Day 9 - Reflections on GTMO

I have no word on the progress of my request.

The good news is that I believe that today's post offers my best explanation of what I believe to be true regarding the question of the justification of both my personal actions, and the overall military operation, at the Detention Center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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After having spent six months deployed as a member of the medical team assigned to the detainee population at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, I can easily say that GTMO is the most hate-filled place I have ever experienced. The animosity I felt in the "camps" on a daily basis was almost palpable, and it often required a very conscious effort not to escalate the hostility. Almost any other place in the world where sworn enemies are in such close proximity, the aggression leads to death, whereas, in GTMO the hatred just festers.

As I look back more than a year later, I believe it was predominantly these extreme emotional factors that prevented me from being able to more objectively question the justification for GTMO while I was still there. Although it lacks any reference to the complexity of the issues, perhaps the most applicable metaphor is that I couldn't see the forest for the trees. Or in this case, I wasn’t thinking about why all those men were “detained”, when the man in the cage in front of me was screaming obscenities and pounding on the wall.

Honestly, I cannot imagine what the outcome would have been if my beliefs had changed while I remained on the island. How could I have coped with the motto, “honor bound to defend freedom,” while I daily worked in support of restricting others’ liberty? Thankfully, in coming home, the intermittently reinforced pattern of adrenaline, heightened emotions, and hyper-vigilance subsided. Personally, I believe it was only after this that I could begin to question the meaning of all that I saw and experienced.

As I suspect is typical of any shift in a life-long and emotionally charged belief, the largest obstacle for me to overcome was my own natural instinct to be personally defensive instead of objectively analytical. To this end, I think my best defense was simply not talking about my experience unless prompted by others. Thankfully, given all the news stories, op-ed pieces, and many people's eagerness to get on their own personal soapboxes in conversation, there was little possibility of avoiding the topic of what was happening in Guantanamo Bay.

As a result of these promptings, on multiple occasions I passionately and sometimes heatedly defended the fact that I hadn't tortured anybody. Furthermore, when pressed, I expressed how I thought it very unjust that I had to serve at the beck and call of "detainees". My talking points on this specific aspect of GTMO emphasized the audacity of "detainee" complaints. After all, I had to bring them medication on their whim and not make noise during their "Call to Prayer". When home, I expressed my outrage at having felt forced to cater to the very "detainees" that I was taught to believe were the enemy who would stop at nothing short of the annihilation of my entire culture. Throughout these conversations, I gave innumerable illustrations of other matters that I felt were unjustified in favor of the “detainees”. One such example was that the “detainees” had complained that the coffee was cold by the time it arrived from the galley. To my chagrin, the guards were given a coffee machine in the camp from which to directly dispense coffee for the “detainees”.

There is likely no better testimony of the power and influence of the propaganda involved, than that it was the ingratitude of the “detainees” that so infuriated me. In stark contrast, I can now at least theoretically understand how infinitely inconsequential such matters as coffee and Advil are in comparison to the isolation the “detainees” experience everyday. What value are all the medicines in the world if you live in a concrete cell, thousands of miles away from where you were abducted by people of a different race, who came to your country armed with weapons capable of true mass destruction?

Although this is an extremely poignant question, for months I remained too emotionally attached to my personal experiences to even begin to formulate it, let alone entertain it as valid. Instead, I clung to my adamant defense of my role in GTMO, even after I accepted that war is immoral. To me, the reality was that I had personally participated in confining others against their will, and I knew that if I were to admit to myself that I had not done this in support of a just cause, there would be a high price to pay within my conscience. Since coming to that realization, I have repeatedly tried to dispel such doubts by telling myself that even if war is immoral, surely the confinement of criminals doesn’t violate the concept of liberty I have come to cherish.

Nevertheless, my growing skepticism of government, and my critical thinking about GTMO, has led me to the following three questions that I think should be used to decide the issue once and for all.

1. Are the "detainees" in GTMO, or anywhere else for that matter, guilty of crimes that merit the past and continuing restriction of their liberty?

2. Are there objective grounds upon which the guilt referenced in the first question has been established? If not, is evidence to this end being sought, and is it just to restrict their liberty whilst the question of their guilt remains unanswered? The latter question references the commonly recognized feature of the American judicial system that the accused are innocent until proven guilty. Does such a principle apply to all humanity, or should it only apply for the citizens of a country in which the government enumerates it, as in the United States?

3. The final question is much more subjective, and I don't believe it has the practical application value that the previous questions offer; however, I believe it is no less powerful or important to understanding the issue. What would you do if tens of thousands of people, armed with deadly force, and from a completely different culture than yourself, suddenly moved within miles of where you lived, worked, and raised your children?

Having established these three questions as my standard, I admit that I do not have, nor am I aware of anyone having, all the information necessary to determine the guilt or innocence of each detained person. Therefore, I honestly confess that I have no basis on which to claim justification for my personal actions in continuing the confinement of fellow human beings in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

If you have been interested enough to read this far, I would greatly appreciate your feedback as this is a particularly meaningful post to me. Do you agree with my conclusion? Do you have questions about anything that I referenced? What do you think of the overall military operation in GTMO? What do you think of my personal involvement? Please don't hesitate to leave a comment or to email me by clicking here.

If you haven't read it, my official application to request discharge is linked here.