obvious ploy to take some attention away from Camp X-Ray.  Other sources like wsws.com (World Socialist Web Site) seem to directly oppose the views of the U.S. government, but provide very good articles and some great input on the topic. 

I enjoyed reading the New York Times and got a lot out of it, but I was yearning for a different side to the story after each article that I read.  The same can also be said for the Middle East Times.  It was the same way for all of the news sources that I focused on.  There is no perfect news source.  Reading and hearing all of the different views and opinions form the different sources is the only way to have a so-called well-rounded opinion on the topic.  No matter what news source is being used, it must always be understood that there are many sides to every story and they are not all in one source.  Once a person can understand that, then they will think about topics in a much more open way.

 

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