Give Back Gitmo

1AC
Contention One: Torture
The House is currently blocking Obamas attempt to close Guantanamo Bay the status quo is political gridlock Zengerle 13

(Patricia, writer for Reuters, House Votes to block Obama plan to close Guantanamo, 6.14.13, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/14/us-usadefense-guantanamo-idUSBRE95D12F20130614, [CL])

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a massive defense bill on Friday that includes measures to block President Barack Obama's plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, underscoring the tough fight ahead for the White House as it seeks to shutter the controversial detention camp. The
provisions intended to prevent the closure of the prison camp at the base in Cuba. Despite prisoners and

Republican-controlled House voted, 315-108, for the $638 billion National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes money for weapons, troops and the war in Afghanistan. But it also addresses a range of policy matters, including this year's efforts to combat sexual assault in the military and

a hunger strike by at least 104 of the 166 appeals from Obama that the prison is too expensive to maintain and a recruiting tool for anti-American militants, the House voted, 249-174 , to defeat an amendment calling for its shutdown by the end of 2014. Lawmakers also voted to prevent the transfer to Yemen or the United States of any of the prisoners,
captured in counterterrorism operations after the September 11, 2001, attacks, although more than half have been cleared for release during U.S. military and intelligence reviews. Obama, who had pledged during his 2008 presidential campaign to shut down the Guantanamo prison, had his counterterrorism adviser, Lisa Monaco, call legislators this week in a last-ditch effort to build support for closing the base. LESS RESISTANCE IN SENATE The

House vote does not end Obama's hopes of shutting down the prison. The Senate must still pass its version of the massive National Defense Authorization Act, and then the two will be reconciled before being submitted to Obama, who has threatened to veto the House version of the bill. There is less resistance to closing Guantanamo in the Senate, where Obama's fellow Democrats hold a slim majority. A handful of Republicans, including
Arizona's influential Senator John McCain, also want it shut. The Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the bill - which still faces a vote in the full Senate - would give the defense department more flexibility to close the Guantanamo prison.

Meanwhile, conditions are getting worse every day in the prison no one in Washington is willing to move on closing Guantanamo every day that the Base remains open is a day of torture for prisoners on hunger strike Frommer 13
(Frederic, USA Today, 7.16.13, US Judge Turns Down Bid to End Gitmo Force -Feeding, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/16/judge-rules-on-gitmo-force-feeding/2521535/, [CL])

WASHINGTON (AP)

A federal judge Tuesday turned down a bid by three Guantanamo Bay

detainees on a hunger strike to stop the government from force-feeding them. Judge Rosemary M. Collyer ruled that she doesn't have jurisdiction in the case , because Congress has removed Guantanamo detainees' treatment and conditions of confinement from the purview of federal courts. She said there was "nothing so shocking or inhumane in the treatment" that would raise a constitutional concern. Collyer, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote that even if she did have jurisdiction, she would deny the detainees' motion for an injunction. While the effort is framed as a motion to stop force-feeding, the prisoners' "real complaint is that the United States is not allowing them to commit suicide by starvation," she wrote. She said that the United States cannot allow a
person in custody to die of self-inflicted starvation, and that numerous courts have recognized the government's duty to prevent suicide and to provide life-saving nutritional and medical care to people in custody. The three men, Shaker Aamer, Nabil Hadjarab and Ahmed Belbacha, have all been cleared for release but remain at Guantanamo. Jon Eisenberg, one of the attorneys for the detainees, said Collyer was wrong when she said the detainees are demanding a right to commit suicide. " She

has misunderstood the purpose of the hunger strike. It's not to commit suicide, it's to protest indefinite detention," he said. As to her conclusion that there was nothing inhumane about force-feeding, Eisenberg said, "Human rights advocates, medical ethicists and religious leaders say otherwise." He said the lawyers were considering an appeal. Another judge, Gladys Kessler, turned down a
similar case last week, also concluding that she lacked jurisdiction. But she called force-feeding a "painful, humiliating and degrading process." Kessler, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote that

there is one person who does have the authority to The president
of the United States, as commander in

address the issue

chief, has

and then quoted a recent speech from President Barack Obama in which he criticized the force-feeding of the

prisoners at Guantanamo as he said he would renew his efforts to close the prison. "

the authority and power to directly address the issue of force-feeding of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay," she wrote. Lawyers for prisoners say the most recent hunger strike began in February as a protest of conditions and their indefinite confinement at the U.S. base in Cuba. As of Tuesday, the military said, a little under half of the 166 detainees were participating in the hunger strike.

In Guantanamo Bay 44 prisoners are force-fed every day. Standard Operating Procedure is to strap the detainee to a chair while cuffed, insert a long tube from the nose into the stomach, and pump nutrients into the stomach with a syringe. The process takes over two hours. Its so painful that it creates permanent health problems and scars the victims for life. Hajjar 13
(Lisa, professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara, The Agony and the Irony of Guantanamos Mass Hunger Strike, 6.20.13, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/12332/the-agony-and-the-irony-of-guantanamo%E2%80%99s-mass-hunge, [CL])

More than two-thirds of the prisoners at Guantnamo104 reportedlyare hunger striking, and fortyfour are being force fed. Four have been hospitalized for causes relating to their force feeding or hunger striking. The current mass hunger
strike bears many resemblances and shares some common causes to the mass strike in 2006. Some prisoners have been on hunger strike for years. Hunger striking is a classic method used by prisoners to protest the conditions of their detention. In Formations of Violence, Allen Feldmans study of Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners in British custody, he explains the politics of deliberate self-starvation: It is not only a matter of what history does to the body but what subjects do with what history has done to the body. The

choice to exercise the limited power that protesting prisoners havethe power to refuse to eatis, in Feldmans words, a form of counterinstrumentation of their own bodies. As one Yemeni hunger-striking prisoner wrote in a note released by his lawyer David Remes: A human being should defend himself, but if he were to become totally unable to do so, he should take the difficult and simple decision because he has no other options. Doing so, he achieves victory over injustice and humiliation and feels his dignity as a human being.

Over a dozen of Remes eighteen clients are hunger striking, and four are being force fed. He provided the following narrativ e of the events that led to the mass strike: When President Obama took office in 2009, he sent Admiral Patrick M. Walsh to GTMO [Guantnamo] to determine whether the prison met the standards of Common Article 3 [of the Geneva Conventions]. Predictably, Walsh reported that, yes, the camp complied with Common Article 3, but they could do even better! Thereafter, conditions in the camps markedly improved, the only creditable aspect of President Oba mas GTMO policy. The Joint Detention Group (JDG), a component of the Joint Task ForceGuantanamo (JTF), ruled with a light touch and maintained the peace an Era of Good Feelingsuntil the summer of 2012. In

June 2012, JDG command passed to Colonel John V. Bogdan, one-time brought a tough-guy approach to detention operations and he has ruled the camps with an iron fist. Marked by displays of power for powers sake, his approach has led to mayhem in the camps. In September, Bogdan, without provocation, had his men storm Camp 6 [where compliant detainees lived communally]. During the fall, conditions in the camps deteriorated: for example, temperatures in the cells were lowered to 62 [degrees Fahrenheit]. In January [2013], a tower guard in the recreation area fired into a group of detainees, wounding one,[i] and in early February, the mass hunger strike broke out. Bogdan lit the fuse when he or one
commander of an MP [military police] brigade that operated in East Bagdad. Unlike his Obama-era predecessors, Bogdan

of his Officers in Charge (OIC) had the guards conduct a sweeping search of the mens cells in Camp 6, where about 130 of the 166 detainees were held. Guards arbitrarily confiscated personal items including family letters and photographs, legal papers, and extra blankets. (Civilians confiscated the papers.) Bogdan or his OICs also attempted to search the mens Qurans, using interpreters to do the dirty work.[ii] That fateful decisi on ignited the hunger strike. What upset the men was not how the Qurans were to be searched but the fact that they were to be searched at all. JDG had stopped searching Qurans in 2006. According to our clients, JDG has admitted that it had no concrete reason to reinstitute Quran searches. Bogdan, however, decided to revert to the rules of 2006, which provided for Quran searches, a most provocative display of power. The men have offered to surrender their Qurans to the military permanently to avoid searches. Surrendering Qurans was a common solution to threatened searches in the Bush administration days, when men feared their Qurans would be searched when they met with their lawyers. (Putting the men to that choice was one of the clever disincentives for such meetings.) Bogdan, however, will not agree to stop searches or take the Qurans. Bogdan wont even discuss the mens grievances until they end their hunger strike. Hell be damned if he blinks first. Meanwhile, he is using brutal tactics to break the strike. Many men now view the strike as a means of protesting the very fact that they continue to be held. These men, including many of my clients, say they are determined to leave Guantnamo one way or the otheralive or in a box. Of the 130 detainees who were held in communal conditions in Camp 6, more than 100 were moved into solitary cells during a pre-dawn raid on 13 April. According to a newly-revised Standard Operating Procedure manual obtained from the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and published by Al Jazeera, in the event of a mass hunger strike, isolating hunger striking patients from each other is vital to prevent them from achieving solidarity. But, according to Remes who spoke by telephone to one of his clients on 14 June, the hunger strike is still going strong. F orce Feeding The

number of prisoners being force-fed is rising as the strike endures. The American Medical Association, the
force feeding at Guantnamo as illegal and unethical.

International Committee of the Red Cross, and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights have protested the practice of

Force feeding is a blatant contravention of the will of prisoners who have chosen to refuse food. When administered by doctors, the practice violates the World Medical Associations
(WMA) 1975 Tokyo Declaration and 1991 Malta Declaration. Luke Mitchell, formerly an editor at Harpers Maga zine who has written extensively about issues related to force feeding, provided the following account:

The British did not force [IRA prisoner] Bobby Sands to eat and so he died a martyr, which is one reason the US
is so eager to force feed prisoners today. I interviewed William Winkenwerder at some length about this in 2006 [during the previous mass hunger strike at GTMO], when he was the top doctor at the Pentagon. Winkenwerder, citing the WMA 1991 declaration, suggested that force-feeding was okayit was just up to individual doctors whether or not they wanted to participate. But that was backwards. In fact, the WMA had declared that in a case where a doctor cannot accept the patients decision to refuse such aidthat is, force feedingthe patient would then be entitled to be attended by another physician. In other words, all conscious patients have an absolute right to refuse aid when that aid is in the form of force-feeding. I read that passage to Winkenwerder, and he said that's new to me.

What does all of this have to do with Sands? I asked Winkenwerder about Sands, and he said he hadn't studied that case. But ju st a few weeks later,

an unnamed Pentagon official told the Toronto Star that death by starvation was unacceptable. The worst case would be to have someone go from zero to hero, he said. We dont want a Bobby Sands. Why was Winkenwerder being so disingenuous? The legality of force-feeding [under US law] is vague. Federal Bureau of Prison guidelines

allow it, but some specific cases forbid it.[iii] Judges can go either way. Considerable evidence suggests that it is being used as a form of torture, though.

Torture is illegal, of course, and so the Pentagon has an important stake in convincing the public (and the courts) that force-feeding is an ethical medical procedure. But that requires considerable rhetorical dexterity, because the WMA is absolutely unambiguous: force-feeding is unethical. The rhetorical dexterity includes euphemization; the practice of force feeding is officially termed enteral feeding or tube feeding. Prisoners who absolutely refuse to be fed may be strapped to restraint chairs which were imported to the
facility during the 2006 strike and in design resemble electric chairs. Some who wish to strike but are faced with the prospect of violent cell extraction and the chair consent to having the tube inserted into their noses and the Ensure pumped into their stomachs. According

spokesperson Durand, Passing out constitutes consent to a tube feeding.

to

Apparently, President Obama did not

get the memo on the official preference for euphemism. On 23 May he delivered a major national security speech (the second in his entire term in office) in which he spoke about the hunger strike at Guantnamo as a crisis and a policy failure: Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike. Is that who we are? Is that something that our Founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave to our children? At a press conference on 4 June, Marine General John F. Kelly, the commander of SOUTHCOM, took issue with the presidents statement. We dont force-feed right now at Gitmo. Rather, troops enterally feed hunger strikers. White House National Security spokesperson Caitlin Hayden was asked whether Obama would retract his remarks about forced feedings. The Presidents comments stand. Journalists Are the Eyes of the World In March, one month into the strike, The Miami Heralds Ca rol Rosenberg reported on a tour of Camp 6 during which she and other journalists witnessed prisoners refusing food. A Guantnamo spokesperson, Navy Captain Robert Durand, responded to media queries by stating that the hunger strike is specifically designed by the prisoners to attract media attention. Rosenberg reported on the array of answers provided to journalists about why the prison military and medical staff would not permit prisoners to refuse to eat: Its not humane. The motto of the 1,700-strong detention center staffis Safe, Humane, Legal, Transparent. And the answer from an Army captain named John, the officer in charge of Guantnamos communal C amp 6, was that the military couldnt let detainees starve themselves to death because that would be inhumane. They can choose not to eat but were not going to let them starve. First, do no harm is the creed of medical professionals, and to let a captive starve is at odds with US military medicine. A Navy lieutenant commander wearing a nameplate with the moniker Leonato put it this way: Were obligated to protect life. I signed on as a nurse not to carry a rifle but to keep people alive, render medical care. Im here to deliver therapeutic care as a mental health professional. Its un-American. Allowing a detainee to harm himself is not only counter to our responsibilities under the laws of war, but is anathema to our values as Americans, says Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, the Pentagon spokesman responsible for detention and legal issues. Allowing a peacefully protesting detainee to harm himself by choosing to sit by while he starves himself to the point of endangering his life is not only a violation of the very code followed by civilized peoples everywhere, but it is the worst kind of victors justice: repugnant and wholly unacceptable. It looks bad. Its our job to take care of them, to feed them and take care of their needs, says Zak, the Arab -American cultural advisor to the admiral in charge of the detention center, who like nearly everybody who works there grants int erviews on condition that his full name not be published. Otherwise they will say we killed them, [or] let them die. Its policy. Thats [the answer provided by spokesperson] Durand... Journalists currently reporting from Guantnamo are not taken on prison tours, except the abandoned Camp X-ray. According to Truthouts Adam Hudson, the explanation offered by the JTF spokesperson is that the military commissions and the prison are separate issues, and journalists are there to report on the former. Rolling Stones John Knefel reports that journalists who want to tour the prison must schedule a separate expedition to the island and, according to a Pe ntagon spokesperson, We're booked up until mid-fall and possibly beyond. The Math

The Standard Operating Procedure manual, which went into effect on 5 March, details the general algorithm for assessing hunger strikers. Al Jazeeras Jason Leopold writes:
and Chemistry of Strike Breaking

Prisoners are designated as hunger strikers, according to the guidelines, if they communicate, either directly or indirectly (i.e.: repeated meal refusals) his intent to undergo a hunger strike or fast as a form of protest or demand attention, or if they miss nine consecutive mea ls and their body weight falls below 85 percent of either previous or ideal weightusually calculated using the median BMI [body mass index] for a prisoner's height. The

manual also describes the chair restraint system clinical protocol for personnel who administer the force feeding. The medical personnel, who serve under Guantnamo Commander John Smith, have no professional autonomy according to the manual. A prisoner selected for force feeding undergoes the following procedures: First, he is offered one last chance to eat voluntarily before being put in the restraint chair. If he does not consent to eat, the medical provider signs [the] medical restraint order. Then a guard shackles the prisoner and places a mask over his mouth to prevent spitting and biting. A feeding tube is inserted through his nose. Medics use a stethoscope and a test dose of water to check that the tube has descended all the way to his
stomach. When the tube has been secured with tape, the enteral nutrition and water that has been ordered is started, and flo w rate is adjusted according to detainee's condition and tolerance. The

feeding can be completed in twenty to thirty minutes but might take up to two hours. After the nutrient infusion is completed, he is placed in a dry cell and observed for up to sixty minutes for any indications of vomiting or attempts to induce vomiting. If he vomits, he can be put through the whole process again. If this coercive hunger management process were not appalling enough, another revelation contained in the manual is the authorization of a controversial drug to enhance digestion that may cause serious and permanent neurological disorders. Al Jazeeras
Leopold reports: Metoclopramide, commonly known by its brand name Reglan,

is supposed to speed up the digestive process and remove the urge to vomit during force feeding. However, medical studies into the drug have determined that Reglan also is linked to a high rate of tardive dyskinesia (TD), a potentially irreversible and disfiguring disorder characterized by involuntary movements of the face, tongue, or extremities.
The studies prompted the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] in February 2009 to slap Reglan with a black box label the agency's strongest warningto inform patients about the dangers associated with chronic use of the drug. According to the FDA's own medication guide, additional lack of consent in force feeding as well as the involuntary administration of Reglan and other drugs is medical malpractice. That some of the drugs prisoners are forced to ingest or are given unaware have potentially harmful side effects borders on human experimentation, especially given the stern FDA warnings. On 30 May, fourteen protesting their treatment and requesting access to independent doctors. Dear doctor, they

side effects include depression, thoughts about depression and, in extreme cases, suicidal thoughts and suicide. The prisoners wrote an open letter to the Guantnamo medical staff wrote: You may be able to keep me alive for a long time in a permanently debilitated state. But with so many of us on hunger strike, you are attempting a treatment experiment on an unprecedented scaleWhether you remain in the military or return to civilian practice, you will have to live with what you have done and not done here at Guantnamo for the rest of your life.

Pain in itself is a difficult impact to conceptualize because it eludes the grasp of words, but today we challenge you to think about the pain that detainees experience every day torture is not just pain, it destroys the person who experiences it from the inside out. Every day in Guantanamo we take people apart and annihilate the things that make them human dignity and autonomy. Scarry 87
(Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University , Elaine, The Body in Pain, 1987, BH)

The position of the person who is tortured is in many ways, of course, radically different from that of the person who experiences pain in a religious context, or that of an old person facing death, or that of the person who is hurt in a dentist's office. One simple and essential difference is duration: although a dentist's drill may in fact be the torturer's instrument, it
period that may be seventeen hours on a single day or four hours a day on each of twenty-nine days.

will not land on a nerve for the eternity of a few seconds but for the eternity of the uncountable number of seconds that make up the period of torture, a

A second difference is control: the person tortured does not will his entry into and withdrawal out of the pain as the religious communicant enters and leaves the pain of a Good Friday meditation, or as the patient enters and leaves the pain of the healing therapy. A third difference is purpose: the path of worldly objects is swept clean not, as in religion, to make room for the approach of some divinely intuited force nor, as in medicine and dentistry, to repair the ground for the return of the world itself; there is in torture not even a fragment of a benign explanation as there is in old age where the absence of the world from oneself can be understood as an experienceable inversion of the eventual but unexperienceable absence of oneself from the world. Perhaps only in the prolonged and
searing pain caused by accident or by disease or by the breakdown of the pain pathway itself is there the same brutal senselessness as in torture. But these other nonpolitical contexts are called upon because they make immediately self-evident a central fact about pain that, although emphatically present in torture, is also obscured there by the idiom of "betrayal." It is the

intense pain that destroys a person's self and world, a destruction experienced spatially as either the contraction of the universe down to the immediate vicinity of the body or as the body swelling to fill the entire universe. Intense pain is also language-destroying: as the content of one's world disintegrates, so the content of one's language disintegrates; as the self disintegrates, so that which would express and project the self is robbed of its source and its subject. World, self, and voice are lost, or nearly lost, through the intense pain of torture and not through the confession as is

wrongly suggested by its connotations of betrayal. The prisoner's confession merely objectifies the fact of their being almost lost, makes their invisible absence, or nearby absence, visible to the torturers. To assent to words that through the thick agony of the body can be only dimly heard, or to reach aimlessly for the name of a person or a place that has barely enough cohesion to hold its shape as a word and none to bond it to its worldly referent, is a way of saying, yes, all is almost gone now, there is almost nothing left now, even this voice, the sounds I am making, no longer form my words but the words of another. Torture, then, to return for a moment to the starting point, consists of a primary physical act, the infliction of pain, and a primary verbal act, the interrogation. The verbal act, in turn, consists of two parts, "the question" and "the answer," each with conventional connotations that wholly falsify it. "The question" is mistakenly understood to be "the motive"; "the answer" is mistakenly understood to be "the betrayal." The first mistake credits the torturer, providing him with a justification, his cruelty with an explanation. The second discredits the prisoner, making him rather than the torturer, his voice rather than his pain, the cause of his loss of self and world. These two misinterpretations are obviously neither accidental nor unrelated. The one is an absolution of responsibility; the other is a conferring of responsibility; the two together turn the moral reality of torture upside down. Almost

anyone looking at the physical act of torture would be immediately appalled and repulsed by the torturers. It is difficult to think of a human situation in which the lines of moral responsibility are more starkly or simply drawn, in which there is a more compelling reason to ally one's sympathies with the one person and to repel the claims of the other . Yet as soon as the focus of attention shifts to the verbal aspect of torture, those lines have begun to waver and change their shape in the direction of accommodating and crediting the torturers.21 This inversion, this interruption and redirecting of a basic moral reflex, is indicative of the kind of interactions occurring between body and voice in torture and suggests why the infliction of acute physical pain is inevitably accompanied by the interrogation. However near the prisoner, the torturer stands, the distance between

their physical realities is colossal, for the prisoner is in overwhelming physical pain while the torturer is utterly without pain; he is free of any pain originating in his own body; he is also free of the pain originating in the agonized body so near him. He is so without any human recognition of or identification with the pain that he is not only able to bear its presence but able to bring it continually into the present, inflict it* sustain it, minute after minute, hour after hour. Although the distance separating the two is probably the greatest distance that can separate two human beings, it is an invisible distance since the physical realities it lies between are each invisible. The

prisoner experiences an annihilating negation so hugely felt throughout his own body that it overflows into the spaces before his eyes and in his ears and mouth; yet one which is unfelt, unsensed by anybody else. The torturer experiences the absence of this annihilating negation., These physical realities, an annihilating negation and an absence

of negation, are therefore translated into verbal realities in order to make the invisible distance visible, in order to make what is taking place in terms of pain take place in terms of power, in order to shift what is occurring exclusively in the mode of sentience into the mode of self-extension and world. The torturer's questionsasked, shouted, insisted upon, pleaded forobjectify the fact that he has a world, announce in their feigned urgency the critical importance of that world, a world whose asserted magnitude is confirmed by the cruelty it is able to motivate and justify. Part of what makes his world so huge is its continual juxtaposition with the small and shredded world objectified in the prisoner's answers, answers that articulate and comment on

the disintegration of all objects to which he might have been bonded in loyalty or love or good sense or long familiarity. It is only the prisoner's steadily shrinking ground that wins for the torturer his swelling sense of territory. The question and the answer are a prolonged comparative display, an unfurling of world maps.

The dehumanization that torture necessitates breeds a way of thinking about other people that turns us into a brutal, violent people that wont think twice about the humanity of those outside of our moral compass this makes all forms of violence possible Crelinsten 3
(RONALD CRELINSTEN is Professor of Criminology at the University of Ottawa, Canada, Observatorio de Seguranca, The world of torture: A constructed reality, 2003, http://www.observatoriodeseguranca.org/files/the%20world%20of%20torture.pdf) Finally,

dehumanization is used to render the victim deserving of his or her fate in the eyes of the torturer. Torturers represent the end product of a selective and progressive training process in which conscientious objectors, doubters, independent thinkers and sensitive persons are weeded out along the way. As a result, those who become professional torturers are no longer in easy touch with such feelings as
empathy, compassion or concern for the fate of their victims. As Pieter Kooijmans, former UN Special Rapporteur on questions of torture, puts it in his 1992 report: We should be aware . . . that torture is only the nal link in a long chain. The seeds of torture are sown whene ver a society tolerates situations where respect for the human dignity of fellow citizens is taken lightly. The situation in the former Yugoslavia is a vivid illustration of this.

Lack of respect for the inherent dignity of fellow human beings just because they belong to a different ethnic group has led to a situation where torture, rape and murder are rampant. (United Nations, 1993: 129, para. 582, emphasis added) Here we see the nefarious consequences of scapegoating and us/them thinking, whereby certain groups or individuals are excluded from the moral universe of respect for other human beings, thereby opening the way to brutal and savage treatment. Group cohesion is so often maintained by the creation of a common enemy, an out-group, replete with social pariahs, traitors, indels and barbarians. This inout, usthem splitting is one of the prime vehicles for legitimizingwithin the eyes of the ingroupthe moral transgressions towards members of the out-group. The process of reality construction involves the gradual and progressive exclusion of the members of the targeted group by stripping them of their human identity and redening them as enemy aliens. The Jews were
insects (Dower, 1986). In Rwanda, the Hutus called the Tutsis snakes and cockroaches (Ruth Jamieson, personal communicati on). In

depicted by the Nazis as vermin. In the Second World War, the Americans depicted the Japanese as apes, while the Japanese depicted the Americans as

war, in genocide, in repression, one of the principal features of gross human rights violations, such as torture, systematic rape or ill-treatment of prisoners, is the denial of the victims human dignity. This redenition of part of the human family is a core element of the new reality constructed by the torture regime.

Plan:
The United States federal government should declare Guantanamo Bay a Cuban free trade zone.

Contention Two: Solvency

Turning Guantanamo Bay into a free trade zone returns the Bay to Cubans without handing it over to the Castros that shuts down the prison and protects the island from predatory investment Symmes 9
(Patrick, The Daily Beast, Tear Down this Wall, 4.10.09, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/04/10/tear-down-this-wall.html, [CL]) The Cuban revolution's many failures have left a regime weakened and vulnerable, yet capable of sustaining itself for years thanks to isolation and a monopoly grip on every aspect of life. The

sea keeps Cubans trapped inside the Castro system, and I well remember on my first visit to

Havana in 1992 noting its seeming openness and tranquility. I

saw no barbed wire, no machine guns or snarling dogs. Cuba didn't look like East Berlin. But there is a wall. It is 17.4 miles long, and topped with razor wire. It is the walla fence, reallythat separates Gitmo from the rest of Cuba. Opening up Guantnamo Bay to free trade with Cuba effectively lifting the trade embargo, but only here
could transform a symbolic sore spot for America into a free-trade zone
Americans could leverage trade into a better society. The where Cubans and Cuban-

way to bring radical change to Cuba is to return Guantnamo Bay to the Cubansbut not to the Castros. The Miami-based diaspora of some 1.6 million Cuban-born

people and their offspring could turn the base into something many of them love dearly: a business opportunity. As a tax-free, duty-free, open-trade zone run by Cuban-Americans for the benefit of their brethren on the island, Guantnamo Bay could become a model for a new Cuba, a place where fair dealing, the rule of law and free speech are the norm. By starting businesses catering to Cubans, and later opening factories to employ them, CubanAmericans would bring normal rights onto Cuban soil. Open the border at Gitmo, initiate trade and the Castro regime's stranglehold would start to crumble. Pent-up

demand for goods is huge in Cuba. The population has been deprived for decades of everything from shoes would empty a Wal-Mart in hours if they had the chance. But they don't. Private shops were shut in the 1960s, self-employment is tightly restricted (under Ral Castro, working as a birthday-party clown has been banned) and it is still illegal to employ even one other person. Only the state can run a business: more than 90 percent of Cubans earn a government paycheck, often worth as little as $12 a month, and are dependent on a rice-andbeans rationing system that can't deliver much else. What can people without money buy in a freetrade zone? Everything they already buy, but cheaper. Ordinary people spend their tiny salaries on overpriced goods in
and bluejeans to auto parts and chicken sandwiches. Cubans state storeseffectively subsidizing their oppressors. Cuba buys cooking oil abroad for 80 cents a liter and sells it in state-run "dollar stores" at $2.20 a liter. Much of that money comes from abroad, anyway: President Obama has already loosened currency restrictions on Cuban-Americans, who send $1 billion home to the island annually. But the

Castro government takes 20 percent of every dollar in commissions, so any increase in spending power for Cubans merely translates into deeper pockets for the regime. A total lifting of the embargo would have the same effect: as long as
the state stores hold a monopoly, all trade deals only keep the decrepit Communist Party system running . Washington does approve one form of trade with Cuba: farm products. In the name of humanitarianism, agribusiness
giants are allowed to ship Kansas wheat, Louisiana rice and frozen Arkansas chicken to Cuba. In one Havana store, guarded by a man with a club, I saw pork sausage from North Carolina and turkeys from Virginiaall at hard-currency prices no Cuban could afford without money from abroad. This

invisible U.S.-Cuban trade is worth some $800 million a year, and one third of all calories in Cuba now come from the U.S. Why is this outreach entrusted only to large exporters with big lobbying arms? Why not let America's
most devoted apostles of free trade and small business, the Miami Cubans, have a go? If anyone knows how to start from nothing which is the condition Cuba is in nowit is the island's children abroad. Let the exiles return, if only to sell bluejeans and roof tiles out of Guantnamo. It may be tempting to cut the knot with one blow, ending all trade and travel restrictions. But don't

lift the embargo just to let big U.S. exporters deal directly with the island's jailers. Lift the embargo at Guantnamo Bay, and on our terms: direct trade with ordinary Cubans. Of course this is unrealistic. But it was unrealistic of Ronald Reagan to demand in

1987 that the Soviets tear down the Berlin Wall. He laid bare the tyranny that maintained the wall, and the people tore it down. If the United States does try to pull down the fence, or open its one gate, Havana will be forced to admit that the border is really sealed (by checkpoints) on the regime's side. Legal objections, like the 1903 treaty restricting Guantnamo Bay to "no other purpose" than refueling ships, are meaningless. Fidel Castro always denounced the treaty as invalid and without force. Let him complain when he starts cashing the rent checks that have been sent punctually by courier for the last 50 years. Creating

a free-trade zone by and for Cubans, opening businesses and erecting homes and perhaps even political institutions is a long-term project. But Ral Castro has purged his rivals and consolidated power in the past two years, and there's no sign he's going away. Why not use the next few years to build something better at Guantnamo Bay? Like a new Cuba. Tearing down the wall would be a grand gesture, but not an empty one. The regime is vulnerable to a tightly orchestrated lifting of the embargo at Gitmothat calm and beautiful destination in the Cuban sun.

Cuba wants to close the prison and will accept their land back its THEIR land Daily Star 13
(The Daily Star Lebanon is an online journalism publication, Cuba Says U.S. Must Shut Guantanamo, Hand Back Base, 5.01.13, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2013/May-01/215729-cuba-says-us-must-shut-guantanamo-hand-backbase.ashx#axzz2ZGOgoQ00, [CL])

GENEVA:

Cuba's foreign minister demanded

Wednesday

that Washington shut its controversial

jail at Guantanamo Bay and return the long-held military base to Havana . The comments by Bruno
Rodriguez Parrilla to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva came a day after US President Barack Obama vowed again to shut the military prison, saying it was damaging US interests. " We

are deeply concerned about the legal limbo that supports the permanent and atrocious violation of human rights at the illegal naval base in Guantanamo, a Cuba territory that was usurped by the United States, a centre of torture and deaths of prisoners who are under custody,"
Cuba," he said. The

Parrilla said during a review of Cuba's own rights record. He said 160 people had been detained in Guantanamo for 10 years , "without any guarantees, without being tried by a court or the right to legal defence". "That prison and military base should be shut down and that territory should be returned to

hunger strike, now into its 12th week, has heightened the pressure on Washington to shut what Obama has called a legal "no man's land". Obama said Tuesday he did not want any inmates to die and urged Congress to help him find a long-term solution that would allow for prosecuting terror suspects while shutting down Guantanamo. The facility was set up by his predecessor George W. Bush to hold suspects captured in
Afghanistan and elsewhere after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Even before the creation of the jail, the US Navy base was a source of dispute between Havana's communist rulers and bitter rival Washington. The United States signed a long-term lease for Guantanamo Bay after helping Cuba throw off Spanish colonial rule at the end of the 19th century. Already strategic for Washington's Caribbean regional policy because of its location in southeastern Cuba, it acquired additional importance during the Cold War after the 1959 Cuban revolution. Since then, Cuba

repeatedly has pressed for its return and has refused to cash in the rent which Washington pays into an escrow account.

Guantanamo is a crossroads for American democracy and the penal regime in the face of a proliferating prison-industrial complex we must make a conscious choice to become politically and ethically accountable for the consequences of military detainment and uniquely violent social institutions cloaked in the language of legal technicality and acceptability. Brown 5
(Professor of Crimonolgy and Sociology at Ohio State, 2005 (American Quarterly, 57:3, 973-977, MUSE) Abu Ghraib, like

Guantanamo and other U.S. military prisons, marks the kind of penal expansion

that takes place in the context of wars with no end : wars on drugs, crime, and terror. In the U.S., we imprison

more than anyone in the world and more than any other society has ever imprisoned for the purposes of crime control, and we do so in a manner that is defined by race .57 This unprecedented use of imprisonment has largely taken place outside of democratic checks or public interest, in disregard of decades of work by penal scholars and activists who have introduced a vocabulary of warning through terms such as "penological crisis," "incarceration binge," "prison-industrial complex," and the "warehousing" of offenders. Such massive expansion has direct effects upon the private lives of prisoners, prison workers, their families, and their communities. I have tried, at least, to point to the ways in which these effects may extend far beyond their immediate contexts into a potential reconfiguration of public life. Such unprecedented penal expenditures mark the global emergence of a new discourse of punishment , one whose racial divisions and abusive practices are revised into a technical, legal language of acceptability , one in which Americans are conveniently further distanced from the social realities of punishment through strategies of isolation and exclusion, all conducted in a manner and on a scale that exacerbates the fundamental class, race, and gender contradictions and divisions of democracy. In this respect, the "new war prison" is constituted by both material practices and a discursive language whose expansion and intensification need recognize no limits, no borders, no bounds. I have used punishment
and torture interchangeably across this piece, not because I believe they are without distinction or difference, but because I believe, as history and social theory teach us, that they are grounded in the same fundamental practice: the infliction of pain. Because

punishment carries

pain, rupture, and trauma with it, its implementation will always be fundamentally tragic. Torture, then, is not incidental to punishment. It is at its core . Instead of accepting this reality, the history of the practice and study of punishment is marred by an assumption that intention matters, that explanations and justifications define punishment and its appropriate use, and that the law can control its violence. However, these kinds of assumptions conceal the presence of the law itself. When punishment is invoked, it is always intended to remind the people of the power and presence of the state.
However, this is an invocation that is precisely meant to be avoided in democratic contexts, as strong governments have no need to rely upon force. According to both Nietzsche and Durkheim, it is a weak state that will resort to a display offeree and violence.

Any regime that decides

Punishment is, thus,

to inflict pain and harm will inevitably find itself caught up in a unique social institution whose essence is violence and whose justifications are inherently problematic.
always most usefully understood at its most elemental level:

as a bloodlust for revenge, one whose essence is passion, unreason, anger, and emotion, whose invocation is highly individualized, subjective, and personal, an insatiable urge that knows no limits . In such a setting, as sociolegal scholar Austin Sarat argues, a "wildness" is introduced into the "house of law," wherein "private becomes public and public becomes private; passion is introduced into the temple of reason, and yet passion itself is subject to
evidenced in contemporary patterns of punishment in the United States that often defy a rational logic of any kind.

the discipline of reason. Every effort to distinguish revenge and retribution nevertheless reveals that Vengeance arrives among us in a judicious disguise.'"58 The vengeance that underlies the implied calm reason of systematic, procedural, proportional retribution cannot be repressed and is

Any solidarity or sociality gained at the price of such punishment, then, speaks not only to the end of democracy but of humanity as well. And so we went from September 11 to a war on terror, from Abu Ghraib to the summer of beheadings in an endless repetition whose limits are defined currently only in the possibility of sheer exhaustion. For American studies, this means that Abu Ghraib operates at a series of intersections and borders that have rendered the fundamental contradictions of imprisonment in a democratic context acutely visible, if only temporarily. As the impossible case for democracy, the "scandal" at Abu Ghraib reveals how an unmarked proliferation of penal

discourses, technologies, and institutions not only "set the conditions" for the grossest

violations of democratic values but revealed the normalcy and acceptability of these kinds of practices in spaces beyond and between the law . Consequently, Abu Ghraib falls within a distinct category of legal and territorial borders, those spaces that sociolegal scholar Susan Bibler Coutin observes "defy categories and paradigms, that 'don't fit,' and that therefore reveal the criteria that determine fittedness, spaces whose very existence is simultaneously denied and demanded by the socially powerful." Capturing the sense of doubleness that characterizes Abu Ghraib, she describes these "targets of repression and zones of militarization" as contradictory spaces that "are marginalized yet strategic, inviolate yet continually violated, forgotten yet significant."59 Many peoples exist at these borders, and all stories may be told there. But, and this is of crucial significance, there is no guarantee that these stories will be told. So much of the writing and thought surrounding the borderlands has been directed at the development of a new social vision, derived from the pain of history and experience, but grounded in the celebratory justice of the inevitable, vindicating arrival of the hybrid. As Gloria Anzaldua insists, "En unaspocas centurias, the future will belong to the mestiza."60 Yet Abu Ghraib falls squarely into the kind of border zone that cannot be celebrated, a subaltern site where many stories and voices will never be told or heard, no matter how we reconstruct its history and its events. Judith Butler observes that the subject outside of the law "is neither alive nor dead , neither fully constituted as a subject nor fully deconstituted in death."61 Under Saddam Hussein's rule, numberless thousands were lost in the prison. Under American occupation, "ghost detainees" were a prevalent problem, unidentified, vanished inside the institution's own lost accountability. As Zizek points out, these individuals constitute the "living dead," those missed by bombs in the battlefield, "their right to life forfeited by their having been the legitimate targets of murderous bombings." This positioning has direct impact upon the legal privilege of their captors: "And just as the Guantnamo prisoners are located , like homo sacer, in the space 'between two deaths,' but biologically are still alive ,
the U.S. authorities that treat them in this way also have an indeterminate legal status. They set themselves up as a legal power, but their acts are no

spectacle of abuse at Abu Ghraib makes plain the consequences of putting prisoners and custodians in this space "between two deaths," a legal borderland filled with spectral violence, a space packed with people and yet profoundly empty of its humanity. Bibler Coutin writes, "I cannot celebrate the space of nonexistence. Even if this space is in some ways subversive, even if its boundaries are permeable, and even if it is sometimes irrelevant to individuals' everyday lives, nonexistence can be deadly."63 When writing of
longer covered and constrained by the law: they operate in an empty space which is, nevertheless, within the domain of the law."62 The Abu Ghraib, I find myself in a similar space, peering in at a border whose history, purpose, and foundations prevent it from being redeemed or reclaimed, its terrorized inhabitants the essence of Anzaldua's "zero, nothing, no one."64 Abu Ghraib reminds us then of the pains we had hoped to transcend, of the "intimate terrorism" we had hoped to end, of the bloody sovereignty we had hoped to eclipse in a postnational context.65 As Anzaldua observed of "life in the borderlands" nearly two decades ago: The world is not a safe place to live in. We shiver in separate cells in enclosed cities, shoulders hunched, barely keeping the panic below the surface of the skin, daily drinking shock along with our morning coffee, fearing

Shutting down . . . The ability to respond is what is meant by responsibility, yet our cultures take away our ability to act-shackle us in the name of protection. Blocked, immobilized, we can't move forward, we can't move backwards . That writhing serpent movement, the very movement of life, swifter than lightning. Frozen.66 In the working vocabulary and
the torches being set to our buildings, the attacks in the street. memory of a penal culture,

Abu Ghraib remains a border lost to us, accessible only through the fixed

and frozen images that remind us of its irrevocableness. We find ourselves, in a sense, at a new

border that is very old, caught at the crossroads, left alone with America, asking, and with considerable trepidation, what will our futures be?

T Cards

EE = SEZ
Contemporary understandings of economic engagement includes use of territory and SEZs. Mehdudia 12

(Sujay, writer for The Hindu, Land for India-specific SEZs sought in Bangladesh, 12.6.12, http://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/land-forindiaspecific-sezs-sought-in-bangladesh/article4171367.ece, [CL])

In a bid to give trade, investment and economic engagement between the two nations a big push, India has asked Bangladesh to allow the use of its territory to enable Indian companies operating in Bangladesh to export their goods through North-East states corridor and also sought earmarking land for setting up India-specific special economic zone (SEZ). This is being seen as an attempt by India to narrow down the bilateral trade gap that presently heavily loaded in favour of India. At present
Bangladesh exports to India stand at around 536 million and exports from India to Bangladesh stand at $4.5 billion.

SEZs fall under the category of Economic Engagement because they are policy tools for promoting international co-investment and development Kweka and Farole 11

(Tom Farole and Josaphat Kweka are both writers for World Bank, who is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world, Worldbank.org, Institutional Best Practices for Special Economic Zones: An Application to Tanzania, August , 2011, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/EXTAFRREGTOPTRADE/0,,contentMDK:22987846~pagePK:3400417 3~piPK:34003707~theSitePK:502469~isCURL:Y,00.html)

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are increasingly a policy tool of choice for governments seeking to attract foreign investment, promote export-oriented growth, and generate employment. Recent estimates indicate that there currently are more than 2,300 SEZs established in 120 countries. SEZs are spatially delimited areas, which offer a combination of high-quality infrastructure, expedited customs and administrative procedures, and a range of fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to overcome barriers that hinder investment in the wider economy.[1] Well-designed SEZs have been successful as instruments for export-led development, particularly in Asia and Latin America where many zone programs have been in place for several decades. However, despite high profile successes, many SEZs around the world
have failed to meet their potential. Although multiple factors contribute to the failure of an SEZ program, in most cases, they can be traced back to the initial planning stages, and derive from an ineffective regulatory and institutional framework. In common with many other countries in Africa and elsewhere, Tanzania sees the development of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as a critical element of a program to facilitate private sector investment and transform the manufacturing sector to enhance competitiveness and industrialization for job creation. Indeed, SEZs traditionally have been used to address the very constraints facing investors in Tanzania and as quick-win measures to exploit the potential for private sector driven job creation. It is therefore crucial that the policy and institutional aspects of the SEZ regime are designed and implemented effectively to ensure that it delivers on its potential role as a facilitator of investment, competitiveness, and job creation.

SEZ/Trade Zone = Integration

Foreign Trade Zones are a designation of SEZ designed to minimize trade barriers, increase integration, and lubricate economic activity. SBA 10
(Small Business Association is an independent agency of the federal government to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise and to maintain and strengthen the overall economy of our nation, SBA.gov,Free Trade Zones: What are They and How Can Small Businesses Benefit?, June 25, 2010, http://www.sba.gov/community/blogs/community-blogs/business-law-advisor/free-trade-zones-what-are-they-and-how-cansmal)
Many countries designate certain areas within their borders as a free trade zone. Free trade

zones help to minimize international trade barriers, enabling importers and exporters to operate under better economic conditions. However, many importers and exporters are unfamiliar with free trade zones and uncertain how to take advantage of them. What is a free trade zone? A free trade zone is a designated area that eliminates traditional trade barriers, such as tariffs, and minimizes bureaucratic regulations. The goal of a free trade zone is to enhance global market presence by attracting new business and foreign investments. How do the terms;free trade zon-,-export processing
zon', and'foreign trade zon' relate to and differ from one another? Free, foreign, and export processing zones all fall under the umbrella of being free trade zones. Because these terms are confusingly similar, they are often used interchangeably. The distinction between each term often depends on where a particular zone is located. Generally speaking: Foreign Trade Zone is the term used in the United States. For more information on U.S. foreign trade zones, visit their overseeing body' the U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones Board. Free Trade Zone is the term used in other developed countries, such as those included in the European Union. Export Processing Zone is commonly used in developing nations. Because the principals and regulations of each free trade zone differs from country to country, you must check the governing authority of the country in which you wish to operate for specific benefits of their programs. Visit Export.gov for free trade zone guides of specific countries. Where are free trade zones located? Free trade zones are generally located near a countr's ports of entry. For convenience purposes, locations with a close proximity to seaports and airports are commonly designated free trade zones. In some cases, free trade zone are designated outside these areas to accommodate a specific industry or trade purpose. For example, in the United States, foreign trade subzones are designated as single-purpose sites for businesses such as oil refineries or large manufactures because they could not feasibly be moved to a traditional location. What types of business use free trade zones? Free trade zones are utilized by everyone from large manufactures to small businesses to individuals. Any person or entity that intends to import or export goods and can consider taking advantage of free trade zones. What are the benefits to trading in a free trade zone? Operating country's free

within a trade zones offers many benefits to importers and exporters. Common economic benefits include the deferral or elimination of customs duties, exemption from certain taxes, and inverted tariff relief. Free trade zones also offer operational benefits such as indefinite storage opportunities, increased security and insurance on goods, and top-of-the-line operating facilities. Who can I contact for more information on foreign trade zones in the United States? If yo're looking to do business through one of the
foreign trade zones in the United States, you should contact the appropriate project liaison in the most convenient area. Visit the International Trade Administratio's U.S. Foreign Trade Zone guide for details.

SEZ = Core Ground

SEZs are key topic mechanisms theyre a crucial piece of economic interactions between nations RBI 9
(The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is India's central banking institution, which formulates the monetary policy with regard to the Indian rupee, rbi.org.in, Evolution of Special Economic Zones and some Issues: The Indian Experience, Sep 22, 2009, http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/PublicationReportDetails.aspx?UrlPage=&ID=558)

Special Economic Zones ( SEZs) have been recognized as an important mechanism for trade and investment promotion, creation of infrastructure , employment generation, promotion of regional development, increase in foreign exchange earnings, improving export competitiveness and transfer of skills and technology . These are considered as growth drivers in the developing countries. The SEZs have been in existence for decades, but have attracted renewed attention world-wide in recent
years due to globalisation of trade and financial markets. Historically, SEZs were the result of the spurt in economic growth. It is well recognised that the SEZs are instrumental in developing local and regional infrastructure facilities, which in turn are necessary for overall economic development of a country.The concept of free zone/special zone has existed for many years. Typically, special zones are regions designated for economic development oriented towards attracting the FDI and export promotion, both fostered by special policy incentives. These also include Export Processing Zone (EPZ)1 . An EPZ provides institutional umbrella in an underdeveloped region. It is a specifically delineated duty free enclave and shall be deemed to be a foreign territory for the purposes of trade operations, levy of duties and tariffs. The term SEZ is a comprehensive one, which represents Strategic Economic Zone, EPZ, Foreign Trade Zone, Free Trade Zone, Free Trade Area, Open Coastal Zone, etc. These zones are marked by minimum bureaucracy, best infrastructure, generous tax holidays, unlimited duty free imports of raw material, other inputs as well as capital goods. Economic activities which take place in the zone are subject to similar conditions that manufacturing firms would face in a developed country, whereas activities located outside the zone operate in an underdeveloped institutional environment. Evidently, a SEZ is almost a self contained area with high class infrastructure for commercial operations as well as residential inhabitation. In other words, SEZs have evolved and transformed from the original concept of industrial estates, which were focused on manufacturing for export purposes. It is believed that SEZs could stimulate

infrastructure development through forward and backward linkages not only within the zones but also facilitate economic development in the peripheral areas. Further, they can also contribute to technology transfer, generate employment and income and thereby enhance government revenues besides exerting positive influence on policy makers in the host country. In other words they can act as free market oases for foreign exchange earnings and job creation .

Conventionally, the concept of EPZs evolved to provide special incentive package to offset the anti-export bias and promote exports. The standard definition applied by international organisations (World Bank 1992 and UNIDO 1995) states that an EPZ is an industrial area that constitutes an enc lave with regard to customs tariffs and the commercial code in force in the host country. Traditionally, therefore, the concept of EPZs evolved to compensate for anti-export-bias created by the import substitution industrial policy regime (Aggarwal 2005). In the neoclassical trade theory, the EPZs are considered as the second best policy choice to promote exports. In lucid terms, the EPZs are industrial clusters of units that are concentrated in a geographic region and share the common economic infrastructure, pool of skilled human capital, access to education (both in government and other institutions), specialised training facilities, information and technical support. The recent experience shows that the adoption of export-led growth strategies by developing countries has led to a considerable increase in the number EPZs across the world.

EE Rigid Definitions Bad

Economic statecraft is broad and complicated --- rigid definitions should be rejected Dobson 1
(Alan, Professor of International Relations at the University of Wales, US Economic Statecraft for Survival 1933-1991, p. 7-8)

Thus economic

statecraft emerges as a focus of concern for scholars within the broader field of foreign policy. In this study, activity falls within the scope of economic statecraft not only when economic instruments are used as means for conducting statecraft, but also when non-economic instruments are used against specific economic targets in wartime. In examining the different categories of economic instruments of statecraft, it is clear that sharp theoretical distinctions drawn between sanctions, strategic embargoes, cold economic warfare and economic warfare cannot be sustained when trying to explain practice. We come to understand things by experiencing change and rendering it into an explanatory form via an appropriate theoretical framework. Practice is too complicated to be captured by preconceived rigid definitions that make no allowance for change. In simple terms, trying to define sanctions in the abstract has severe limitations . However, using the term sanction in a particular context can make sense, even
when it overlaps with other tactics or strategies of economic statecraft, and when it has both instrumental and expressive effects.

Actors often have several motives and several objectives in mind when they impose trade controls. Both intent and effect might simultaneously involve restricting and weakening the military and economic strength of a

target state, economically strengthening satellites of the main target state in order to create tensions and jealousies, enhancing a bargaining position, allowing trade with the specific aim of trying to seduce mass opinion in the opponent state, attempting to persuade it to change policy, making a moral statement, and sending complicated and different messages to the target, neutral states, allies and the senders own domestic constituency. In these kinds of situations a single action is a sanction, a strategic embargo, a message-sender, and an instance of cold economic warfare or economic warfare. In situations where trade is allowed or promoted and looks like normal trade from the outside, it is only by addressing intention that we can see that more is at stake than just profit and loss. If the intent is to change attitudes in the target state, then this distinguishes the trade from normal commercial transactions. However it is not just in cases where trade is allowed or promoted that we need to be sensitive to the expressive as well as the instrumental effects of trade controls. They all make statements. Sometimes they speak to a target state in a way that was not intended by the sender, but they always say something. Particularly in times of heightened tension short of war, and especially in the Cold War, the ability of economic instruments of statecraft to send messages was of great significance to American policy-makers. For much of the Cold War it was more important than the instrumental effects of trade controls.

EE Includes Strategic Considerations

Economics cannot be split off from strategic considerations --- their interpretation warps the discussion of foreign policy Dobson 1
(Alan, Professor of International Relations at the University of Wales, US Economic Statecraft for Survival 1933-1991, p. 4)

There are plenty of works on US foreign policy conceived of primarily in political and strategic terms. By comparison, economic

instruments of foreign policy and economic issues as the subject of policy-making are generally only of peripheral or passing concern, or are seen as technically separate from other aspects of foreign policy. Banishment to the periphery and the segregation of the economic from the political and the strategic are regrettable . Deterrence and attempts at deterrence in the 1930s and in the Cold War went deeper and spread broader than can be captured simply by focusing on the purely political and the purely strategic. The political, the strategic and the economic are all inextricably intertwined strands of foreign policy. A brief excursion into the 1930s will demonstrate the pertinence of this judgement.

EE Includes Statecraft Considerations

Strict separation of economic from other statecraft undermines policy analysis Baldwin 12
(David A., Professor of World Order Studies and Political Science at Columbia University, Handbook of International Relations, Ed. Carlsnaes, Risse, and Simmons, p. 289)

Comparative influence techniques The

instruments of statecraft - diplomatic, economic, military, and symbolic -tend to be studied separately. This is a hindrance from the standpoint of both theory and policy relevance . Without comparative research on techniques of statecraft, theorists can say little about the utility of various policy instruments. If the success rate of economic on comparative success rates of instruments of statecraft.

sanctions is estimated at 34%, should one conclude that policy-makers are fools for using an instrument with such a low rate of success? Or is this about the best that can be expected of any instrument of statecraft? There is little or no reliable data

List Definition
Resnick 1
(Dr. Evan Resnick, Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva Un iversity, Defining Engagement, Journal of International Affairs, Spring, 54(2), Ebsco)

Scholars have limited the concept of engagement in a third way by unnecessarily restricting the scope of the policy. In their evaluation of post-Cold War US engagement of China, Paul Papayoanou and Scott Kastner define engagement as the attempt to integrate a target country into the international order through promoting "increased trade and financial transactions." (n21) However, limiting engagement policy to the increasing of economic interdependence leaves out many other issue areas that were an integral part of the Clinton administration's China policy, including those in the diplomatic , military and cultural arenas. Similarly, the US engagement of North Korea, as epitomized by the 1994 Agreed Framework pact, promises eventual
normalization of economic relations and the gradual normalization of diplomatic relations.(n22) Equating engagement with economic contacts alone risks neglecting the importance and potential effectiveness of contacts in noneconomic issue areas. Finally, some scholars risk gleaning only a partial and distorted insight into engagement by restrictively evaluating its effectiveness in achieving only some of its professed objectives. Papayoanou and Kastner deny that they seek merely to examine the "security implications" of the US engagement of China, though in a footnote, they admit that "[m]uch of the debate [over US policy toward the PRC] centers around the effects of engagement versus containment on human rights in China."(n23) This approach violates a cardinal tenet of statecraft analysis: the need to acknowledge multiple objectives in virtually all attempts to exercise inter-state influence.(n24) Absent a comprehensive survey of the multiplicity of goals involved in any such attempt, it would be naive to accept any verdict rendered concerning its overall merits. A REFINED DEFINITION OF ENGAGEMENT In order to

establish a more effective framework for dealing with unsavory regimes, I propose that we define engagement as the attempt to influence the political behavior of a target state through the comprehensive establishment and enhancement of contacts with that state across multiple issue-areas (i.e. diplomatic , military , economic , cultural ). The following is a brief list of the specific forms that such contacts might include:
DIPLOMATIC CONTACTS

Extension of diplomatic recognition; normalization of diplomatic relations Promotion of target-state membership in international institutions and regimes Summit meetings and other visits by the head of state and other senior government officials of sender state to target state and vice-versa
MILITARY CONTACTS

Visits of senior military officials of the sender state to the target state and vice-versa Arms transfers Military aid and cooperation Military exchange and training programs Confidence and security-building measures Intelligence sharing
ECONOMIC CONTACTS

Trade agreements and promotion Foreign economic and humanitarian aid in the form of loans and/or grants
CULTURAL CONTACTS

Cultural treaties Inauguration of travel and tourism links Sport, artistic and academic exchanges
(n25) Engagement is an iterated process in which the sender and target state develop a relationship of increasing interdependence, culminating in the endpoint of "normalized relations" characterized by a high level of interactions across multiple domains. Engagement is a quintessential exchange relationship: the target state wants the prestige and material resources that would accrue to it from increased contacts with the sender state, while the sender state seeks to modify the domestic and/or foreign policy behavior of the target state. This deductive logic could adopt a number of different forms or strategies when deployed in practice.(n26) For instance, individual contacts can be established by the sender state at either a low or a high level of conditionality.(n27) Additionally, the sender state can achieve its objectives using engagement through any one of the following causal processes: by directly modifying the behavior of the target regime; by manipulating or reinforcing the target states' domestic

balance of political power between competing factions that advocate divergent policies; or by shifting preferences at the grassroots level in the hope that this will precipitate political change from below within the target state. This definition implies that three necessary conditions must hold for engagement to constitute an effective foreign policy instrument. First, the overall magnitude of contacts between the sender and target states must initially be low. If two states are already bound by dense contacts in multiple domains (i.e., are already in a highly interdependent relationship), engagement loses its impact as an effective policy tool. Hence, one could not reasonably invoke the possibility of the US engaging Canada or Japan in order to effect a change in either country's political behavior. Second, the material or prestige needs of the target state must be significant, as engagement derives its power from the promise that it can fulfill those needs. The greater the needs of the target state, the more amenable to engagement it is likely to be. For example, North Korea's receptivity to engagement by the US dramatically increased in the wake of the demise of its chief patron, the Soviet Union, and the near-total collapse of its national economy.(n28) Third, the target state must perceive the engager and the international order it represents as a potential source of the material or prestige resources it desires. This means that autarkic, revolutionary and unlimited regimes which eschew the norms and institutions of the prevailing order, such as Stalin's Soviet Union or Hitler's Germany, will not be seduced by the potential benefits of engagement. This reformulated

conceptualization avoids the pitfalls of prevailing scholarly conceptions of engagement. It considers the policy as a set of means rather than ends, does not delimit the types of states that can either engage or be engaged, explicitly encompasses contacts in multiple issue-areas, allows for the existence of multiple objectives in any given instance of engagement and, as will be shown below, permits the elucidation of multiple types of positive sanctions .

Case

Inherency
Guantanamo Wont Be ClosedLegal Roadblocks Remain CRS 13
[Michael John Garcia, Jennifer K. Elsea , R. Chuck Mason, Edward C. Liu, are all Legislative Attorneys, submitting Closing the Guantanamo Detention Center: Legal Issues to the Congressional Research Service, 30 May 2013; http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40139.pdf] In January 2009, President Obama

within a year. This deadline was not met, but the Administration has repeatedly stated its intent to close the facility. In March 2011, President Obama issued a new Executive Order establishing a process to periodically review whether the continued detention of a lawfully held Guantanamo detainee is warranted, which resulted in some 80 detainees being cleared for release and transfer to a foreign country. Efforts

issued an Executive Order to facilitate the closure of the Guantanamo detention facility

to transfer these prisoners and close Guantanamo have been hampered by a series of congressional enactments limiting executive discretion to transfer or release detainees into the United States,
including, most recently, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2013 (2013 NDAA; P.L. 112-239) and the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 (2013 CAA; P.L. 113-6 ). By prohibiting funds from being used to transfer or release detainees into the United States, or to assist in the transfer or release of detainees into the country, these

acts seem to ensure that the Guantanamo detention facility remains open at least through the 2013 fiscal year, and perhaps for the foreseeable future. Moreover, the measures appear to make military tribunals the only viable forum by which Guantanamo detainees could be tried for criminal
offenses, as no civilian court operates within Guantanamo, unless efforts to close the facility are successfully renewed. Upon signing each of these measures into law, President Obama issued a statement describing his opposition to the restrictions imposed on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees, and asserted that his Administration will work with Congress to mitigate their effect.

Gitmo = Torture
Guantanamo detainees are repeatedly subjected to torture methods Amnesty USA 13
(End Indefinite Detention at Guantanamo, Charge or Release Shaker Aamer, http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/cases/usa-shaker-aamer, DOA: 7/16/13, JTY)

Shaker Aamer was arrested by Afghan forces in late 2001 in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and subsequently transferred to US custody. Aamer is originally from Saudi Arabia, and his wife and four children are all British nationals and currently live in
at Guantnamo

South London in the United Kingdom (UK). He had permission to live indefinitely in the UK, on the basis of his marriage to a British national, when he was originally detained by Afghan forces in late 2001. On February 13/14 2002 he was transferred from US custody in Afghanistan to the US naval base

Bay in Cuba and has been held there ever since. He is the last former resident of the UK held at never been charged, tried or convicted of any criminal offense by the US authorities. Via his lawyers, Shaker Aamer has alleged that he was subjected to torture, including severe beatings, and other ill-treatment while being held in secret detention and interrogated at Bagram
Guantnamo and has Theater Internment Facility, Afghanistan in early 2002. He has alleged that, as well as US officials, men claiming to be UK Security Service (MI5) officers were present at interrogations during which his head was repeatedly banged so hard against a wall that it bounced". Since his transfer to Guantnamo Bay, Shaker

Aamer has repeatedly alleged that he has been tortured there. According to his lawyers, throughout much of his detention he has been held in solitary confinement. Shaker Aamer speaks fluent
as punishment for his defiance against his indefinite detention and ill-treatment. Shaker defiant, his physical

English and his lawyers understand that he has been involved in protesting against conditions at the camp, including participating in hunger strikes and speaking out on behalf of other detainees. They have stated their belief that he has been subjected to prolonged isolation and frequent ill-treatment

Aamers lawyers have said that while he remains and mental health continue to deteriorate. They say that lack of adequate medical treatment for the multiple illnesses from which he is now reported to suffer means that increasingly his long-term health and well-being is at risk. His legal team is attempting to secure an independent medical assessment for him but claim that US authorities continue to refuse access. His lawyers inform us that despite receiving some medical assistance Shaker Aamer continues to suffer from a number of ailments. The UK Government has agreed to accept him if he is returned to the UK and has on numerous occasions since 2007 called for the USA to release him . According to media reports, in March 2009, the then Joint
Head of the Counter Terrorism Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, Robert Chatterton-Dixon, told the US Department of State's Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Dell Dailey, that neither the United Kingdom nor Saudi Arabia would prosecute Shaker Aamer if he were released. On March 1, 2012, British Foreign Secretary William Hague met with Shaker Aamers local UK Member of Parliament and legal representatives. AI UK has received confirmation in writing and in person on several occasions that Foreign Secretary Hague has personally raised Shaker Aamers case with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling for him to be returned to his family in the UK. On S eptember 21, 2012 the U.S. Department of Justice made public a list of 55 current Guantnamo detainees, including Shaker

Aamer, who had been approved for transfer by the Guantnamo Review Task Force, a body consisting of officials from key government departments
and the intelligence agencies and established under President Barack Obamas January 22, 2009 executive order on resolution o f the Guantnamo detentions and the closure of the detention facility. The Task Forces final report was issued on January 22, 2010. The list made public in September 2012 did not include any current detainee whose transfer status was sealed under protective order. A 56th detainee approved for transfer has been identified since then. Despite the seeming willingness of UK authorities to permit Shaker Aamers return to the UK and rejoin his family, and the absence to date of any charges, he

remains detained without charge or criminal trial at Guantnamo Bay.

Shaker Aamer's designation by US authorities as approved for transfer implies that US authorities have no intention of charging him with criminal offenses. If so, like any other Guantnamo detainee
who is not to be charged, he should be immediately released. In Shaker Aamer's case he should be released to the UK following repeated requests for his return made by the UK government.

I/L Cuba Relations

The plan would rectify a history of US domination of Cuba and set the stage for a new era of US-Cuban relations Hansen 12
(Jonathan, 1.10.12, Give Guantanamo Back to Cuba, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/give-guantanamo-back-tocuba.html?_r=1&ref=global-home, [CL])

IN the 10 years since the Guantnamo detention camp opened, the anguished debate over whether to shutter the facility or make it permanent has obscured a deeper failure that dates back more than a century and implicates all Americans: namely, our continued occupation of Guantnamo itself. It is past time to return this imperialist enclave to Cuba. From the moment the United States government forced Cuba to lease the Guantnamo Bay naval base to us, in June 1901, the American presence there has been more than a thorn in Cubas side. It has served to remind the world of Americas long history of interventionist militarism. Few gestures would have as salutary an effect on the stultifying impasse in American-Cuban relations as handing over this coveted piece of land. The circumstances by
which the United States came to occupy Guantnamo are as troubling as its past decade of activity there. In April 1898, American forces intervened in Cubas three-year-old struggle for independence when it was all but won, thus transforming the Cuban War of Independence into what Americans are still wont to call the Spanish-American War. American officials then excluded the Cuban Army from the armistice and denied Cuba a seat at the Paris peace conference. There is so much natural anger and grief throughout the island, the Cuban general Mximo Gmez remarked in January 1899 , after the peace treaty was signed, that the people havent really been able to celebrate the triumph of the end of their former rulers power. Curiously, the United States declaration of war on Spain included the assurance that America did not seek sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over Cuba and intended to leave the government and control of the island to its people. But after

the war, strategic imperatives took precedence over Cuban independence. The United States wanted dominion over Cuba, along with naval bases from which to
as the

exercise it. Enter Gen. Leonard Wood, whom President William McKinley had named military governor of Cuba, bearing provisions that became known

Platt Amendment. Two were particularly odious: one guaranteed the United States the right to intervene at will in Cuban affairs; the other provided for the sale or lease of naval stations. Juan Gualberto Gmez, a leading delegate to the Cuban Constitutional Convention, said the amendment would render Cubans a vassal people.

Foreshadowing the Cuban Missile Crisis, he presciently warned that foreign bases on Cuban soil would only draw Cuba into con flict not of our own making and in which we have no stake. But it was an offer Cuba could not refuse, as Wood informed the delegates. The alterna tive to the amendment was continued occupation. The Cubans got the message. There is, of course, little or no real independence left Cuba under the Platt Amendment, Wood remarked to McKinleys successor, Theodore Roosevelt, in October 1901, soon after the Platt Amendment was incorporated i nto the Cuban Constitution. The more sensible Cubans realize this and feel that the only consistent thing now is to seek annexation. But with Platt in place, who needed annexation? Over the next two decades, the United States repeatedly dispatched Marines based at Guantnamo to protect its interests in Cuba and block land redistribution. Between 1900 and 1920, some 44,000 Americans flocked to Cuba, boosting capital investment on the island to just over $1 billion from roughly $80 million and prompting one journalist to remark that little by little, the whole island is passin g into the hands of American citizens. How

did this look from Cubas perspective? Well, imagine that at the end of the American Revolution the French had decided to remain here. Imagine that the French had refused to allow Washington and his army
to attend the armistice at Yorktown. Imagine that they had denied the Continental Congress a seat at the Treaty of Paris, prohibited expropriation of Tory property, occupied New York Harbor, dispatched troops to quash Shays and other rebellions and then immigrated to the colonies in droves, snatching up the most valuable land. Such

is the context in which the United States came to occupy Guantnamo. It is a history excluded from American textbooks and neglected in the debates over terrorism, international law and the reach of executive power. But it is a history known in Cuba (where it motivated the 1959 revolution) and throughout Latin America. It explains why Guantnamo remains a glaring symbol of hypocrisy around the world. We need not even speak of the last decade. If President Obama were to acknowledge this history and initiate the process of returning Guantnamo to Cuba, he could begin to put the mistakes of the last 10 years behind us, not to mention fulfill a campaign pledge. (Given Congressional intransigence, there might be no better way to close the detention camp than to turn over the rest of the naval base along with it.) It would rectify an age-old grievance and lay the groundwork for new relations with Cuba and other countries in the Western Hemisphere and around the globe. Finally, it would send an unmistakable message that integrity, self-scrutiny and candor are not evidence of weakness, but indispensable attributes of leadership in an ever changing world. Surely there would be no fitter way to observe todays grim anniversary than to stand up for the principles Guantnamo has undermined for over a century.

I/L Cuba Relations

Giving Guantanamo back to Cuba would transform the US-Cuba relationship overnight and fulfills empty campaign promises to close the base Sweig 9

(Julia E., WaPo, 5.3.9, Dont Just Close Gitmo. Give It Back. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-05-03/opinions/36792416_1_guantanamobay-naval-base-travel-and-financial-restrictions/2, [CL])

President Obama has promised to shut down the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, seeking to erase a blot on America's global image. He has also reached out to Cuba, easing some travel and financial restrictions in an effort to recast Washington's approach to the island. These two initiatives have proceeded on separate tracks so far, but now is the time to bring them together. Hiding in plain sight, the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay is the ideal place for Obama to launch a far-reaching transformation of Washington's relationship with its communist neighbor. How? By preparing to give Guantanamo back to Cuba. It's not as impossible as it sounds. The United States has scaled back, modified or even withdrawn its military presence elsewhere; think Okinawa, South Korea, Subic Bay in the Philippines or Vieques in Puerto Rico. Whatever Guantanamo's minor strategic value to the United States for processing refugees
or as a counter-narcotics outpost, the costs of staying permanently -- with the stain of the prisons, the base's imperial legacy and the animosity of the host government -- outweigh the benefits. The time to begin this transition is now. By remaking of Washington's relationship with Cuba, the

transforming Guantanamo as part of a broader Obama administration can begin fixing what the president himself has decried as a "failed" policy. It can upend a U.S.-Cuba stalemate that has barely budged for 50

years and can put to the test Raul Castro's stated willingness to entertain meaningful changes. I visited the 45-square-mile U.S. naval base at the southeastern tip of Cuba last month at the invitation of Adm. James Stavridis, head of U.S. Southern Command. I went less to see the prison cells or learn about detainee treatment (though I did both) than to explore a region that I'd never visited in a quarter-century of traveling to and writing about the island. I not only wanted to see what was actually happening there, but also to imagine how the base could evolve once the detention facility is shut down and the eyes of the world shift elsewhere. During my trip, it hit me how much Guantanamo -- two-thirds of which is made up of the pristine waters of the bay that bears the same name -- is really a part of Cuba. Overlooking the western side of the bay sat a pair of well-kept 1940s-style houses, precise replicas of the kind of residences I had seen in Havana weeks earlier. I hadn't expected the natural environment to capture my attention the way it did. Manatees, which are disappearing elsewhere, breed in abundance; dolphins dart out of mangrove swamps and swim alongside the Navy's ferries and motorcrafts as they cross the bay. Driving along the fence line and seeing the Cuban flags and watchtowers, I was struck by the relative peace and quiet that both sides maintain at the one spot where they deal with each other most. In a way, when flag officers and staff from both sides meet each month at the base's east gate, they continue a long history of pragmatic if ambivalent engagement that started well before Guantanamo became the nightmarish Gitmo. After

the United States intervened in the Spanish-American War in 1898, Washington forced Cuba to accept the creation of a naval coaling station at Guantanamo Bay in 1903 as a condition of independence. During several peak years of activity and construction in the 1940s, at least 9,000 Cuban civilians worked on the base, and small
cities such as Caimanera and Boqueron catered to foreign soldiers with bars, brothels and the like. During the revolution, Cubans smuggled all sorts of supplies off the base to aid the rebel cause. Even after 1959, as the new Castro regime sharpened its attacks on symbols of American power, working on the base did not necessarily preclude being a good revolutionary. To this day, the United States provides pension benefits and health care to a handful of retired Cuban workers, some of whom still live on the base. Since the Bay of Pigs invasion more than four decades ago, Havana has demanded the return of the base territory, but Washington has found little incentive to leave. The base is a financial freebie; the annual rent is only $4,000, although on grounds of pride and principle, Cuba has not cashed the check since 1959. Yet the Cuban government has never taken steps, military or otherwise, to get the base back. "We are audacious and valiant," remarked Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticos in 1964, "but we are not stupid." Echoing such practicality, Raul

Castro has referred to Guantanamo as a "neutral place" where dialogue with the Obama administration might one day unfold. Since the 1990s, the monthly "fence-line" talks have ensured safety for the

people who work in and around Guantanamo's air, land and maritime borders. Shortly after the United States began housing terrorism suspects at the base, Raul Castro even offered to send back any detainee who tried to escape into Cuban territory. But as allegations of torture emerged and Guantanamo's symbolism went global, Cuba joined the world in excoriating the United States. Despite the glimmers of political will on both sides, a rapprochement between Washington and Havana will take time. Obama has called for the release of Cuba's political prisoners. Cuba has its eye on the dismantling of American commercial sanctions and the return of Cuban spies now serving lengthy sentences in U.S. jails. The

brothers are unlikely to frame any reforms as a concession to Washington, while the Obama administration
will wait to see how the government of Raul Castro fulfills its commitment to "improve the material and spiritual lives of th e Cuban people. Of course, just as Obama is not going to lift the embargo tomorrow, neither will he simply give back the base the next day. But short of anything so bold, the two governments and their armed forces have already shown that Guantanamo can eventually become an ideology-free zone. The two nations could expand their monthly gate talks beyond the issue of perimeter security to include drug trafficking, human smuggling, refugee processing and disaster preparedness and relief. Such confidence-building talks could lead to deeper cooperation, even on human rights and political prisoners. Next, the United States should invite those same Cuban officers to cross the gates and tour Guantanamo, in part to view evidence of the Navy's stewardship of the natural environment -- a dimension of the American presence that is bound to challenge Cuban preconceptions. Third, hundreds of U.S. and international journalists, lawyers and refugee experts have visited the base in the past few years. Surely we can extend the same courtesy to their Cuban peers. Finally, the Navy could invite public-health professionals from Cuba, the United States and other countries in the region to the base to develop strategies for cooperation. Proposals to convert the base to a public health research and treatment center date back to the Kennedy White House and have been viewed favorably by Havana ever since, especially in light of Cuba's world-class expertise in infectious and tropical diseases. These

Castro

initiatives defy the argument that the United States should cling to the base -- and the embargo, for that matter -- as leverage to push Cuba toward democracy. The past 50 years have proven the fallacy of that logic. Returning Guantanamo Bay to full Cuban sovereignty and control is a win for the U nited

States: Aside from the boon to America's credibility with the Cuban people and throughout Latin America, these first steps would probe the Cuban government's apparent disposition to use the base as a point of contact with the United States -- and gauge the regime's willingness to move the ball forward even more. "As a president, I say
the U.S. should go. As a military man, I say let them stay," Raul Castro quipped last year. It's hard to know exactly what he means. Floating these proposals would be a good way to find out.

I/L Human Rights

Force feeding prisoners is a violation of human rights and international lawThe Obama administration recognizes this but still refuses to act. AP 13
(AP, July 5th, 2013 at 5:22 a.m., Gitmo force-feeding in Ramadan extra violation, PressTV, http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/312309.html, DOA: 7/16/13, JTY)

The force-feeding of detainees at the notorious U.S.-run Guantanamo prison is a violation of their human rights and continuing to force-feed the Muslim prisoners during the holy month of Ramadan is an extra violation , an antiwar activist says. The American Medical Association and other international medical associations have also said that force-feeding is a human rights violation, said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, a social justice movement working to end U.S.-funded wars. The Obama administration has refused to halt force-feeding of Guantanamo hunger strikers during the holy month of Ramadan and
says the U.S. federal court has no jurisdiction to intervene in the matter To force -feed the prisoners during the month of Ramadan is an extra violation because its a violation of their religious beliefsand puts into stark view for the world to see how the U.S. is abusing the basic rights of these prisoners, Benjamin added. The U.S. Department of Justice has argued that force-feeding creates no religious problems for the Muslim prisoners during the holy month of Ramadan as it will be administered only at night, the Huffington Post reported. Over 130 of the 166 Guantanamo Bay prisoners are on a hunger strike that started almost 5 months ago. The

force-feeding is supposedly intended to prevent prisoners from starving to death. However, human rights groups have condemned the practice, saying it amounts to torture . Likewise, prisoners have described the force-feeding process as painful and degrading and their lawyers say the "grotesque" and inhumane treatment is banned by international law . The Guantanamo prison was established by the Bush administration and has been used by the U.S. military since 2002. Shutting down the Guantanamo detention camp was a central theme of Barack Obamas presidential campaign in 2008 as he acknowledged that the prison was a symbol of the U.S. governments violation of human rights. However, now after nearly five years, a Guantanamo prisoner, Abdelhadi Faraj, who was cleared for release in 2010, has said in a letter that the situation at the prison complex has worsened under Obama compared to the time of his predecessor George W. Bush.

I/L Ethics
This practice of force-feeding is out of line with every human rights standard and international medical norm and constitutes a form of degrading and inhumane torture that goes on every day we allow the base to remain open we must make it an ethical priority to close Guantanamo Dakwar 9
(Jamil, Director of Human Rights Program at the ACLU, a letter to Secretary Robert Gates by the ACLU, 1.9.2009, http://www.aclu.org/humanrights/aclu-calls-end-inhumane-force-feeding-guantanamo-prisoners, [CL]) Dear Secretary Gates,

I am writing to bring your attention to the cruel, inhuman, degrading and unlawful treatment of the thirty hunger striking detainees currently held at the Guantnamo Bay detention facility. This recent wave of hunger strikes
at Guantnamo coincides with the eve of the seventh anniversary of the opening of the controversial detention facility that President-elect Obama has committed to closing. According to press reports, thirty of the 250 men currently detained at Guantnamo are on hunger strike, the highest number in months. These

detainees, none of whom have been charged with a crime, appear to be taking this extreme measure in order to protest their indefinite and arbitrary detention, conditions of confinement and lack of meaningful access to
courts. By refusing food, these detainees hope to bring public attention to these matters of international concern. Detainees at Guantnamo who refuse nine consecutive meals are classified as being hunger strikers. Twenty-five of the thirty men classified as such are now being force-fed through tubes inserted in their noses. These twenty-five detainees have refused food for twenty-one consecutive days and/or weigh less than eighty-five percent of their weight on arrival at the detention facility, according to Pauline Storum, Deputy Commander for Public Affairs for Joint Task Force Guantnamo. Approval for the force-feeding procedure is acquired through sign-off from both a doctor and the prison camp's commander. The unlawful

force-feeding procedure requires that guards and medical professionals strap the detainee "into a chair, Velcro his head to a metal restraint, then tether a tube into the man's stomach through his nose to pump in liquid nourishment twice a day."3 Two of the striking detainees
have been force-fed through tubes in their noses since August 2005. One of these detainees, Imad Hassan, a thirty-year old Yemeni, has been fed through a tube periodically for the last three years and suffers from digestive and pancreatic problems, among other severe health issues.

Debilitating risks of force-feeding include major infections, pneumonia and collapsed lungs. Five detainees held at Guantnamo have died in custody since the facility opened in January 2002. Four of these detainees allegedly committed suicide as an apparent consequence of the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment they suffered from and the despair they experienced while being indefinitely detained without meaningful access to courts and fair trials. A 2006 joint report submitted by five independent
and mass suicide attempts, widespread and prolonged hunger strikes and over 350 acts of self-harm in 2003 alone. Force-feeding

human rights experts of the United Nations Human Rights Council (formerly the Commission on Human Rights) found that the mistreatment of detainees at Guantnamo has had profound and long-term mental effects on many of them and that conditions of confinement have led to individual

universally considered to be a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The aforementioned 2006 United Nations report authoritatively declares that the manner in which detainees are force-fed and the ethics and legality of the practice of force-feeding, regardless of the manner in which it is undertaken, are matters of grave and distinct human rights concerns. The report additionally stated that the confirmed forcefeeding of detainees on hunger strike amounted to torture as defined in Article 1 of the Convention

is

Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment which the United States ratified in 1994. The report also asserts that doctors and other health professionals authorizing and participating in force-feeding procedures on detainees are in violation of the rights to health and other human rights, including those outlined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the United States ratified in 1992. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health shared in the same communication that he had "received reports, many confirmed by investigations of the United States military, that health professionals in Guantnamo Bay have systematically violated widely accepted ethical standards set out in the United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics and the Declaration of Tokyo [of the World Medical Association (WMA)]. . . Alleged violations include . . . being present during or engaging in non-consensual treatment, including drugging and force-feeding." In its 1975 Declaration of Tokyo, the WMA prohibited force-feeding and advised "where a prisoner refuses nourishment and is considered by the physician as capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such a voluntary refusal of nourishment, he or she shall not be fed artificially." The WMA's subsequent 1991 Declaration of Malta reinforces that "forced feeding contrary to an informed and voluntary refusal is unjustifiable" and recognizes the hunger strike as a "form of protest by people who lack other ways of making their demands known." Finally, the WMA's Declaration on Hunger Strikers states, "Forcible

feeding is never ethically acceptable. Even if intended to benefit, feeding accompanied by threats, coercion, force or use of physical restraints is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment." The American Medical Association is a member of the WMA. The Department of Defense policy allows health

professionals to force-feed a detainee when his hunger strike threatens his life or health. The aforementioned 2006 United Nations report renders this United States policy to be "inconsistent with the principle of individual autonomy, the policy of the World Medical Association and the American Medical Association, as well as the position of [International Committee of the Red Cross] doctors."

Solvency Gitmo FTZ

Mallaby 10
(Sebastian. The Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. July/August 2010. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty. The Atlantic. Available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politicallyincorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/308134/?single_page=true)

When Romer explains charter cities, he likes to invoke Hong Kong. For much of the 20th century, Hong Kongs economy left mainland Chinas in the dust, proving that enlightened rules can make a world
of difference. By an accident of history, Hong Kong essentially had its own charter a set of laws and institutions imposed by its British colonial overseersand the charter served as a magnet for go-getters. At a time when much of East Asia was ruled by nationalist or Communist strongmen, Hong Kongs colonial authorities put in place low taxes, minimal regulation, and legal protections for property rights and co ntracts; between 1913 and 1980, the citys inflation-adjusted output per person jumped more than eightfold, making the average Hong Kong resident 10 times as rich as the average mainland Chinese, and about four-fifths as rich as the average Briton. Then,

beginning around 1980, Hong Kongs example inspired the mainlands rulers to create copycat enclaves. Starting in Shenzhen City, adjacent to Hong Kong, and then curling west and north around the Pacific shore, China created a series of special economic zones that followed Hong Kongs model. Pretty soon, one of historys greatest export booms was under way, and between 1987 and 1998, an estimated 100 million Chinese rose above the $1-a-day income that defines abject poverty. The success of the special economic zones eventually drove Chinas rulers to embrace the export-driven, probusiness model for the whole country. In a sense, Britain inadvertently, through its actions in Hong Kong, did more to reduce world poverty than all the aid programs that weve undertaken in the last century, Romer observes drily. Of course, versions of Chinas special economic zones have existed elsewhere, especially in Asia. But Romer is not just arguing for enclaves; he is arguing for enclaves that are run by foreign
governments. To Romer, the fact that Hong Kong was a colonial experiment, imposed upon a humiliated China by means of a treaty signed aboard a British warship, is not just an embarrassing detail. On the contrary, British rule was central to the citys success in persu ading capitalists of all stripes to flock to it. Romer

sometimes illustrates this point by citing another Communist country: modernday Cuba. Cubas rulers have tried to induce foreign corporations to set up shop in special export zones, and have been greeted with understandable caution. But if Ral Castro convinced a foreign governmentideally a rich democracy such as Canadato assume sovereignty over a start-up city in Cuba, the prospect of a mini Canada in the sun might attract a flood of investment.It must have occurred to Castro, Romer says, that his island could do with its own version of Hong Kong; and perhaps that the Guantnamo Bay zone, over which Cuba has already ceded sovereignty to the United States, would be a good place to build one. Castro goes to the prime minister of Canada and says, Look, the Yankees have a terrible PR problem. They want to get out. Why dont
you, Canada, take over? Run a special administrative zone. Allow a new city to be built up there, Romer muses, channeling a statesmanlike version of Ral Castro that Cuba-watchers might not recognize. Some of my citizens will move into that city, Romer -as-Castro continues. Others will hold back. But this will be the gateway that will connect the modern economy and the modern world to my country.

Solvency Eviction
Establishing an SEZ requires evicting all previous tenants Gitmos gotta go Rawat, Bhushan, Surepally 10
(By Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Mamidi Bharath Bhushan and Sujatha Surepally who are all writers for the Social Development Foundation, International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague-New Delhi, The Impact of Special Economic Zones in India: A Caste Study of Polepally SEZ, August 2010, http://www.iss.nl/fileadmin/ASSETS/iss/Documents/Conference_papers/LDPI/85_Rawat_et_al.pdf) At the heart of the problem is the fact that the

establishment of an SEZ generally requires the forced acquisition of land and the eviction of its previous users. This is possible for Indian states under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 for public

purposes. The invocation of public purpose for what are essentially private commercial ventures has been repeatedly questi oned. In particular, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has investigated SEZs and suggested that far from being in the public interest, the net effect is a strong loss of revenue to the state because of foregone tax revenue.

Once the Zone is evicted it will have its own regulatory body Murray 10

(Megan Murray is a writer for the University of Iowa Center for International Finance and Development, University of Iowa Center for International Finance and Development, What Are Special Economic Zones?, February 9, 2010,http://blogs.law.uiowa.edu/ebook/faqs/what-are-special-economic-zones)

Like other aspects of special zones, each zone has its own unique regulatory body. Some zones , like the Philippines, use one governing board like the Philippine Economic Zone Authority to oversee all activities within the zone. Other zones use multiple bodies to oversee unique aspects of regulation, planning, and promotion of SEZs like Indias three-tier administration consisting of a Board of Approval, a Unit Approval Committee,
and a Zone Development Commissioner to oversee the SEZ Act and ensure its proper implementation. There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. Single governing boards overseeing every aspect of an SEZ have ultimate authority, as there is no other body to endorse its decisions. These

circumstances provide no other authority check or idea generation. On the other hand, governing bodies with
multiple boards can help balance control and decisions, but can run into differing points of views and conflicts of interest that slow down or totally obstruct an SEZ proposal, or frustrate successful SEZ operation

Solvency Giving Voice

The plan is a crucial part of the process of making torture visible that gives a voice to the unheard screams of those who lie in the darkness of Guantanamo cells and torture chambers

Scarry 87
(Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, Elaine, The Body in Pain, 1987, BH)

In this closed world where conversation is displaced by interrogation, where human speech is broken off in confession and disintegrates into human cries, where even those cries can be broken off to become one more weapon against the person himself or against a friend, in this world of broken and severed voices, it is not surprising that the most powerful and healing moment is often that in which a human voice, though still severed, floating free, somehow reaches the person whose sole reality had become his own unthinkable isolation, his deep corporeal engulfment. The prisoner who, alone in long solitary confinement and
repeatedly tortured, found within a loaf of bread a matchbox containing a small piece of paper that had written on it the single, whispered word "Corragio!", "Take courage";59 the Uruguayan man arranging for some tangible signal that his words had reached their destination, "My darling, if you receive this letter put a half a bar of Boa soap in the next parcel";60 the imprisoned Chilean women who on Christmas Eve sang with all their might to their men in a separate camp the song they had written, "Take heart* Jose, my love" and who, through the abusive shouts of guards ordering silence, heard "faintly on the wind... the answering song of the men"61 these

acts and their multiplication in the extensive and ongoing attempts of Amnesty International to restore to each person tortured his or her voice, to use language to let pain give an accurate account of itself, to present regimes that torture with a deluge of letters and telegrams, a deluge of voices speaking on behalf of, voices speaking in the voice of, the person silenced, these acts that return to the prisoner his most elemental political ground as well as his psychic content and density are finally almost physiological in their power of alteration. As torture consists of acts that magnify the way in which pain destroys a person's world, self, and voice, so these other acts that restore the voice become not only a denunciation of the pain but almost a diminution of the pain, a partial reversal of the process of torture itself. An act of human contact and concern, whether occurring here or in private contexts of sympathy, provides the hurt person with worldly selfextension: in acknowledging and expressing another person's pain, or in articulating one of his nonbodily concerns while he is unable to, one human being who is well and free willingly turns himself into an image of the other's psychic or sentient claims, an image existing in the space outside the sufferer's body, projected out into the world and held there intact by that person's powers until the sufferer himself regains his own powers of self-extension. By holding that world in place, or by giving the pain a place in the world, sympathy lessens the power of sickness and pain, counteracts the force with which a person in great pain or sickness can be swallowed alive by the body.

Soft Power Advantage

SP Low Now
U.S. Soft Power is Low because of Guantanamo Bay Sydney Morning Herald 07
[Sydney Morning Herald is Australia's longest-running newspaper and number one news website, Sydney Morning Herald, How the Mighty are Fallen, January 23, 2007, http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/how-the-mighty-are-fallen/2007/01/23/1169330868042.html# ]

Global opinion on American foreign policy and the role of the US in world affairs, especially in the Middle East, has plunged to new lows, with overwhelming condemnation of its handling of the war in Iraq. An authoritative BBC World Service survey of more than 26,000 people from 25 countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East shows that nearly three in four people disapprove of how the US has dealt with Iraq over the past 12 months. Respondents were polled in November and December - before the announcement by the US President, George Bush, of his new surge strategy in Iraq, and his plans to send an extra 21,500 troops into Baghdad to quell the sectarian violence gripping the capital . The polling also showed global public opinion was against US handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, where David Hicks has been held without trial for more than five years, with 67 per cent of respondents opposed.

SP I/L Human Rights

UN Urges the closing of Guantanamo Bay- Hurts US stance on Human Rights BBC News 13
(BBC News, The BBC is the world's leading public service broadcaster. Its mission is to enrich people's lives with programmes that inform, educate and entertain, BBC News, Guantanamo Bay prison 'must close' - UN rights chief, 5 April 2013, http://www.b bc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada22046979) The UN

human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has urged the US to close Guantanamo Bay, saying the indefinite detention of many inmates there without charge or trial violates international law. Ms Pillay said about half of 166 prisoners had been cleared to transfer either home or to third countries. She also said she was "deeply disappointed" that the US was not honouring its pledge to close the camp. It opened in 2002 to hold
in US civilian courts were blocked by Congress. 'Desperate act' "The

terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks. President Barack Obama moved to close the facility at the US naval base in Cuba, but his plans to try suspects

continuing indefinite incarceration of many of the detainees amounts to arbitrary detention and is in clear breach of international law," Ms Pillay said in a statement on Friday. "It severely undermines the United States' stance that it is an upholder of human rights. "When other countries breach these standards, the US - quite rightly - strongly criticises them for it," she added. Ms Pillay also said a continuing hunger strike among the inmates was a "desperate act" - but it was "scarcely
surprising". Human rights groups and lawyers representing the prisoners say the strike reflects growing frustration at the US military's failure to decide their future. Many of those who have been cleared for transfer remain at the facility at the US naval base in Cuba because of Congressional restrictions and also concerns of possible mistreatment if they are sent back to their home countries. Last month, Pentagon spokesman Maj Jeff Pool told the BBC that 31 detainees were on hunger strike. He said that 11 of them were being fed liquid food through tubes and three were treated in hospital.

SP I/L - Europe
Keeping Guantanamo Bay open hurts soft power with European nations Feaver 09
(Peter Douglas Feaver is American professor of political science and public policy at Duke University. He is a leading scholar in civilmilitary relations. Foreign Policy, The soft power scorecard: Europe 1, America 0, April 1, 2009, http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/01/the_soft_power_scorecard_europe_1_america_0)
Many people thought the election of Obama would yield a soft power bonanza, but it hasn't worked out that way. Soft power is the ability to get other states to want what you want, and it is distinguished from hard power, which is the ability to get other states to do what you want (even if they don't want to). Obama at the start undoubtedly has more soft power at his disposal than Bush did at the finish, but so far this has not produced much greater European cooperation on American goals. The atmospherics and optics are more positive, but the actual results are not. Does this mean soft power is overrated? Perhaps some are nave about what it can do, but I would characterize the naivet more as a misunderstanding -- specifically, a failure to understand that soft power operates in both directions. We are seeking to exert soft power on others, and others are seeking to exert soft power on us. Viewed this way, in

recent months we have witnessed a fairly impressive display of transatlantic soft power, but it has traveled mostly east to west, rather than west to east. Not too long ago, America wanted
Europe to: adopt more American approaches to addressing the global financial crisis; shoulder more of the military and economic load in Afghanistan; and accept more responsibility for holding the detainees currently at Guantanamo Bay. And

Europe wanted the opposite -for America to: adopt more European approaches to addressing the global financial crisis; shoulder more of the military and economic load in Afghanistan; and accept more responsibility for holding the detainees currently at Guantanamo Bay. These conflicts of interest have been worked out not with hard power tools of threats and intimidation but with soft power tools of shaming and
suasion. And the results so far are: America is going to adopt more European approaches to addressing the global financial crisis; America is going to shoulder more of the military and economic load in Afghanistan; and America is going to accept more responsibility for holding the detainees currently at Guantanamo Bay. My purpose here is not to critique the results. So far, they are more or less what I expected, and I can imagine far more disastrous foreign policy moves than the ones Obama has made thus far. But we should not miss the opportunity to learn a bit of realism that should be

Soft power is a useful component of foreign policy, but it is a means to an end, not an end in itself. And if you make "being liked" a
obvious to anyone who served in a position of responsibility in American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.

centerpiece of your foreign policy, you will find your soft power eroding and the soft power of others growing. I am pretty sure the Obama team -- the one running foreign policy now, not the one running for office last fall -- already understands this. And I am pretty sure they are going to return from Europe understanding it even better.

SP I/L Europe
Guantanamo Bay has cost the United States funds, and soft power with European allies Yost 11

(Keith Yost, a columnist, and a frequent writer for The Tech MITS longest running, and most prestigious newspapers, The Tech, Opinion: The Guantanamo Bay camps must be closed, April 1, 2011, http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N16/yostccp.html)

Let us begin with one obvious fact: the decision to establish detention camps at Guantanamo Bay has cost us much more than we have gained. Firstly, our European allies are justifiably upset not only have we effectively re-written international law, but we have re-written it in a flawed manner and with trade-offs that they would never have chosen for themselves. By ignoring the international process, the United States has hemorrhaged much of its soft power and thus reduced the effectiveness of its foreign policy. Secondly, the battle over Guantanamo Bay has incurred significant actual costs on the United States. Forget the (not insignificant) costs of

maintaining the camps and their associated trial system weve taken legions of lawyers, some of the most highly trained and talented minds that our society has to offer, and thrown them at what amounts to a toy problem. There are a little over 200 detainees at Guantanamo Bay today. Had any of these detainees managed to waste as much human potential as the legal wrangling over Guantanamo has, we would have considered them master terrorists. This is not a cost-effective counter-terrorism policy. It would be cheaper to let the detainees go and shoot the recidivists on a distant battlefield than to continue housing, feeding, clothing, and arguing over them in perpetuity. Yost, in his defense of the status quo, and Yost, in his calls for reform, have argued for a third legal system to deal with this new stream of detainees. Their points are moot devising a more accurate justice system for a stream of individuals as tiny as this is akin to using a hatchet to kill a fly. The more serious detainees can be labeled as prisoners of war without straining our legal framework too much, and the less serious detainees can either be tried in civilian court (if there is sufficient evidence) or let go. There is no need for the legal trickery that Guantanamo Bay a site magically under U.S. control, but outside of U.S. jurisdiction represents. The current policy is intolerable as flawed and as ill-defined as it is, it forms both a horribly expensive and ineffectual way of dealing with detainees, while at the same time acting as the perfect bogeyman for antiAmerican rhetoric. Moreover, reform of Guantanamo Bay and our detention policy is not enough. If anything, it is likely to compound the problem, casting more human potential into the abyss and continuing a policy that earns us brickbats abroad. Let someone else foot the bill for developing the next generation of detention law and procedure the Europeans are willing to be the greater fool in this regard, and we should welcome them.

MPX Europe Alliance

Europe is Key to promoting peace, stability, and democracy around world Vale de Almeida 12
(By Joo Vale de Almeida, European Union Ambassador to the U.S, The Hill, EU and US - Strategic partners in peace and security, May 25th, 2012, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/229565-eu-and-us-strategic-partners-in-peace-and-security)

The majority of the world's current crises take place within a 7-hour flight from Brussels. From the Balkans to North Africa and the Middle East, the world faces wide-ranging challenges that require different nuanced responses in each situation. The European Union has taken the lead in responding to many of these "hot zones" through a mix of civilian and military crisis management and conflict prevention operations as part of our Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). Thousands of EU personnel are currently staffing 13 active peace-keeping missions around the world in fragile states. Civilian missions help train police in Afghanistan, establish the rule of law in Iraq, and contribute to Kosovos efforts to develop an independent and multi -ethnic justice system and police and customs services. Military operations have helped stabilize conflict zones in the Western Balkans and parts of Africa. Our most important naval operation to dateEUNAVFOR Atalantahelps deter, prevent, and repress acts of piracy and armed robbery on the high seas and protects vulnerable vessels cruising off the Somali coast. Why should this matter to the United States? It matters because the EU is America's foremost strategic partner in promoting peace and

stability, democracy, and development around the world. It matters because the United States should not feel that it shoulders the burden of global security alone. It matters because the European Union is ready and willing to share the responsibility. As our CSDP operations demonstrate, the European Union is no longer a consumer of security. Rather, as American and European experts agreed when they met recently at a symposium in Washington, D.C. organized by the EU Delegation to the U.S., the EU brings a distinct added value in crisis management operations. The U.S. and Europe have never been more keen to build strategic convergences together, and both sides of the Atlantic will benefit from enhanced cooperation in security and defense matters. We have already taken significant
steps in this direction. In May 2011, the EU and the U.S. strengthened on-the-ground coordination in crisis situations with an agreement allowing U.S. civilians to participate in EU CSDP operations. As a result, approximately 40 Americans currently serve as part of the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo. Cooperation and coordination between the EU and the U.S., along with African partners and the UN, has also been essential to the success of the EU Training Mission for Somali soldiers in Somalia and Uganda. The EU launched the ongoing military training mission in 2010 to help strengthen the Transitional Federal Government and Somalia's institutions; the U.S. covers the cost of transport, equipment, and salaries. Finally, no conversation on the transatlantic security relationship would be complete without mentioning NATO. The EU and NATOto which 21 of the EUs 27 Member States belonghave made great strides towards building a strategic partnership with the shared goal of regional stability and peace. NATO remains essential for European security as it offers a strong military transatlantic link and fosters interoperability among its military forces. The EU's CSDP operations, as well as our diplomatic tools, development assistance, and humanitarian aid, can only reinforce our collective security. The EU is a strong link in the chain that defends its neighborhood, but we are also assuming our responsibilities in the face of global security challenges. Our already solid ties with the U.S. will be enhanced as we further our capacity to defend democracy and human rights worldwide.

AT: Spending DA

Link Turn
Guantanamo Bay Has Cost America $2 Billion Dollars-Even President Obama wants it closed! Taylor in 2013

(Author for Business Insider, Business Insider: Military & Defense, Guantanamo Bay Is Spectacularly Expensive, May 4 2013, http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-guantanamo-costs-2013-5#ixzz2ZFzH0pF7, NE)

In a speech on this week, President Barack Obama reaffirmed his intention to close down Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. "We've got to close Guantanamo," Obama said at a highly publicized press conference, before taking a moral stance. "The idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals that have not been tried that needs to stop. "However, there's an even more basic factor: the numbers.
In a new Reuters report, the economics of the camp are laid out. It's pretty ugly as the U.S. and Cuba don't have good relations, almost everything at the camp has to be specially

imported to the site. Here are some unsettling figures: The Pentagon says the camp costs $150 million each year. This means the average cost for keeping inmates in Guantanamo is $903,614 (there are currently 166 inmates within the facility).The average cost of keeping an inmate at a supermaximum security prison within United States borders is around $60,000 to $70,000. At a regular prison it's closer to $30,000.Even if we take a high end of $70,000, this means the detention facility in Guantanamo is almost 13 times more expensive per inmate than U.S.-based facilities. If we assume that the costs have been relatively constant for the 11 years it's been open, we could assume that the facility has cost around $1.6 billion. That could be a low figure, however. Ken Gude, chief of staff and vice president at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank told Reuters it has been "probably more than $2 billion." In fact, The New York Times has reported that documents show the camp cost taxpayers "more than $2 billion" between 2002 and 2009 alone. That's a pretty big expenditure in an age of economic belttightening, and it may not get better anytime soon. General John Kelly, the head of Southern Command (the unit in charge of the detention center) recently asked a House of Representatives panel for $170 million extra to improve facilities.

Link Turn
Guantanamo Bay Cost over $150 million a year Lawrence and Smith in 2013
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (CNN) -- Every

(Staff Writers, CNN, At Guantanamo, a costly confinement, May 17 2013, http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/17/us/guantanamocosts/index.html?hpt=hp_t1, NE)

day, the workers in the Guantanamo Bay kitchen cook three squares for the detainees held here. And every day, up to 100 of the 166 inmates send them back. They're protesting their ongoing imprisonment by going on hunger strikes for what is now 100 days. Not only has Guantanamo Bay become a lightning rod for America's critics -- it's no prize for America's taxpayers, either. Running the prison camp costs the Pentagon more than $150 million a year -- just over $900,000 for each of the 166 detainees at the facility, located on a Navy base on the eastern end of Cuba. By comparison, costs for a typical federal prison inmate run about $25,000 a year; at the "supermax" prison in Colorado that holds domestic terrorists Eric Rudolph and Ted Kaczynski, it's about $60,000. And despite calls by President Barack Obama himself to close the 11-year-old facility, the military is about to spend millions more to upgrade the prison camp. "We have to
secretive part of the compound.

always plan to conduct that mission from now into the future," said Army Col. John Bogdan, commander of the military's Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo. "And the policymakers will decide when that mission's over." The renovation plans include a $50 million overhaul for Camp VII, the most

The inmates there include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed organizer of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington; accused co-conspirators Walid
the prisoners face no charges at all. Because

bin Attash and Ramzi Bin al-Shahb; and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the man accused of leading the plot to bomb the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen, killing 17 American sailors. They face trial on war crimes charges before the military courts set up to try al Qaeda and Taliban figures. Most of the rest of

the facilities were hastily built and never thought to be permanent, the prison camp may need as much as $170 million more in repairs, said Marine Corps Gen.
March. "It's really not 11 years long. It's really one year, 11 times." The

John Kelly, the chief of U.S. forces in the region. "This is really a kind of thrown-together operation," Kelly told the House Armed Services Committee in

kitchens are "literally falling apart," Kelly said, and the barracks that house the 1,900 troops assigned to the prison camp need replacing. And since everything has to be brought in from outside, it all costs about twice as much, he said. The decrepit remains
of previous units -- the original Camp X-Ray, where detainees were first housed in chain-link cages, and the successive Camps I-IV -- still stand on the way to the infirmary. Weeds grow up among the rusted gates, empty watchtowers and abandoned exercise equipment, all within a mile of the facilities where the remaining prisoners are held. A total of 86 of the 166 detainees have been approved for transfer out , but both the Obama administration and Congress have effectively halted the moves. The last transfer took place in September, and the State Department office tasked with finding countries that would take the others was closed in January. And the indefinite imprisonment the detainees face has fueled the wave of hunger strikes, which have progressed to the point where about 30 inmates are being force-fed. "It's kind of a tough mission," the camp's senior medical officer, who was interviewed on condition of anonymity for security reasons, told CNN. "This is kind of an ugly place sometimes." The inmates are given a last chance to drink a nutritional supplement before being force-fed. If they refuse, they're strapped to a chair and a plastic tube is shoved up their noses, down their throats and into their stomachs. The Pentagon says the feeding program is lawful and humane. The inmates are given a numbing gel and the thin tubes are lubricated before being inserted, they say. "Nobody's expressed to me that this hurts," the senior medical officer said. But Cori Crider, a lawyer for hunger striker Samir Moqbel, called it "an incredibly agonizing process." "You don't get farther than about here, into your throat, before the tears start streaming down your face. ... He said he had never felt so much pain like that in his life," she said. The practice has been condemned by human rights groups and the American Medical Association, which says every patient has the right to refuse even lifesustaining treatment. But the senior medical officer said that when a prisoner is on the verge of harming himself, "suddenly it's not a very abstract decision." "It's very easy for folks outside this place to make policies and decisions that they think they would implement," he said. "There's a lot of politics involved" in the AMA's opposition he added, "And I'm sure there's lots of politics that they need to answer to as well."

No Link/Turn
Guantanamo Bay is 30 times more expensive than a high security prison in the US Postel in 2013
(Thrse Postel is a Policy Associate at The Century Foundation in International Affairs, The Century Foundation, We Literally Cant Afford Guantanamo Bay, March 25 2013, http://tcf.org/blog/detail/we-literally-cant-afford-guantanamo-bay, NE)

The detention camp at Guantanamo Bay remains an ongoingalbeit latentstain on the United States reputation around the world. Since President Obama closed the State Department office charged with finding a way to shut down
Bay are engaging in a hunger strike to draw attention to their continued confinement. At the same time, the

Guantanamo, attention paid to Gitmo has fallen off the table. This week, reports surfaced that as many as 25 of the 166 inmates still at Guantanamo

Pentagon revealed plans for $195.7 million worth of renovations at Guantanamo Bay. These plans include $99 million for new barracks, $12 million for a mess hall for our personnel, $11.2 million for a hospital and medical care for inmates, $9.9 million for a legal building for inmates and their lawyers, and $10.8 million for improved communications. Last but not least, $49 million has been proposed to build a new prison to house high-value inmates that may remain at Guantanamo Bay. Obviously,
this once temporary facility needs renovations after twelve years of continuous operation with no end in sight. In this budgetary climate, $195.7 million for renovations to a prison that President Obama promised to close multiple times is outrageous. Placing aside the ongoing plight of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, which should not go without recognition, these renovations do not fit into our economic calculus. It is even more startling when you look closer at the costs per inmate at Guantanamo. According to Reuters: The United States spends $114 million a year to run the Guantanamo prison, or about $687,747 per prisoner, according to the Government Accountability Office. That is about 20 times what the U.S. Bureau of Prisons spends per inmate to run its high-security prisons. It

costs approximately $35,000 per inmate, according to the above calculation, to hold inmates at high-security prisons in the United States. The 2013 budget for Guantanamo Bay is reportedly $177 million, meaning it will cost an exorbitant $1,066,265 to house a prisoner in Guantanamo for a year in 2013. That is approximately 30 times what the Bureau of Prisons spends per inmate at high-security United States prisons. Provided nothing changes, over the next decade we will
spend a minimum of $1.7 billion to imprison 166 men. Given the contentious arguments surrounding our budget, shouldnt we be able to reach consensus on moving these prisoners to a more cost effective facility? According

to President Obama, Guantanamo Bay weakens our national security by wasting resources, damaging our relationships with key allies, and strengthening our enemies. Given human rights concerns, and now budgetary largesse, isnt it time to release the prisoners we
can, try the ones we havent, and move those we find guilty to a location in line with international law that would save us m oney over the long term?

AT: Politics

Link UQ
Obama Pressing Congress to Close Guantanamo Now Phillip and Hughes 13
[Abby D Phillip, and Dana Hughes, Reporters for ABC Bridge-Builder Lawyer Picked to Spearhead Guantanamo Closing, Jun 17, 2013; http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/06/bridge-builder-lawyer-picked-to-spearhead-guantanamo-closing/] Cliff Sloan,

a top Washington lawyer, has been chosen as the State Departments special envoy to close Guantanamo Bay, marking a step forward in what has been an arduous effort to fulfill President Obamas campaign promise to close the prison.This announcement reflects the administrations commitment to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, said State Department spokesman Jen Psaki today. Special Envoy Sloan brings a wealth of experience as an accomplished
litigator and pragmatic problem-solver, a skill set that will prove valuable as he serves as the lead negotiator for the transfer of Guantanamo detainees abroad and manages the multitude of diplomatic issues related to the presidents directives to close the Guantanamo Bay deten tion facility, implement transfer determination and conduct a periodic review of those detainees who are not approved for transfer. Sloan, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates, has served in both President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clintons administrations i n the Justice Department and as associate White House counsel. The news of Sloans appointment was first reported by The Associated Press on Sunday. Secre tary of State John Kerry praised Sloan in a statement Sunday as the type of bridge -builder needed for the role. It will not be easy, but if anyone can effectively navigate the space between agencies and branches of government, its Cliff, Kerry said, according to the Associated Press. I appreciate his willingness to take on this challenge. Cliff and I share the presidents conv iction that Guantanamos

continued operation isnt in our security interests. The effort to close Guantanamo has been stymied by Washington politics and legislation preventing detainees from being transferred from the Cuba facility to the United States. According to the State Department, 166 detainees remain in the facility. Obama renewed a promise to close the base in a foreign policy speech at the National Defense University in March. Given my administrations relentless pursuit of al Qaedas leadership, there is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened, Obama said.He called on Congress to lift restrictions on detainee transfers from Guantanamo Bay to other countries, including the United States. But the politics remain difficult. Sloans predecessor in the role, Daniel Fried, left the post and was reassigned
within the State Department in January after making little progress in closing Guantanamo. I think the real issues is: Can Mr. Sloan, if he comes up with a similar plan, be able to sell that to the Congress, said Larry Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense and a se nior fellow at the Center for American Progress. I think the answer is there. We all know what to do. The

only question is: Is Congress going to put up a roadblock? If anything, the job requires a shrewd legal mind to work out the constitutional and legal difficulties inherent in transfe rring or

trying detainees accused of terrorism. And it also requires a master negotiator with bipartisan credibility. In a nod to Sloans appeal across the ideological aisle, the State Department offered up testimonials from several prominent figures, including former solicitor general Ken Starr, who served as independent counsel during Bill Clintons impeachment proceedings. Sloan was also the editor -in-chief of Slate magazine, and he was part of the legal team defending former senator and Democratic presidential contender John Edwards against allegations that he violated campaign finance law. He worked for Clinton and for Bush, so hes got that. If you look at people who vouch for him they include Ken Starr and [Fo rmer Supreme Court Justice] John Paul Stevens, Korb said. Its not like you can say this is some liberal Democrat who wants to let everyone go free.

Link UQ
Obama pushing to close GITMO now AP 13
(Obama pledge to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees sparks diplomatic maneuvering for detainees on July 13, 2013 http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/13/obama-pledge-to-transfer-guantanamo-bay-detainees-sparks-diplomatic-maneuvering/?test=latestnews)

President Barack Obama's renewed push to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects has given a glimmer of hope to foreign governments that he will fulfill that promise and triggered diplomatic maneuvering from U.S. allies eager to bring home long-held detainees. Kuwait has hired lobbyists to help bring its two remaining prisoners home. British Prime Minister David Cameron personally pressed Obama at the Group of
WASHINGTON 8 summit last month to release the United Kingdom's final detainee. And the fate of Afghans being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba has been at the forefront of peace

The indefinite captivity has created tension with some important U.S. allies, particularly in the Arab world, the native home of many of the 166 remaining detainees. Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen are among those countries that have
talks between the U.S., Taliban and Afghanistan.

pressed the U.S. to turn over their nationals. The Obama administration is in the midst of determining which detainees present the lowest risk for terrorist activity if released considering both their personal histories and security in the countries to which they will be returned. More than 100 of the detainees have participated in a hunger strike to protest their indefinite confinement, with several dozen having been force fed through a nasal tube to keep them from starving, although the military reported Friday that most have resumed eating. David Cynamon, an American lawyer based in the Middle East who is working with Kuwait on getting their detainees back, said in recent months they are finally having meaningful negotiations after years of "radio silence." "You would think with a close ally like Kuwait they would at least get a hearing, but they kept getting the brush off," Cynamon said. Cynamon said that's even though the Kuwaiti government built a rehabilitation center for former Guantanamo detainees at the request of Bush administration officials, after another former detainee carried out a suicide bombing that killed at least seven people in Iraq. The center, a section of the Kuwaiti central prison designed for medical and psychological treatment and religious counseling to ensure the detainees will peacefully reintegrate into society, has not been used. Kuwait hired The Potomac Square Group, a Washington lobbying firm, to help spur talks for the transfer of Faiz al-Kandari and Fawzi al-Odah. "They want all their citizens back if the United States is not going to charge and try them," Cynamon said. "Now that the negotiations have started, I do think they are meaningful. But for a two-year period there was nobody who was answering the door." Administration officials say they are working aggressively to certify detainees for release under Obama's directive in May to transfer as many detainees as possible to other countries. The president, in announcing new steps to get the detainees out, said diplomatic concerns are chief among the reasons to close the

Gitmo has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law," Our allies won't cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will end up at Gitmo." Congress has fought Obama from achieving the goal he announced upon taking office in 2009 of closing Guantanamo. Lawmakers have blocked detainees from coming into the United States, but the Pentagon can
facility. " Obama said during a speech at National Defense University. " issue a national security waiver to transfer the detainees overseas. So far the Obama administration hasn't used that power to move out any detainee, even though 86 have been cleared for transfer. But administration officials say they expect to begin transfers soon. Last month, Obama appointed lawyer Clifford Sloan to reopen the State Department's Office of Guantanamo Closure. Obama said the sole responsibility for Sloan and a yet-to-be named envoy at the Pentagon will be to transfer detainees overseas, and Sloan's team is busy finding its first candidates. A possible choice may be detainees from Afghanistan, where the United States is drawing down its combat presence by the end of next year. This spring, the United States gave control of its prison with more than 3,000 detainees near the Bagram base in Afghanistan to the Karzai government as part of its shift of control of the country's security to the Afghans. "There is no excuse for Afghan detainees to continue to be held at Guantanamo, when the United States is transferring custody of Afghan citizens held in Afghanistan itself," said Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. "President Karzai is demanding to get his citizens back, and he is right to be making this demand. Every country always gets its citizens back at the end of war." Karzai has been pushing for the return of all 17 Afghan detainees at Guantanamo as a matter of sovereignty. And the Taliban made the release of five of its members at Guantanamo Bay their opening offer last month in peace talks, suggesting an exchange for U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier from Hailey, Idaho, they've held since 2009. A U.S. official confirmed that talks of a prisoner exchange had taken place, including timelines for the release, as well as a promise from the Taliban to show fresh and verifiable proof of Bergdahl's health. But any progress toward a possible deal could be in jeopardy now that the Taliban has shut down, at least temporarily, its new office to facilitate peace talks with the U.S. and Karzai's government. The Taliban want their five detainees released to Doha, Qatar, where senior Taliban leaders are living in exile. The U.S. has been reluctant to return detainees to Afghanistan because several have returned to the battlefield. In London, Cameron said he discussed the fate of his country's last remaining detainee, Shaker Aamer, in a meeting with Obama last month. "Clearly, President Obama wants to make progress on this issue and we should help him in every way that we can with respect to this individual," Cameron said. Aamer is a Saudi native who moved to Britain in 1996 and married a British woman, who was pregnant with his fourth child when he was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001. He was accused of being a Taliban fighter, but he was never charged and insists he was in Afghanistan to do charity work. He has been cleared for transfer and has participated in the hunger strike. More than half of the current detainees are from Yemen, which has new hope to get its detainees out since Obama has lifted a three-year ban on transfers to Yemen. Obama imposed the ban after a would-be bomber attempted to blow up a U.S.-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009 on instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. Obama's decision is not without risk detainees who have been released to Yemen in the past have joined terrorist fighters in the Arab nation. But Yemen has agreed to open a rehabilitation center to help reintegrate detainees, but reportedly is asking the U.S. and other Arab countries to help fund the $20 million cost a fraction of the $150 million annual cost Obama cited of keeping detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Thumper List
PC Drain inevitable Debt Ceiling, Immigration, Second-term decline, Scandals and House opposition FT 13

(Richard McGregor: a journalist, writer and author. He was the chief political correspondent, Japan correspondent and China correspondent for The Australian) Weak Republican leadership endangers Obama agenda The Financial Times. June 24, 2013 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3a66c240-dc0f11e2-8853-00144feab7de.html#axzz2ZKbqxpgi) The weakened Republican leadership in Congress has dulled hopes for the successful passage of legislation on immigration and the economy, in moves that could curb Barack Obamas presidential ambitions. The

defeat of the farm bill in the House of Representatives last week, after about a quarter of Republicans in the chamber defected, underlined how instability remains entrenched in Congress. Mr Obamas own standing is also waning because of his inability to forge close ties with Congress and persuade many Republicans to work with him, on top of the inevitable decline in power of presidents in their second terms. The Senate was poised
to pass an immigration bill as early as Monday evening after Democrats and Republicans agreed on a surge in spending on border security, a condition for any conservative support. But the farm bills failure was evidence of the obstacles that John Boehner, the Repub lican House Speaker, faces to rally his members around any measure in alignment with a significant number of Democrats. The

House is likely to debate immigration around the same time the White House will ask it to vote to increase the countrys borrowing limit, a fight that brought the US to the brink of default in August 2011. The debt ceiling
debate will take place in a very different context this time, with the economy recovering and the US budget deficit falling rapidly after earlier deals on tax rises and spending cuts. There is also a certain crisis fatigue, said Stan Collender, a former congressional staffer, at Qorvis Communication, a Washington consultancy. The debt ceiling will probably be increased eventually, even if a prolonged stand-off has the potential to damage confidence in the economy. This isnt 2011: if Republicans provoke a debt ceiling confrontation over demands for massive, offsetting s pending cuts, the business community is going to come unglued, said John Lawrence, former chi ef of staff to Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic minority leader in the House. But

the political capital needed to get the statutory debt ceiling raised has the potential to drain the energy and spirit of compromise that both sides will need to forge a majority coalition for immigration. Immigration involves very different voting constituencies from the farm bill. Members from agricultural states on both sides of

the aisle support farm subsidies, while Democrats oppose large cuts to food programmes for the poo r, which makes up most of the farm bills spending. Republicans also have another incentive to pass immigration reform the growing number of minority voters who backed Mr Obama by a large margin in the 2012 presidential poll. But a Republican House aide said immigration was a difficult issue for conservatives. Many object to what they regard as a flouting of the law through a de facto amnesty and believe the measure will increase welfare costs. The leadership support s a bill but if you gave them a truth serum, I am pretty sure they couldnt guarantee its passage, the aide said. The large cost of extra border security, the pr ice of Senate success last week, will also turn off many conservatives, as will the added bureaucratic complexity that comes with the new measures and the fact Mr Obama will get credit for immigration reform. Mr Lawrence said the the farm failure could presage real problems for the immigration bill, as Boehner is ambivalent about the need to flex muscle to get tough legislation through. But Mr Boehners refusal to crack down on his caucus may be the only smart way for him to manage his rambunctious colleagues. There are 30 or so members in the Republican caucus for whom you could set spending at zero, said Mr Collender, and they would still not vote for it.

Thumper Climate
Obama spending PC on Climate push The Guardian 13.
Barack Obama's (Obama and climate change: fresh air June 25, 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/25/obama-climate-change)

plans for cutting US greenhouse gas emissions represent an important first. Piecemeal attempts have been made to address the issue, but this is the first time a comprehensive strategy to combat climate change has been unveiled. For the first time, limits will be imposed
on the carbon dioxide output of existing power plants, which, as the biggest single source, account for 40% of America's carbon emissions. Shares in coal have plunged but, in climate change terms, that is a good a thing. It

is a sign that Mr Obama is not tinkering around the edges, but attacking the source of the problem. It should also be acknowledged that Mr Obama is proceeding in the teeth of opposition from the Republican-dominated Congress, whose reaction to the very idea of new climate rules, let alone their detail, was summed up by John Boehner, the house speaker, dismissing the very idea as "absolutely crazy". Mr Obama's chosen route around a deadlocked Congress is to use his executive authority to direct the Environmental Protection Agency to draw up new regulations. These in turn will be subject to legal challenge by business groups which will argue that the

EPA is exceeding its authority under the Clean Air Act. Challenges have already been set in motion over plans the EPA announced last year to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants. Regulating existing plants presents more problems. Viewed from Europe, the plans are less than bold. Mr Obama's commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17% from 2005 levels contrasts with the EU target of a 20% cut from 1990 levels, the key being the difference in the baselines. His speech on Tuesday is not the only decision he has to make. He has yet to approve the Keystone XL pipeline to transport tar-sands oil from Canada to the US Gulf coast refineries and ports. Without that pipeline, Canada cannot develop a market for the third-biggest oil reserves in the world reserves that could generate three to four times more carbon emissions per barrel than conventional oil, because of the energy-intensive process of separating the oil from the rock. Lobbying for and against has intensified on both sides of the Atlantic, with the EU proposing to penalise Alberta's tar sands. Let us hope that Mr Obama does not tarnish his image by letting that one through. There

is no doubting that, for today, Mr Obama is not only leveraging the power of his office. He is also investing his political capital into the cause of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This and immigration
will be the defining domestic reforms of his second term. No cause could better merit this effort. With the US and China, the world's biggest emitters, making tangible efforts, no bigger signal could now be sent to the rest of the world.

AT: Cap

Non-UQ Gitmo Has McDs

Guantanamo Bay Already has Capitalism-McDonalds and Pizza Hut to name a few The Associated Press in 2008
(New York Daily News, Parts of Guantanamo Bay base resemble small-town America, June 17 2008, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/parts-guantanamo-bay-base-resemble-small-town-america-article-1.298258, NE) GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Outside the razor wire that circles the cellblocks, the U.S.

Navy base at Guantanamo Bay resembles typical small-town America, complete with chain restaurants, baseball diamonds and an ice-cream truck. Only this town has a lot more security. About 10,000 people live on the
isolated base, 4,000 of them members of the U.S. military and the rest mainly members of their families, civilian support staff and laborers brought in from Jamaica, the Philippines and other countries. The community has tripled in size since the U.S. began holding war-on-terrorism suspects here in 2002. Now they can enjoy an open-air movie theater, a golf

course and Cuba's only American fast-food restaurants, including McDonald's and Pizza Hut.

While many residents are housed in barracks, some live in manicured subdivisions where children run into the street at the clang of an ice cream truck's bell. Guantanamo Bay also has its own school, though there are so few young people that its sports teams resort to playing teams of adults including Jamaican firefighters and hospital staffers. The detention center is separated from the town by a cactus-studded ridge and is generally out of sight for those who go about their business on the 45-square-mile (115-squarekilometer) base. Administrators take particular care to provide diversions for soldiers and sailors who take 12-hour shifts guarding alleged terrorists and men suspected of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. A Morale, Welfare and Recreation Department has brought batting cages, scuba-diving classes and billiards competitions. This being the military, popular activities include long-distance runs and swims across the bay.

Non-UQ Cuba FT Now

Cuba Expanding Free Trade NowTrial Balloon FTZ Proves Global Post 13
[Global Post is an online US news company that focuses on international news, Cuba gears up for first free trade industry zone, April 2, 2013; http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130402/cuba-gears-first-free-trade-industry-zone]

Cuba on Tuesday unveiled rules for its first free trade manufacturing zone, a vast $900 million project being paid for mostly by Brazil in the port of Mariel near Havana. The Mariel Special Development Zone, a major trial balloon being floated by President Raul Castro's communist government, is slated to feature manufacturing operations both for export and for the Cuban market, as well as a megaport that would take over shipping now done in Havana. The government on Tuesday published a legal decree in the Official Gazette detailing rules for the area and its operations. Brazilian multinational Odebrecht is handling the infrastructure on the project, and Brazil is providing $640 million in financing, with Cuba handling the rest. Castro, 81, has taken steps to modernize some elements of the economy, such as trimming state payrolls and allowing more types of self-employment, but the state remains firmly in control of most economic activity. It was not immediately clear when manufacturing in the new free trade zone would begin, but some port operations will start this month. Cuba is opening Mariel in 2014 no link uniqueness Havana Times 13

[Havana Times, an independent source for news and opinion on and from Cuba, Cuba: Mariel Free -Trade Zone Almost Ready, April 11, 2013; http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=91048] HAVANA TIMES The

Special Development Zone at Mariel (49 kilometers west of the capital), under construction for the past several years, already contains several factories and port facilities, as well as an impressive infrastructure. This development zone will operate under a special Customs arrangement that will permit the
importation and exportation of products, as well as the production and sale of value-added merchandise for the national and foreign markets. It will begin operations in the next several weeks as a free-trade industrial zone, the first of its kind in Cuba. Rodrigo Malmierca, Minister of Foreign Investment and Foreign Trade, said some months ago that the

free-trade zone is designed to increase exports and provide an effective substitute for imports. Malmierca also said that it represents an interesting opportunity for foreign

capital. His words are significant at a time when enactment of a long -expected investment law seems imminent. The laws content is still unknown; however, it is expected to be attractive enough to bring aboard potential investors. To some foreign businessmen and especially to potential investors who have talked with our correspondents, whats essential is not only the flexibility of the legislation but also the number of steps we must take to sign a contract. In other words: agility in the paperwork is imperative. For the time being, those who wish to participate in this experience will find propitious laws, such as the one recently enacted by the Ministry of Finances and Prices, which exempts from taxes some specific merchandises that, after being transformed in the Mariel facilities, can be sold abroad. Favored with a refund of export fees will be those companies that bring beneficial results to the national economy, as indicated by one of the paragraphs of the official resolution. All legal persons residing in national territory can apply for the benefits of the existing regulations, so long as they fulfill the requirements established by this regulation, the paragraph reads. The

monumental port, fitted for the mooring of large-draught ships, will take over the maritime trade that now utilizes Havana Bay, which is insufficient for the mooring of large vessels and unsuitable for the development projects now being undertaken or envisioned. The purpose and progressive materialization of this ambitious plan is one of the major joint ventures assumed by Cuba and Brazil. From Brazil come some of the $900 million that the works will cost; they include processing industries and a container park, as well as the dredging and land-filling of the Mariel Bay. Everything seems to indicate that the project will soon begin to operate in part. Full-scale operations are set for 2014-2015.

No Impact SEZs Good

SEZs promote regional prosperity wherever they go and stimulate economic wellbeing multiple warrants Murray 10

(Megan Murray is a writer for the University of Iowa Center for International Finance and Development, University of Iowa Ce nter for International Finance and Development, What Are Special Economic Zones?, February 9, 2010,http://blogs.law.uiowa.edu/ebook/faqs/what-are-specialeconomic-zones)

an SEZs tax benefits help expand a countrys industrial base by luring foreign industries that might not otherwise choose to locate in the host country. Foreign direct investors doing business in a host country also improve host country facilities because one of the ways they compete for global business is through sophisticated, high-tech developments and world-class facilities. These highly developed enclaves help offset country risks that many foreign investors consider when they consider investments in foreign markets. The new Songdo City in Seoul, South Korea, part of the new Incheon Free Economic Zone, is the epitome of a world-class SEZ. When completed in 2015, it will be a digital city that highlights all of the newest global technologies. SEZs also improve industries focusing on enhanced technologies by providing research and development resources that allow countries to export more sophisticated manufactured goods. Within these technologically sophisticated
Even though SEZ developments bring challenges to host countries, they also bring valuable benefits. As already noted, developments, large foreign firms often partner with smaller local firms, providing brand-name recognition and large firm expertise that gives the local firm greater global marketing visibility. Other

economic benefits of the zones include increased government income from trade revenues once government subsidies expire, export growth and foreign exchange earnings, and lease revenues from firms renting space within the zone. Centralization of local and foreign trade facilities also helps stabilize employment levels and promotes ingenuity and experimentation of new trade regimes under a common infrastructure. A country can
experiment with using different oversight methodologies and then calculate which regulations best meet its trade needs. Foreign direct investment promotes organic growth from within the country as locals develop new skill bases and improve their infrastructure, allowing them to compete at a higher level for subsequent foreign investments. SEZs

help expand a host countrys employment base by creating additional jobs and training opportunities for more local citizens, and sometimes by actually improving a countrys labor standards. For example, employment in the Dominican Republics SEZs rose from 500 in 1970 to over 200,000 today, and almost 1 million workers are employed in the Philippines SEZs. And unlike Namibia, Mozambique has mandated that national labor laws apply to its SEZs and has guaranteed acceptable working conditions with mandatory vacation, minimum wage laws, and maternity leave. SEZs also generate economic activity outside the zone due to increased infrastructure requirements and a need for support services to transfer goods to and from a zones geographic area. Once SEZs generate additional employment and services, there is an increased demand for social infrastructure like housing, education, health and transport communication, shopping, tourism, hospitality, packaging, banking, and insurance, all of which combine to grow employment and improve the quality of life in and around an SEZ development.

AT: K of Suffering Reps

In the case of torture it is necessary to attempt a representation of physical pain because the alternative allows American ideology to represent torture on its own terms

Scarry 87
(Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, Elaine, The Body in Pain, 1987, BH) Second, it was observed that ordinarily there is no language for pain, that it (more than any other phenomenon) resists verbal objectification. But

the relative ease or difficulty with which any given phenomenon can be verbally represented also influences the ease or difficulty with which that phenomenon comes to be politically represented. If, for example, it were easier to express intellectual aspiration than bodily hunger, one would expect to find that the problem of education had a greater degree of social recognition than the problem of malnutrition or famine; or again, if property (as well as the ways in which property can be jeopardized) were easier to describe than bodily disability (as well as the ways in which a disabled person can be jeopardized), then one would not be astonished to discover that a society had developed sophisticated procedures for protecting "property rights" long before it had succeeded in formulating the concept of "the rights of the handicapped." It is not simply accurate but tautological to observe that given any two phenomena, the one that is more visible will receive more attention. But the sentient fact of physical pain is not simply somewhat less easy to express than some second event, not simply somewhat less visible than some second event, but so nearly impossible to express, so flatly invisible, that the problem goes beyond the possibility that almost any other phenomenon occupying the same environment will distract attention from it. Indeed, even where it is virtually the only content in a given environment, it will be possible to describe that environment as though the pain were not there. Thus, for example, torture comes to be describednot only by regimes that torture but sometimes by people who stand outside those regimesas a form of information-gathering or (in its even more remarkable formulation) intelligencegathering; and uncovering the perceptual
processes that permit this misdescription will be the first step in the extended structural analysis of torture to which Chapter 1 is devoted. Similarly (though by no means identically), while the central activity of war is injuring and the central goal in war is to out-injure the opponent, the fact of injuring tends to be absent from strategic and political descriptions of war; thus Chapter 2 will open with a review of writings by Clausewitz, Liddell

The act of misdescribing torture or war, though in some instances intentional and in others unintentional, is in either case partially made possible by the inherent difficulty of accurately describing any event whose central content is bodily pain or injury. The third central point that emerged earlier was an extension of the second: though there is ordinarily no language for
Hart, Churchill, Sokolovskiy and other theorists of war in order to make visible the particular paths by which it disappears. pain, under the pressure of the desire to eliminate pain, an at least fragmentary means of verbalization is available both to those who are themselves in pain and to those who wish to speak on behalf of others. As physical pain is monolithically consistent in its assault on language, so the verbal strategies for overcoming that assault are very small in number and reappear consistently as one looks at the words of patient, physician, Amnesty worker, lawyer, artist: these verbal strategies revolve around the verbal sign of the weapon or what will eventually be called here the language of "agency." But we will also see that this contexts just cited) it

verbal sign is so inherently unstable that when not carefully controlled (as it is in the can have different effects and can even be intentionally enlisted for the opposite purposes, invoked not to coax pain into visibility but to push it into further invisibility, invoked not to assist in the elimination of pain but to assist in its infliction, invoked not to extend culture (as happens in medicine, law, and art) but to dismantle that culture. The fact that the language of agency has on the one hand a radically benign potential and on the other hand a radically sadistic one does not lead to the conclusion that the two are inseparable, nor to the conclusion that those who use it in the first way are somehow implicated in the actions of those who use it in the second way. On the contrary: the two uses are not simply distinct but mutually exclusive; in fact we will see that one of the central tasks of civilization is to stabilize this most elementary sign.

Case Neg

Link China
China views the Uighurs imprisoned in Guantanamo as a terrorist threat their release would be a foreign policy disaster with China Telegraph 09
(2/18/09, Staff Writer, Telegraph, Guantanamo Bay Uighur prisoner release overturned, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/4693120/Guantanamo-Bay-Uighur-prisoner-release-overturned.html)

A judge ruled last year that the Uighurs, members of a Chinese Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority, were no longer enemy combatants and should be released in the United States. The

17 were captured by American forces in Afghanistan and fear torture if they return home. Beijing regards the men as "Chinese terrorists". By a two-to-one vote, a three-judge panel of

the appeals court ruled that a federal judge does not have the authority to decide who can legally enter the United States, a power they said resides only with the president or Congress. The court struck down an Oct 8 ruling by US District Judge Ricardo Urbina who ordered the federal government to free the 17 men in the Washington area where there is a large Uighur community. "We are certain that no habeas corpus court since the time of Edward I ever ordered such an extraordinary remedy," wrote Raymond Randolph, a senior circuit court judge. The Uighurs have been imprisoned at the American detention centre at Guantanamo for six years, even though they were cleared two years ago of being "enemy combatants". President Barack Obama plans by early 2010 to shut down the detention camp in Cuba, which became a symbol of perceived excess in the "war on terror" under his predecessor, George W Bush. The

United States has been struggling to find a third country to take the 17 Uighurs. China's foreign ministry earlier this month warned Canada not to accept three of them seeking asylum, saying Beijing was "opposed to any country accepting those people". The German city
of Munich, which, like Washington, is home to a major Uighur community, has offered to take in the 17 men, but Chancellor Angela Merkel's crossparty government is divided on taking inmates from Guantanamo. The

Obama administration said last month it "cannot imagine" sending the inmates to China, saying they could be mistreated. In response, the

Uighurs' lawyers urged their release into the Washington area, saying that the United States was the only nation where they could go and that the decision would encourage other countries to accept inmates. But the Washington federal appeals court rejected the argument that the Uighurs deserve to be released into the United States "after all they have endured at the hands of the US". "Such sentiments, however high-minded, do not represent a legal basis for upsetting settled law and overriding the prerogatives of political branches," Mr Randolph wrote. He said the court did not know "whether all petitioners or any of them would qualify for entry or admission under the immigration laws." Only Albania has so far agreed to take any Uighur detainees, welcoming a group of five in 2006. The Uighurs were living in a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the US-led bombing campaign began in October 2001. They fled to the mountains, but were turned over to Pakistani authorities, who then handed them over to the United States.

Link China
China is pressuring on Uighurs now releasing them steps on Chinas toes AP 13
(3/17/13, Associated Press, In shadow of China, Uighurs released from Guantanamo languish on Pacific island http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/17/in-shadow-china-uighurs-released-from-guantanamo-languish-on-pacific-island/) KOROR, Palau

Ahmat Abdulahad can't help but laugh at the irony of his predicament. He and five other Chinese Muslims released from America's Guantanamo military prison in 2009 thought they would be living on this remote island for a few months, maybe a year. But more than three years later, they are still in Palau, and the patience and funding of this poor nation is running out. The government has cut Abdulahad's monthly stipend, so he can't pay his bills, not even those from the Palau Power Utility Corp.,
where he works as a night watchman. So he and his family, inadvertent inhabitants of one of the most beautiful islands in the Pacific, are learning to make do without electricity. Palau has become a prolonged stopover in what is now a 12-year odyssey for a half dozen men from China's ethnic Uighur minority. They were swept up in Afghanistan as suspected terrorists, held without trial in Guantanamo for more than eight years, then became a cause celebre for Guantanamo opponents in the U.S., who saw them as hapless victims of the anti-terrorism effort and the circumvention of due process in the name of national security. Now, all but one of them who quietly managed to make his way to Turkey to join his wife a few months ago remain stuck on Palau because no one else will take them. "We are like the pieces in a chess game," Abdulahad, who is 42, said at a small, drab apartment building by the sea where three of the men live with their wives and children. He wears a prosthetic limb because he lost part of his left leg in the air raid when he was captured. "They have played us like that all these years." Both

the men and Palau's president say pressure from China, which says they are terrorists despite their release, is making it impossible for them to find refuge anywhere else. And having met a U.S. federal court order to release them from Guantanamo, U.S. government interest in finding them a permanent home appears to have dried up though officials say they are doing all they can. "It's no secret China is very angry with Palau because of the resettlement," President Tommy Remengesau said in a recent interview with The Associated Press, one of his first since taking office in January. "It doesn't take a blind man not to notice that nobody wanted to take these men. The pressure was there from the beginning and the pressure continues to be there. Nobody will be open enough to say that they welcome the Uighurs because of that pressure." China's Foreign Ministry and Public Security Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The Uighurs come from Xinjiang, an isolated region of western China that borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and six Central Asian nations. They are Turkic-speaking Muslims who say they have long been repressed by the Chinese government. Many want Xinjiang to become independent, and in recent years, some have staged bombings and other attacks, mostly against police, government and military targets. China considers Uighurs held in Guantanamo to be terrorists and has demanded they be repatriated. But since they would almost certainly face imprisonment or even torture if sent back to China, other countries had to be found. The U.S. refused to grant them asylum. Nearly a dozen now live in Albania, Bermuda, El Salvador and Switzerland. Three remain in custody at the U.S. Navy facility in Cuba. Palau, a country of 20,000 people that relies heavily on the United States for defense and aid, agreed to take six Uighurs on a temporary basis. The former U.S. trust territory, which became independent in 1994, didn't have much to lose. It is one of the few countries that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, instead of Beijing, and to sweeten the deal, Washington promised $600,000 to help pay for the men's stay. But Palau says it has done enough. "The funds have run out. My government is not in a financial situation to deal with them here," Remengesau said. "Culturally it just doesn't fit. Their religion is different from 99
percent of the people of Palau. It hasn't been an entirely stable situation for us. They're not happy. If they had their choice, they would rather be somewhere else." Even

Palau has felt Beijing's wrath, he said, noting that construction of a beachfront resort being developed by Chinese investors abruptly stopped as soon as the Uighur deal was announced. It is a major eyesore, boarded up and vacant, along the main street of Koror, Palau's biggest town, and just a short walk from a

bustling hotel built by Taiwanese developers. Former President Johnson Toribiong, who was voted out of office in November in part because of allegations that he misused the funds intended for the Uighurs, said he never intended for Palau to be a final destination. "I assumed that I would be able to take care of them and by the end of my term find them a permanent place to go to," he said. Last month, Palau's government confirmed that one of the men, Adel Noori, had left the island. According to a local newspaper, Noori made his way to Turkey via Japan. Officials in Palau and Washington say they cannot comment because of security concerns. In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the United States is working diligently to seek permanent homes for the remaining Uighurs and is "coordinating closely with Palau on matters related to the remaining individuals temporarily resettled there." But officials on Palau say they are not even sure who to contact in Washington. Special envoy Daniel Fried, who negotiated the Palau deal and was in charge of finding placements for cleared detainees at Guantanamo, was transferred to a new job in January. No replacement has been named, which has been widely seen as more evidence that President Obama's zeal to close Guantanamo a major campaign promise before his election in 2008 has waned under congressional opposition. "We need a timetable, and a plan of action. That's where the frustration comes," Remengesau said. "We are looking for a happy ending. These are human beings. They deserve respect." For now, the five Uighur men eke by, most working as security guards and making about $500 a month, which is about the poverty level even by Palauan standards.

Prospective employers are reluctant to hire them, and if they speak English at all, it is mostly what they picked up in prison. The only other Muslims on Palau are a small number of Bangladeshis. "When we were released we were very happy," said Abdulghappar Abdulrahman, another of the Uighurs. "But now it is like being in Guantanamo again."

Link Politics
Closing Guantanamo bay is unpopular with congress Rosenber 12
(Carol Rosenberg, 1/9/12, The Miami Herald, Congress, rules keep Obama from closing Guantanamo Bay) http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/09/135179/congress-rule-keep-obama-from.html#storylink=cpy) The last two prisoners to leave the U.S. detention center at Guantnamo Bay were dead. On February 1, Awal Gul, a 48-year-old Afghan, collapsed in the shower and died of an apparent heart attack after working out on an exercise machine. Then, at dawn one morning in May, Haji Nassim, a 37-yearold man also from Afghanistan, was found hanging from bed linen in a prison camp recreation yard. In both cases, the Pentagon conducted swift autopsies and the U.S. military sent the bodies back to Afghanistan for traditional Muslim burials. These voyages were something the Pentagon had not planned for either man: Each was an indefinite detainee, categorized by the Obama administrations 2009 Guantnamo Review Task Force as someone against whom the United States had no evidence to convict of a war crime but had concluded was too dangerous to let go. Today, this category of detainees makes up 46 of the last 171 captives held at Guantnamo. The

only guaranteed route out of Guantnamo these days for a detainee, it seems, is in a body bag. The responsibility lies not so much with the White House but with Congress, which has thwarted President Barack Obamas plans to close the detention center, which the Bush administration opened on Jan. 11, 2002, with 20 captives. Congress has used its spending oversight authority both to forbid the White House from financing trials of Guantnamo captives on U.S. soil and to block the acquisition of a state prison in Illinois to hold captives currently held in Cuba who would not be put on trial a sort of Guantnamo North. The latest defense bill adopted by
Congress moved to mandate military detention for most future al Qaida cases. The White House withdrew a veto threat on the eve of passage, and then Obama signed it into law with a signing statement that suggested he could lawfully ignore it. On paper, at least, the Obam a administration would be set to release almost half the current captives at Guantnamo. The 2009 Task Force Review concluded that about 80 of the 171 detainees now held at Guantnamo could be let go if their home country was stable enough to help resettle them or if a foreign country could safely give them a new start. But Congress has made it nearly impossible to transfer captives anywhere. Legislation

passed since Obama took office has created a series of roadblocks that mean that only a federal court order or a national security waiver issued by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta could trump Congress and permit the release of a detainee to another country. Neither is likely: U.S. District Court judges are not ruling in favor of captives in the dozens of unlawful detention suits winding their way from Cuba to the federal court in Washington. And on the occasions when those judges have ruled for detainees, the U.S. Court of Appeals has
consistently overruled them in an ever-widening definition of who can be held as an affiliate of al Qaida or the Taliban. Meanwhile, Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson, the Pentagons top lawyer, believes that Congress crafted the transfer waivers a year ago in such a way that Panetta (and Robert Gates before him) would be ill-advised to sign them. (In essence, the Secretary of Defense is supposed to guarantee that the detainee would never in the future engage in violence against any American citizen or U.S. interest.) In a strange twist of history, Congress,

through its control of government funds, is now imposing curbs on the very executive powers that the Bush administration invoked to establish the camps at Guantnamo in the first place.
Abdullah al Ajami, who was transferred to Kuwait in 2005, blew himself up in a truck bomb attack in Iraq in 2008? In

Much of its intransigence is driven by the politics of fear: What if, for example, a captive is acquitted in a civilian trial because the judge bars evidence obtained by the military without benefit of counsel? When will another freed Guantnamo detainee attack a U.S. target or interest, such as when

the face of such public and political pressure especially from Congress Obama administration officials have waffled at several key moments. For example, Attorney General Eric Holder changed his mind on where to try five alleged 9/11

plotters at Guantnamo, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In November 2009, Holder announced that the trial would be held in a civilian courtroom in Manhattan; then, in April 2011, following strong resistance from congressional representatives and New York politicians, the White House abandoned this plan and instead announced that Pentagon prosecutors would bring a trial by military commission. Resettling in the United States those captives cleared for release has also become taboo. Soon after taking over in 2009, the Obama administration was considering resettling Guantnamo captives from Chinas Uighur Muslim minority, whom the Bush administration had readied for release. (They were to be hosted by Uighur-Americans in Virginia.) But then, in the face of congressional objections, the White House lost its nerve. The United States instead scattered the Uighurs to Bermuda, Switzerland, and even the Pacific island nation of Palau; five more Uighurs remain at Guantnamo. Factors besides Congress also contributed to the current Guantnamo stalemate. First, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that at least a fourth of the detainees the United States has released from Guantnamo were confirmed or suspected of later engaging in terrorism or insurgent activity. Opponents of closing Guantnamo immediately seized on these figures. (For its part, the Obama administration noted that most of those on the recidivist list were transferred before Obama took office, when the Bush-era Pentagon approved some 500 releases. Officials took fault with these big-batch transfers and claimed that the Obama administrations individually fashioned, case-by-case system for release would yield better results.) Second, over the past couple years a powerful al Qaida offshoot has taken hold in Yemen, the very country where the Obama administration had planned to transfer many detainees. Sending dozens of suspected terrorists back to a country besieged by a growing terrorist threat is hardly good politics or security policy. Lastly, Obamas executive order to close Guantnamo was undone by the burdensome bureaucracy of the task force, which sought to sort each captives Bush-era file. Each detainees case file contained competing and often contradictory assessments from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagons Office of Military Commissions, the Department of Justice, and myriad other offices, bogging down the review process. Time ran out before the task force could settle on a master plan to move the detainees out of Guantnamo i n time for Obamas one-year deadline. Now its the war court the military commissions that the Bush administration created to hear war crimes cases at Guantnamo, which were reformed by Obama through legislation or nothing. And only two cases, both proposing military executions, are currently slated to go before the Guantnamo tribunals: those for the 9/11 attacks and for the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. To date, the war court has produced six convictions, four of them through guilty pleas in exchange for short sentences designed to get the detainees out of Guantnamo within a couple of years. Still, in the Kafkaesque world of military detention, neither an acquittal at the war court nor even a completed sentence guarantees that a detainee gets to leave Guantnamo. Once convicted, a captive is separated from the other detainees to serve his sentence on a different cellblock. (Four are there today, only one serving life.)

Once that sentence is over, as both the Bush and Obama administrations have outlined detention policy, the convict can then be returned to the general population at Guantnamo as an unprivileged enemy belligerent. The doctrine has yet to be challenged. But if Ibrahim al Qo si, a 51-year-old Sudanese man convicted for working as a cook in an al Qaida compound in Kandahar, does not go home when his sentence expires this year, his lawyers are likely to turn to the civilian courts to seek a release order. Guantnamo has largely faded from public attention. There is little reason to expect it to emerge as an issue in the upcoming presidential campaign season beyond the usual finger-pointing and slogans:

Obama may blame Congress for cornering him into keeping the captives at Guantnamo rather than moving them somewhere else, and his opponents will no doubt argue that, by virtue of his wanting to close the facility in the first place, Obama is
soft on terrorism. (My view is we ought to double it, Mitt Romney said about Guantnamo in a 2007 debate.)

Link Politics
Both parties and the American people dont want to see Guantanamo closed Catalini 13
(Michael Catalini, Michael Catalini is a staff writer covering politics. He graduated from Penn State with a bachelor's degree in journalism and has a master's degree in government from Johns Hopkins., 5/3/13, Political Barriers Stand Between Obama and Closing Guantanamo Facility, http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/political-barriers-stand-between-obama-and-closing-guantanamo-facility-20130503)

The last time President Obama tried to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, Congress stopped him abruptly. The Senate did what it rarely does: It voted in bipartisan fashion, blocking his attempt at funding the closure. Four years later, and the political barriers that blocked the president from closing the camp that now houses 166 detainees are as immovable as ever. Moving the prisoners to facilities in the U.S., a solution the administration suggested, proved to be a political minefield in 2009. Most Americans oppose closing the base, according to a polls, and congressional leaders have balked at taking action. The Cuban camp is grabbing headlines again
because of a hunger strike among the detainees. Nearly 100 have stopped eating, and the military is forcing them to eat by placing tubes through their noses, the Associated Press reported. The president reconfirmed his opposition to the camp, responding to a question about the recent hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay with regret in his voice. Well, it is not a surprise to me that we've got problems in Guantanamo, which is why, when I was campaigning in 2007 and 2008 and when I was elected in 2008, I said we need to close Guantanamo. I continue to believe that we've got to close Guantanamo, he said. Obama

blamed his failure to follow through on a campaign promise on lawmakers. Now, Congress determined that they would not let us close it, he said. Despite Obamas desire to close the base and his pledge this week to go back to this, he touched on a political reality: Lawmakers are not inclined to touch the issue. "The president stated that the reason Guantanamo has not closed was because of Congress. That's true," Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters last month, declining to elaborate. The stakes for Obama on this issue are high when it comes to his liberal base, who would like to see him display the courage of his convictions and close the camp. But the political will is lacking, outside a small
contingent of lawmakers, including Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and five other liberal Democrats who sided with Obama in 2009, and left-leaning opinion writers. Congressional Democrats, unlike Obama, will have to face voters again. And closing

the camp is deeply unpopular. A Washington Post/ABC News poll in February 2012 showed that 70 percent of Americans wanted to keep the camp open to detain terrorist suspects, and in a 2009 Gallup Poll, a majority said they would be upset if it shut down. In 2009, the Senate voted 90-6 to block the presidents efforts at closing the camp. Obama had signed an order seeking to close the detention center, but the Senates vote denied the administration the $80 million needed to fund the closure. Closing the camp in Cuba and bringing the detainees into the United States grates against the political sensibilities of many lawmakers. Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who served as Reids
spokesman at the time, remembers the debate very well. I'm still not sure that there's much of an appetite among Democrats on the Hill to try and deal with this issue once and for all, Manley said in an interview.

Link Politics
Closing Gitmo is a lose-lose for Obama it cant end in a win Cornwell and Sutton 13
[Susan Cornwell and Jane Sutton, are Staff Writers for Reuters, an international news agency headquartered in New York, Unite d StatesWhat options does Obama have to close Guantanamo?, May 2, 2013; http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/02/us-usa-guantanamo-idUSBRE94106020130502] (Reuters) - With his renewed vow to close the detention camp for foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, President Barack Obama has effectively assigned himself a list of possible ways to take the prison's population down from 166 to zero. Some would be more easily achieved than others. In pledging to look again at an unfulfilled promise dating back to his first election campaign and early days in office in 2009, Obama made plain on Tuesday that it was untenable to keep the 11-year-old camp open. A hunger strike at the camp at the U.S. Naval Base on Cuba began in February, has been joined by 100 of the inmates and has led to force-feedings to keep the weakest prisoners alive, sparking fresh outrage from rights groups over a prison opened under Republican President George W. Bush in 2002. There were about 245 prisoners at Guantanamo when Obama, a Democrat, took office in 2009 and that has dropped to 166. But releases have slowed to a trickle under restrictions imposed by Congress, including a ban on any of them being brought to the United States. No prisoners have left Guantanamo this year. Among current inmates, nine have been charged with crimes or convicted, 24 are considered eligible for possible prosecution, 47 are considered too dangerous for release but are not facing prosecution, and 86 have been cleared for transfer or release. Obama

has several options, although it could take a combination of Department reassigned the special envoy who had been in charge of trying to persuade countries to take Guantanamo inmates approved for release, Daniel Fried, and did not replace him. That was widely seen as a signal that Obama was giving up on closing the prison any
several to clear the camp. PUT SOMEBODY IN CHARGE In January, the State time soon. Fried arranged for the transfer out of scores of prisoners, but the departures slowed to a crawl after Congress imposed restrictions on them. White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday the administration was considering naming a senior diplomat to renew the focus on repatriation or transferring detainees. Christopher Anders, the senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said such a "point person" was sorely needed as a first step to manage the administration's effort - but that the person should be from the White House. "For the last three years at the White House, it's been like no one home" on Guantanamo, he said. USE EXCEPTIONS IN LAW TO LET PRISONERS GO Obama has blamed Congress for interfering with his plan to close Guantanamo. Starting in 2011, Congress began restricting transfers out, saying the Defense Department first had to certify a number of things, including that the destination country was not a state sponsor of terrorism and would take action to make sure the individual would not threaten the United States. Starting last year, Congress let some restrictions be waived if it was in the "national security interests" of the United States. Obama has not used the waiver or certification provisions. "For the past two years, our committee has worked with our Senate counterparts to ensure that the certifications necessary to transfer detainees overseas are reasonable. The administration has never certified a single transfer," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard McKeon, a Republican, said this week. The White House could have pushed harder for officials at the Pentagon to process certifications, said the ACLU's Anders. Wells Dixon, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York organization that has represented a number of Guantanamo prisoners, said Obama could order the Pentagon to begin certifying transfers out. But he also noted potential risks for the president. "There's

no political upside" if Obama certifies that a prisoner can leave and then that prisoner later attacks U.S. interests, Dixon said. SEND
PRISONERS BACK TO YEMEN Congress has prohibited the transfer of detainees to countries with troubled security situations. But the United States could decide that new Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour has taken adequate measures against al Qaeda and made the country stable enough to resume repatriations to Yemen. Repatriations were halted in 2010 after a man trained by militants in Yemen tried to blow up a U.S.-bound plane in 2009. Of the 86 prisoners cleared for transfer or release, 56 are Yemenis. The Yemeni government says it wants them home and is building a facility to hold them for rehabilitation. That

option also has a potential danger - if a repatriated Yemeni eventually attacked the United States or its interests. USE THE PERIODIC REVIEW BOARD PROCESS Two years ago, Obama signed an

executive order establishing extra review procedures for Guantanamo detainees to determine if continued detention were warranted, but the Periodic Review Boards have not been used. This option looks fairly simple, since it involves carrying out the president's own executive order. But there may have been no rush to establish more reviews boards since prisoners cleared by earlier review boards are still being held. USE COURT RULINGS TO GET PEOPLE OUT Dixon suggested the administration could use court rulings to help get prisoners released. Two members of China's Muslim Uighur minority were resettled in El Salvador in April 2012, four years after a U.S. District Court in Washington ruled there were no grounds to hold them. When prisoners challenge their detention in federal court, the government could decide not to contest the case, paving the way for a court order effecting the prisoner's release, said Dixon. He said that could happen in any of the more than 100 detainee "habeus corpus" cases filed in federal court. Obama could instruct the Justice Department to stop contesting those cases. SEND PRISONERS OUT IN A PRISONER EXCHANGE The United States tried to work out a deal to transfer five senior Taliban prisoners back to Afghanistan in return for U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Berghdal, who has been a prisoner of Taliban militants since 2009. The talks were suspended last year. But there will be pressure to return the Afghan prisoners when the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan ends in 2014. This option would depend on how relations evolve with Afghanistan. But the Taliban prisoner release plan also met strong resistance among some members of Congress, especially Republicans, who might object if it resurfaces. CALL ON CONGRESS The legal restrictions on transfers will expire at the end of the fiscal year, on September 30, so Obama could urge Congress not to renew them - and make clear he considers that a political imperative. If the restriction on transferring prisoners to the United States were allowed to expire, Obama could not only transfer Guantanamo prisoners to foreign countries, but could bring some back to the United States for trial in federal court. But some

Democrats as well as Republicans argue that bringing Guantanamo inmates to the United States is a security risk. Republican leaders in both chambers have made that a high-profile issue, and
Republicans control the House of Representatives. So the option could be bogged down in Washington politics.

Torture k/2 WoT

GITMO interrogation information was key to killing Osama Bin Laden Stimson 2011
(Charles D. Cully Stimson in 2011 (Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs (20062007). While in office, Stimson oversaw the re-writing of the Army Field Manual on Interrogations and the movement of the CIA highvalue detainees to Guantanamo, The Foundry, Detainee Interrogations: Key to Killing Osama bin Laden, May 2, 2011 at 1:46 pm, http://blog.heritage.org/2011/05/02/detainee-interrogations-key-to-killing-osama-bin-laden/, ES)

Even though it has been several years since any new detainees have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, the intelligence extracted from them is still proving its worthin major and surprising ways. Buried in the flood of information on the extraordinary operation to locate and kill Osama bin Laden is the critical role of strategic interrogations of detainees, including those at Guantanamo. According to a number of published reports, Gitmo detainees provided key pieces of information that ultimately lead to the location and death of Osama bin Laden. Those reports are

confirmed, in large part, by the government. A senior official who briefed the press early this morning explained that detai nees in the post-9/11 period flagged for us individuals who may have been providing direct support to bin Laden and his deputy, [Ayman al] Zawahiri, after their escape from Afghanistan. He continued: One courier in particular had our constant attention. Detain ees gave us hisnom de guerre, or his nickname, and identified him as both a protg of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11, and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the former number three of al-Qaeda who was captured in 2005. The United States obtained this information four years ago, the official stated. One more crucial fact: According to th e detainees (note the plural), this individual was one of the few al-Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden. Think about that: This lead was

developed during the Bush Administration, most likely from al-Qaeda associates picked up and transferred to Guantanamo and subject to interrogations that critics have repeatedly deemed to be pointless in

terms of intelligence value. Whether these detainees remain at Guantanamo is an open question. Even at this early point in the news cycle, it is reasonably clear that detainees at Guantanamo (and perhaps elsewhere, such as those formerly in CIA custody and now at Guantanamo) who agreed to long-term lawful strategic interrogation gave the critical nuggets of information that put in motion a series of events that led to bin Ladens death. For years, we have heard that strategic interrogation of detainees at Guantanamo was worthless, that the information is (at best) stale and almost certainly of dubious reliability. The most strident call such

interrogations illegal. Even some senior intelligence officials in the Department of Defense were often dismissive of the value of intelligence gleaned at Guantanamo. Could there be any clearer proof that those critics are just plain wrong? Intelligence-gathering and analysis has been the backbone of our

many known (and unknown) counterterrorism successes since 9/11. A key part of that has been the role of real-time tactical interrogations and long-term strategic interrogation. The information gleaned from those interrogations is fed into a vast and interconnected intelligence network that has resulted in remarkable achievements in connecting the dots, sometimes over a period of years, to disable plots and kill or capture terrorists. That intelligence has enabled the U.S., under the

leadership of both Presidents Bush and Obama, to stay on the offensive while remaining vigilant to the very real threats that confront the nation every day. Yesterday, once again, proves the value of a longterm, lawful terrorist interrogation program.

Thousands of documents prove GITMO intelligence saved the US from terrorism post-9/11 Joseclyn 2008

(Thomas Joscelyn in 2008 (Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, The Weekly Standard, Clear and Present Danger: The Obama administration is about to discover that the terrorists detained at Guantnamo are there for good reason , Dec 1, 2008, http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/thomas-joscelyn#biography, ES)

Whatever happens to the detainees, the important point for much of the commentariat is that Guantnamo will be shuttered. For

Guantnamo's many critics, the facility long ago became a symbol of all that is wrong with the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror-from its cowboy-like unilateralism to its alleged widespread torture and abuse of terrorist suspects. That many dangerous enemies lurk in Guantnamo's cells has often been a secondary concern, if a concern at all. Thus, when President-

elect Obama spoke of regaining "America's moral stature in the world," he was endorsing the widespread perception of Guantnamo as an American sin that originated in the Bush administration's overreaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This

perception, however, was always skewed. The new administration will soon discover from its review of the Guantnamo files what motivated its predecessor: The scope of the terrorist threat was far greater than anyone knew on September 11, 2001. But for the Bush administration's

efforts, many more Americans surely would have perished. This conclusion is based on a careful review of the thousands of pages of documents released from Guantnamo, as well as other publicly available evidence. In 2006, the Department of Defense began to release the documents to the public via its

website. The files had been created during the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) and Administrative Review Board (ARB) hearings held for nearly 600 detainees. This unclassified cache includes both the government's allegations against each detainee and summarized transcripts of the detainees' testimony. Although the documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Associated Press, the intelligence contained in the files was largely ignored by the mainstream press for more than two years. Thus, the New York Times reported only the day before the recent presidential election that the

files contain "sobering intelligence claims against many of the remaining detainees."

Torture k/2 Terror

Interrogation key to stop terrorism, trials cannot produce the same intelligence Joseclyn 2008
(Thomas Joscelyn in 2008 (Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, The Weekly Standard, Clear and Present Danger: The Obama administration is about to discover that the terrorists detained at Guantnamo are there for good reason , Dec 1, 2008, http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/thomas-joscelyn#biography, ES)

In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration had to make up new rules as it went along. Critics are free to charge that the administration went too far. But the Obama administration may rapidly discover that treating the terrorist threat like any other matter in federal court, as candidate Obama proposed, is not only unrealistic but also dangerous. It is true that the courts have had some
notable post-9/11 successes, such as the convictions of Uzair Paracha and Iyman Faris. But those individuals were found out only because the Bush administration employed new methods to fight terrorism. Perhaps the Obama administration can achieve the same results without using the interrogation techniques employed by its predecessor. But

it would be foolish to think that the government can eschew interrogations outside of the federal criminal justice system entirely. Going forward, the new president will need to approve at least some proactive measures if he is to stop al Qaeda's next attack. Moreover, waging the war on terror requires more than just stopping individuals such as the 14 high value detainees. Tens of thousands of terrorists mean this nation harm. And over 200 of them remain at Guantnamo.

Torture = Justified
Top terror suspects cannot be treated as ordinary prisoners, harsh interrogation key to advance war on terror Joseclyn 2008

(Thomas Joscelyn in 2008 (Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, The Weekly Standard, Clear and Present Danger: The Obama administration is about to discover that the terrorists detained at Guantnamo are there for good reason , Dec 1, 2008, http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/thomas-joscelyn#biography, ES)

The most dangerous men currently incarcerated at Guantnamo are the 14 "high value" detainees. The Bush administration gave them this designation because they are uniquely lethal, having planned and participated in the most devastating terrorist attacks in history. Their collective
dossier includes, among other attacks, 9/11, the American embassy bombings (August 7, 1998), the USS Cole bombing (October 12, 2000), and the Bali bombings (October 12, 2002). They are responsible for murdering thousands of civilians around the globe, from the eastern United States to Southeast Asia. Had they not been captured, they surely would have murdered

thousands more. The 14 were originally held not at Guantnamo, but at even more controversial black sites. And the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that have sparked international outrage were principally designed for them. One may doubt the necessity and morality of these techniques, including waterboarding, while still recognizing a fundamentally important point: The 14 high value detainees are not ordinary criminals, but perpetrators of an entirely different order of evil. it is

because of these men, in particular, that the Bush administration initiated the preventive detention regime of which Guantnamo is a part. Processing them as mere lawbreakers would not have advanced the war on terror. To read

them their rights and provide them lawyers would have been to throw away their intelligence value. It would have allowed them to carry to the grave many details of still active terrorist plots. The Bush administration chose a different route-harsh interrogations designed to ferret out al Qaeda's current operations before it was too late to stop them or capture those involved . It is not
clear from the early press reports whether the Obama administration will continue preventive detention in any form. Some accounts suggest that the president-elect wants to abandon it entirely, rather than reforming it. During the campaign, Obama said he wanted to return to the way we did things in the 1990s, when terrorists were put on trial after the fact. "And, you know, let's take the example of Guantnamo," Obama said. "What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks-for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center-we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated."

AT: Gitmo Bad Cynics

Most of the criticism of GITMO comes from self-interested critics eager to condemn Guantanamo Joseclyn 2008

(Thomas Joscelyn in 2008 (Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, The Weekly Standard, Clear and Present Danger: The Obama administration is about to discover that the terrorists detained at Guantnamo are there for good reason , Dec 1, 2008, http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/thomas-joscelyn#biography, ES)

When President-elect Obama spoke so confidently of closing Guantnamo on 60 Minutes, he had a receptive audience. For years, the dominant story in the media has been the excesses of the Bush administration. Amazingly, much of this narrative was written by self-interested former inmates and the detainees' attorneys. They are always eager to provide journalists with statements about the evils of Guantnamo. Throughout the controversy, the Bush administration has made only minimal efforts to engage its critics or explain its actions to the American people. As a result, coverage of Guantnamo has been one-sided, and the intelligence contained in the thousands of pages of unclassified documents has largely been ignored. The full

story of the Guantnamo detainees remains to be told. The faults of the Bush administration go beyond its strange failure to make its case to the public. Its refusal to release a complete list of the remaining detainees is an example of secrecy taken too far. Its use of techniques of dubious legality and morality to extract information is rightly questioned. And the military commissions approved by President Bush have proceeded at a snail's pace-only two detainees have been tried.

AT: Gitmo Bad Improving

GITMO conditions have improve drastically since 2002, moving prisoners to US would actually make their situations worse Daskal 2013

(Jennifer Daskal in 2013 (an American lawyer who serves as senior counsel for Human Rights Watch, and focuses on issues of terrorism, criminal law and immigration, The New York Times, Dont Close Guantnamo, January 10, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/opinion/dont-closeguantanamo.html?_r=0, ES)

Guantnamo in 2013 is a far cry from Guantnamo in 2002. Thanks to the spotlight placed on the facility by human rights groups, international observers and detainees lawyers, there has been a significant, if not uniform, improvement in conditions. The majority of Guantnamo detainees now live in communal facilities where they can eat, pray and exercise together. If moved to the United States, these same men would most likely be held in military detention in conditions akin to supermax prisons confined to their cells 22 hours a day and prohibited from engaging in group activities, including communal prayer. The hard-won improvements in conditions would be ratcheted back half a decade to their previous level of harshness. And
Guantnamo would no longer be that failed experiment on an island many miles away. The Obama administration would be affirmatively creating a new system of detention without charge for terrorism suspects on American soil, setting a precedent and creating a facility readily available to future presidents wanting to rid themselves of a range of potentially dangerous actors. The

political reality is that closure of Guantnamo is unlikely to happen anytime soon, and if it did, it would do more harm than good. We should instead focus on finding places to transfer those cleared to leave the facility and, more important, on defining the end to the war.

AT: Move the Base

Moving locations does not rid the problems with GITMO, it actually impedes the access of oversight organizations Spencer, Cohen, Phillips, and Kochems 2005

(Jack Spencer, Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., James Phillips and Alane Kochems (Jack Spencer is Senior Policy Analyst for Defense and National Security, Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow, Jim Phillips is Research Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies, and Alane Kochems is a Research Assistant, in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation, The Heritage Foundation, No Good Reason To Close Gitmo, June 14, 2005, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/06/no-good-reason-to-close-gitmo, ES)

While billions are victim to the regular abuse and tyranny of governments such as those of Sudan and China, much

of the world's media and non-profit "human rights" resources focus on the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Not a single person has been killed at the facility since it opened, and yet the drumbeat of criticism grows by the day. Criticism and even calls to close the base have come not just from President Bush's critics, but also from members of his own party. But a rhetorical barrage is no reason to shut a base. Those who would close the detainment center have failed to articulate a reasonable rationale for doing so. They also overlook a major challenge: there are few options, right now, to replace the detainment center. There are, however, many reasons to keep it open. The function of Guantanamo Bay will be served somewhere. Closing Guantanamo will not relieve the United States from needing a facility to house and interrogate suspected terrorists. Should Guantanamo close, the government would have to relocate these functions. If there are problems with the detainment center, those problems should be transparently addressed. The Pentagon has taken great

pains to ensure that all appropriate domestic and international agencies have adequate access to the facilities and has been responsive to credible allegations of abuse. Unlike in the tyrannical or regimes of North Korea or China, for example, alleged abuses of prisoners are investigated and those found guilty are held responsible. Moreover, there are established avenues by

which Congress, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Red Crescent, and the media exercise differing degrees of oversight in Guantanamo. Changing locations now would lead to a transition period during which these organizations would have less access than they do today.

Gitmo k/2 WoT

Ceding Guantanamo is equal to ceding the War on Terror, media has proven it does not distinguish between the two Spencer, Cohen, Phillips, and Kochems 2005

(Jack Spencer, Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., James Phillips and Alane Kochems (Jack Spencer is Senior Policy Analyst for Defense and National Security, Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow, Jim Phillips is Research Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies, and Alane Kochems is a Research Assistant, in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation, The Heritage Foundation, No Good Reason To Close Gitmo, June 14, 2005, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/06/no-good-reason-to-close-gitmo, ES)

Closing Guantanamo Bay to placate critics is unjustified. It would be naive for the United States to assume that the same unsubstantiated criticisms that now surround the Guantanamo Bay facility would not be transported to the next one. The facility itself and what happens at it do not drive its critics, exactly; rather, their activism is motivated by how the United States and its allies are conducting the war on terrorism in general. Critics of the war do not distinguish between the two. To appease the critics would require changing how the United States fights the war on terrorism, which is unacceptable. American policymakers should be aware that conceding on Guantanamo, given the broad context of critics' complaints, would be tantamount to conceding the war on terrorism itself. For instance, on a recent television interview a representative of a "human rights" organization manipulated statistics and rhetoric taken from the broader campaign against terrorism to describe the actions and facility at Guantanamo Bay.[1] At one point in the interview, he argued that at least 28 individuals have died in U.S. custody as a result of criminal homicide. None of these deaths, however, occurred at Guantanamo. The implication was that whether these actions took place at Guantanamo was irrelevant and that actions and events occurring at any point or place in the war on terrorism may be generalized to any specific place or event.

Gitmo k/2 WoT

Guantanamo is Key to the War on TerrorNo other Facility Solves Meese 12
[Edwin Meese III, is a is a noted Republican attorney, law professor, and author, currently holds fellowships and chairmanships with several public policy councils and think tanks, including the Constitution Proje ct and The Heritage Foundation, Guantanamo Bay prison is necessary, 11 January 2012; http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/11/opinion/meese-gitmo] (CNN) -- The detention and interrogation facility at Guantanamo

Bay, Cuba, which I have visited, has served and continues to serve an important role in the war against terrorists since it opened 10 years ago. It houses high-value terrorist detainees,
like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of September 11.The military commissions' courthouse, called the Expeditionary Legal Compound, is a world-class, state-of-the-art facility specifically designed to accommodate the needs of both defense and prosecutors dealing with classified information. The detainees there are represented by civilian and military counsel, and the Supreme Court has ruled that they enjoy the constitutional right of habeas corpus. The conditions of detention there are safe, secure and humane and comply with national and international standards, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. It is important to remember that the United States of America is engaged in armed conflict and has been since September 11, 2001. The September 18, 2001, Authorization for Use of Military Force, relied upon by both the Bush and Obama administrations, gives our military the legal authority to engage the enemy under appropriate circumstances. Under the law of armed conflict, also called the law of war, engaging the enemy includes killing or capturing the enemy. This

age-old principle -- detention of the enemy during wartime for the duration of hostilities -- is just as applicable to al Qaeda as it was to Nazi POWs in World War II or other enemies in previous wars. This principle has been upheld by our courts, including the United States Supreme Court. Shortly after September 11, it became evident that this war would be different from all previous wars in the sense that we would need to rely more on tactical and strategic intelligence to thwart and defeat the enemy than traditional military might. To defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates, we needed to know what they knew; one of the obvious ways to learn their intentions was through lawful interrogation at a safe detention facility. Guantanamo, used as a detention facility since the
Clinton administration, was just such a place. There have been 779 detainees at Guantanamo. Today, there are only 171. But over the past decade, we have not only kept dangerous terrorists at Guantanamo and thus away from the battlefield, we during long-term, lawful interrogations. Without

have learned a great deal from them a safe, secure detention and interrogation facility, we would not have gained the tactical and strategic intelligence needed to degrade and ultimately defeat the enemy. It
has been said that the mere existence of Guantanamo is a recruiting tool for the enemy. However, recall that there was no Guantanamo detention facility when al Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in the 1990s or blew up the U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 or attacked the USS Cole in 2000. And I suspect that if

the Bush administration had brought the Guantanamo detainees not to Cuba but to a detention facility in the United States, that facility would have been the object of their scorn and derision.All things considered, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has played an invaluable role in the war against terrorists by keeping them off the battlefield and allowing for lawful interrogations. Neither the Bush nor Obama administrations has offered a reasonable and feasible alternative to Guantanamo. Unless and until a safe, reasonable alternative facility is proposed, the United States should continue to use Guantanamo as a
detention, interrogation and military commissions' facility.

Gitmo K/2 WoT

Closure of Guantanamo Weakens Detention PolicyHurts War on Terror CRS 13
[Michael John Garcia, Jennifer K. Elsea, R. Chuck Mason, Edward C. Liu, are all Legislative Attorneys, submitting Closing th e Guantanamo Detention Center: Legal Issues to the Congressional Research Service, 30 May 2013; http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40139.pdf] In any event, the

closure of the Guantanamo detention facility may raise complex legal issues, particularly if detainees are transferred to the United States. The nature and scope of constitutional protections owed to detainees within
the United States may be different from the protections owed to those held elsewhere. The transfer of detainees into the country may also have immigration consequences. Criminal

charges could also be brought against detainees in one of several forumsthat is, federal trial courts, the courts-martial system, or military commissions. The procedural protections afforded to the accused in each of these forums may differ, along with the types of offenses for which persons may be charged. This may affect the ability of U.S. authorities to pursue criminal charges against some detainees. Whether the military commissions established to try
detainees for war crimes fulfill constitutional requirements concerning a de fendants right to a fair trial is likely to become a matter of debate, if not litigation. There is considerable prosecutorial discretion within the executive branch regarding which forum to utilize, but legislative enactments may potentially limit the exercise of such discretion, including by requiring detainees to be charged in a particular forum. The

issues raised by the proposed closure of the Guantanamo detention facility have broad implications. Executive policies, legislative enactments, and judicial rulings concerning the rights and privileges owed to enemy belligerents may have longterm consequences for U.S. detention policy, both in the conflict with Al Qaeda and the Taliban and in future armed conflicts.

AT: Release the Prisoners

BAD IDEA Spencer, Cohen, Phillips, and Kochems 2005
(Jack Spencer, Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., James Phillips and Alane Kochems (Jack Spencer is Senior Policy Analyst for Defense and National Security, Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow, Jim Phillips is Research Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies, and Alane Kochems is a Research Assistant, in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation, The Heritage Foundation, No Good Reason To Close Gitmo, June 14, 2005, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/06/no-good-reason-to-close-gitmo, ES)

Releasing the detainees now is not a realistic option. While holding detainees indefinitely is not likely, releasing them now is not a realistic option. Many detainees released from Guantanamo Bay returned to their home countries only to resume terrorist attacks against civilians. According to The Washington Post, at least 10 of the 202 detainees released from Guantanamo were later captured or killed while fighting U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mark Jacobson, a former special assistant for
detainee policy at the Department of Defense, estimated that as many as 25 of the 202 had taken up arms again. For example, Mullah Shahzada, a former Taliban field commander who apparently convinced officials at Guantanamo that he had sworn off violence, was freed in 2003, and immediately rejoined the Taliban. He was subsequently killed in battle in the summer of 2004 in Afghanistan. Maulvi Ghafar, a Taliban commander captured in 2001, was released in February 2004. He was subsequently killed in a shootout with Afghan government forces in September 2004. Abdullah Mesud, a Pakistani who was captured fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, bragged that he was able to hide his true identity for two years at Guantanamo before being released in March 2004. He was considered a low-risk security threat because of his artificial leg. After returning to Pakistan, Mesud led a group of Islamic militants-part of a campaign against the Pakistani government-that kidnapped two Chinese engineers working on a dam. One of the engineers and several militants were subsequently killed in a government raid.[4] Mesud is still at large. Clearly, the

detainees kept at Guantanamo pose a significant threat to Americans, U.S. allies, and civilians in their home countries. This threat must be weighed long and hard before any decision is made to release an individual detainee or to change the system under which detainees are held. There is no legal reasoning to close Guantanamo, both US and detainees will get the same rights on U.S. soil Spencer, Cohen, Phillips, and Kochems 2005
(Jack Spencer, Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., James Phillips and Alane Kochems (Jack Spencer is Senior Policy Analyst for Defense and National Security, Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow, Jim Phillips is Research Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies, and Alane Kochems is a Research Assistant, in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation, The Heritage Foundation, No Good Reason To Close Gitmo, June 14, 2005, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/06/no-good-reason-to-close-gitmo, ES)

Changing the physical location of the detainees is not legally significant. Neither the detainees nor the United States stand to gain significantly in the legal arena if the detention center at Guantanamo Bay is closed. The "illegal enemy combatants" held at the facility have access to U.S. courts (as held by the Supreme Court in Rasul v. Bush[5]). Detainees have been making much use of their access to legal counsel, as
evidenced, for example, by a November 2004 District Court opinion holding that the Bush Administration had overstepped its authority in several areas. Moving

the detainees within the continental United States will not give them additional rights because Guantanamo Bay is already considered sufficiently under U.S. control to provide rights to them.[6] After the Rasul opinion, the detainees and the U.S. government will have the same legal advantages and disadvantages within the U.S. as they do at Guantanamo Bay. There are no compelling legal reasons to move the detainees and close Guantanamo Bay.

AT: Release the Prisoners

Released prisoners from the shutdown of GITMO will rejoin terrorist organizations Gertz in 13

(Bill Gertz is senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Beacon he was a national security reporter, editor, and columnist for 27 years at the Washington Times.) Bill Gertz, February 4th 2013, Gitmo Detainees Return to Field of Battle The Washington Free Baconhttp://freebeacon.com/gitmo-detainees-return-to-field-of-battle/)

Former terrorists held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo, Cuba were detected by U.S. intelligence agencies recently working with Islamist rebels in Syria, according to U.S. officials.
spokesman declined to comment, citing a policy of not discussing intelligence matters on Syria. However, the

The al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Syria are part of a group called the Al Nusrah Front that is fighting alongside the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the rebels opposing the Bashar al-Assad regime in the civil war. The number and names of the former Guantanamo inmates were not disclosed. A Pentagon

al Qaeda parolees who are re-engaging in terrorism further highlight the problem of releasing prisoners from the U.S. Naval Base prison in Cuba. U.S. intelligence agencies recently reported that 168 terrorists of 602 detainees that were transferred to other countries from Guantanamo rejoined terrorist groups or otherwise took part in insurgent and terrorist activities. Many of the released terrorists are being held by foreign governments or were killed. Theyre not only in Syria but in adjoining countries, said one official familiar with intelligence reports. A number of Gitmo parolees have graduated out of their rehab programs and returned to the fight. The official was

referring to several programs run by governments in the Middle East and North African states that use special rehabilitation program designed to reeducate Islamist terrorists and prevent them from returning to violent jihadism. Saudi Arabias government has claimed that its terrorism rehabilitation program has converted former terrorists. However, U.S. critics have said many Islamist radicals are able to fool the government officials running those programs into believing they have changed and then they flee and re-join terrorist groups. Frank Gaffney, director of the Center for Security Policy, said both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations mistakenly released terrorists from Guantanamo under the misguided notion they could be rehabilitated. You cannot take the terrorists out of jihad by letting them go from Gitmo and rehabilit ating them, or otherwise pretending that they have been transformed into previously dangerous but no longer threatening people, Gaffney said in an interview. The truth is as long as they are adherents to the doctrine of Sharia [Islamic law], you cant take the jihad out of terrorists, and therefore you cannot take the terrorism out of jihad, he said. Disclosure that former Gitmo terrorists are fighting in Syria comes as al Qaeda is experiencing a resurgence i n North Africa and the Middle East, despite U.S. counterterrorism activities that have led to the deaths of key al Qaeda leaders and commanders. Recent al Qaeda attacks took place in Libya in September and last month in Algeria. According to the most recent Director of National Intelligence report on former Guantanamo inmates returning to terrorism, 95 of the 602 terrorists released from the prison are confirmed to have returned to the practice of Islamist terrorism, with a total of 56 terrorists on the loose and other killed or in custody. The report, using data current as of July 19, stated another 73 terrorists released from Guantanamo are suspected of re-engaging in terrorism, with 43 at large. The report stated that based on the past 10 years, we assess that if

additional detainees are transferred without conditions from GTMO, some will reengage in terrorist or insurgent activities. Transfers to countries with ongoing conflicts and internal stability as well as
active recruitment by insurgent and terrorist organizations pose a particular problem, the report said. The report said for mer Guantanamo terrorists routinely communicate with each other, families of other former detainees and previous associates who are members of terrorist organiza tions. The communications vary from reminiscing about their prison experience to planning terrorist operations, the report said. We assess that some

GTMO detainees transferred in the future also will communicate with other former GTMO detainees and persons in terrorist organizations, the report said. The Treasury Department in December designated Al

Nusrah Front as a terrorist organization in Syria that is seeking to subvert Syrian opposition forces. However, the U.S. government response to the influx of al Qaeda in Syria has been to ignore the problem, two U.S. officials said. No direct action intelligence or military operations have been carried out against the group or its leaders as part of the Obama administrations hands-off approach to dealing with Syria. The United States will continue to aggressively pursue those who undermine the desires of the Syrian people to realize a representative government that does not employ violence against its own people, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen said in announcing the financial san ctions against Al Nusrah. The Treasury identified two Al Nusrah leaders. They are Maysar Ali Musa Abdallah al-Juburi and Anas Hasan Khattab. Al-Juburi, an Iraqi, moved from Mosul, Iraq to Syria in late 2011 and became the religious and military commander of Al Nusrah Front in eastern Syria since the middle of 2012. He ran a training camp for the group and was linked to an attack against a U.S. military checkpoint in Ninawa province Iraq in 2004. Khattab, a Syrian, helped form the Al Nusrah Front for Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and communicated periodically with AQI le adership to receive financial and material assistance and helped facilitate funding and weapons for Al Nusrah Front, a Treasury statement said. Khattab work s closely with al Qaedalinked facilitators to provide logistical support to Al Nusrah Front. T he State Department announced on Monday that it was closing a special office devoted to prisoner resettlement from the Guantanamo prison, and reassigned its director. A State Department official told the New York Times that closing the office did not mean efforts to shut down the prison had been abandoned. President Barack Obama promised to close the Guantanamo prison but reversed himself shortly after taking office in 2009. The fiscal 2013 Defense Authorization Act signed by the president Jan. 3 requires the government to certify that before any prisoners are transferred from Guantanamo to other countries there is a limited risk they will re-engage in terrorism. Obama, in a signing statement Jan. 3, opposed the restrictions and said they were an effort b y Congress to foreclose my ability to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. I continue to believe that operating the facility weakens our national securit y by wasting resources, damaging our relationships with key allies, and strengthening our enemies, Obama said. According to a Jan. 12 report in the Middle East news outlet Al-Monitor, activities by the group Jabhat al-Nusra, as the Al Nusrah Front is also called, in the Syrian civil war are raising concerns about terrorist infiltration of the Syrian opposition forces. Many fear that its power is increasing as the opposition gains strength, especially now that some political and military analysts argue that the end is approaching for the Syrian regime, Lebanon -based journalist Mohammad Harfoush stated. Jabhat alNusra is alleged to include Islamist extremists who plan to implement their personal agendas once Bashar al-Assads regime falls and Syria enters a transitional phase, he said. Al Nusrah advocates the creation of an Islamist st ate in Syria. The group has claimed responsibility for several bombings in Syria, including a blast at the Air Force Intelligence Directorate building in Harasata last fall.

AT: Release the Prisoners

Nowhere to send gitmo prisoners Mazetti 09
(Mark Mazetti Where Will Detainees From Guantanamo Go? New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/us/politics/24intel.html?_r=0) One day after President Obamaordered that the military detention center at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba, be shuttered, lawmakers in Washington wrestled with the implications of bringing dozens of the 245 remaining inmates onto American soil. Republican lawmakers, who oppose Mr . Obamas plan, found a talking point with political appeal. They said closing Guantnamo could allow dangerous terrorists to get off on legal technicalities and be released into quiet neighborhoods across the United States. If the detainees were convicted, the Republicans continued, American prisons housing terrorism suspects could become magnets for attacks. Meanwhile,

none of the Democrats who on Thursday hailed the closing of the detention camp were stepping forward to offer prisons in their districts or states to receive the prisoners. Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
taunted the chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, by suggesting that the authorities reopen Alcatraz Prison in the San Francisco Bay. On Friday, a spokesman for Mrs. Feinstein countered that Alcatraz now was a national park and tourist attraction, not a functioning prison, and that the senator does not consider it a suitable place to house detainees. But Mrs. Feinstein does believe that some Guantnamo prisoners could be moved to maximum-security civilian or military prisons in the United States, the spokesman said, not naming any specific ones. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in response to a question on Friday that Guantnamo detainees who were moved to the United States should be held at maximum-security federal facilities wherever they are available. Like other Democrats queried Friday, Mr. Levin did not specifically address the question of prisoners moving to his state. One

of the first Democrats in Congress to address the not-in-my-backyard issue directly was Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, who told reporters this week that terrorism suspects would be no more dangerous in a secure Pennsylvania prison than they were in Cuba. There are thousands of dangerous prisoners being held securely behind bars in supermax prisons across the United States, Mr. Murtha said Friday. He noted, however, that there was no supermax facility in his district.The number of detainees who
may face federal trials by various estimates, 50 to 100 of the remaining Guantnamo inmates is tiny by the standards of the federal prison system, which currently holds 201,375 people in 114 facilities, according to Felicia Ponce, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Those include 9 detention centers that hold defendants awaiting trial, 21 high-security penitentiaries and a supersecure prison in Florence, Colo., where several convicted terrorists are already locked up.

Obama administration officials are beginning to review the files on the remaining detainees at Guantnamo to decide where they should go. Some have been judged not dangerous and cleared for release, but officials have not found a country to take them. Others, including Mr. Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, will almost certainly face trial, either in a federal or a military court. But incoming administration officials admit that every option is imperfect. There arent pretty choices for what we have to do with them, Dennis C. Blair, the nominee for director of national intelligence, told senators on Thursday.Republican lawmakers have watched these struggles with a certain relish. Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said, As people start getting an indication that theyre going to Kansas, that theyre going to California, that theyre going to Illinois or to Michigan, people are going to say, No, why would we want them here and put them in a general prison population and make our hometowns a target for terrorists? Despite speculation about the possibility of moving large numbers of

detainees to a single military jail, like those in Leavenworth, Kan., or Charleston, S.C., government officials and legal experts say it is more likely that inmates would be sent to civilian or military facilities across the country. That would reduce the burden on any single location and make each site less of a potential terrorist target. Sarah E. Mendelson, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who led a study of options for closing Guantnamo, said it would be best if detainees facing prosecution were indicted while still at Guantnamo and then moved into federal pretrial facilities in the United States, which routinely house people accused of murder and other dangerous inmates. Weve had extremely dangerous terrorists tried in various courts and put away, Ms. Mendelson said. Federal courts have convicted 145 people on terrorism-related charges since 2001, according to one review, while the military commissions at Guantnamo have been plagued with delays and legal setbacks. The Obama administration has to have a little more of a conversation with the American people about the feasibility of prosecuting terrorism suspects in the United States, she said. There are plenty of Americans who would want to see some of these guys prosecuted and locked up.

No Solvency Nowhere to Go
Prisoners Cant Be TransferredLack of Funding and Immigration Law Prevents CRS 13
[Michael John Garcia, Jennifer K. Elsea, R. Chuck Mason, Edward C. Liu, are all Legislative Attorneys, submitting Closing the Guantanamo Detention Center: Legal Issues to the Congressional Research Service, 30 May 2013; http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40139.pdf]

Most proposals some detainees

to end the detention of foreign belligerents at Guantanamo contemplate the transfer of at least into the United States, either for continued preventive detention, prosecution before a military or civilian court, or in the case of detainees who are not deemed a threat to U.S. security, possible release. As mentioned earlier, several appropriations and authorization measures enacted by Congress have barred funds from being used to effectuate the release of Guantanamo detainees into the United States. Moreover, Congress has enacted several measures barring funds from being used to transfer detainees into the United States or its territories or possessions; the most
significant beginning in the 2011 NDAA and CAA, which bar funds appropriated during the 2011 fiscal year from being used to transfer detainees into the United States for any purpose.87 These restrictions have continued through the 2013 NDAA and CAA without modification.88 The transfer of detainees into the United States may have implications under aliens in the United States, and provides grounds for the exclusion or removal of aliens on account of certain activities. The INA generally bars the entry into the United States or continued presence of aliens involved in

immigration law. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) establishes rules and requirements for the entry and presence of terrorism-related activity.89 Under current law, most persons currently detained at Guantanamo would generally be barred from admission into the United States on terrorism- and other security-related
grounds under normal circumstances. Even if a detainee is not inadmissible or removable (deportable) on such grounds, he may still be inadmissible or removable under other INA provisions.90 Accordingly, even in the absence of recent legislative

enactments barring the use of funds to release Guantanamo detainees into the United States, the INA would generally preclude most detainees from being released into the country, as such aliens would be
subject to removal under immigration law. The INAs restrictions upon the entry of certain categories of aliens do not appear to necessarily bar executive authorities from transferring wartime detainees into the United States for continued detention or prosecution. During World War II, reviewing courts did not consider an alien prisoner of wars involuntary transfer to the United States for purposes of military detention to constitute an entry under immigration laws.91 Although immigration laws have been amended since that time to expressly apply to certain categories of aliens involuntarily brought to the United States (e.g., those individuals apprehended in U.S. or international waters),92 these modifications do not directly address the ability of the United States to intern alien enemy belligerents in the United States.

Transfer UnlikelyFunding Bar against Guantanamo Prisoners CRS 13

[Michael John Garcia, Jennifer K. Elsea, R. Chuck Mason, Edward C. Liu, are all Legislative Attorneys, submitting Closing th e Guantanamo Detention Center: Legal Issues to the Congressional Research Service, 30 May 2013; http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40139.pdf]

As discussed later, an aliens physical presence in the United States, even in cases where the alien has been paroled into the country, may result in the alien becoming eligible for asylum or other forms of immigration-related relief from removal. In recent years, several legislative proposals have been introduced that address the application of federal immigration

laws to the transfer of detainees into the United States and clarify the immigration status of detainees brought into the country.97 Notably, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010 (P.L. 111-83), contained a provision barring any funds made available under the act from being used to provide any immigration benefit (including

a visa, admission into the United States or any of the United States territories, parole into the United States or any of the United States territories (other than parole for the purposes of prosecution and related detention), or classification as a refugee or applicant for asylum) to any individual who is detained, as of June 24, 2009, at Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.98 The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010 (P.L. 111-117) contained a similar restriction on using the funds it appropriates to provide a Guantanamo detainee with an immigration benefit.99 The funding restrictions contained in both enactments applied to funds appropriated for the 2010 fiscal year. Congress did not enact any FY2011 regular appropriations acts before the 2010 fiscal year expired, but instead passed a series of continuing resolutions that temporarily extended funding for federal agencies, subject to the terms and conditions of FY2010 appropriations enactments.100 In appropriating funds for the duration of FY2011, the 2011 CAA specified that the terms and conditions of most appropriations enactments in FY2010 remained in effect for the duration of the 2011 fiscal year.101 The complete bar against transporting detainees from Guantanamo into the United

States has apparently obviated the need for renewal of the measure past 2011. The FY2010 Department

of Homeland Security Appropriations Act also amended Title 49 of the United States Code to require the placement of any person who has been detained at Guantanamo on the No Fly List, unless the President certifies to Congress that the detainee poses no threat to the United States, its citizens, or its allies.

Transfer = Link to Politics

Bipartisan Opposition to Guantanamo Transfer in KansasWould Hurt Muslim Relations Pelofsky 9

[Jeremy Pelofsky, is a Legal correspondent for Reuters, who previously has covered the White House, U.S. political campaigns, Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and the U.S. economyDemocrat opposes sending Guantanamo detainees to Leavenworth, AUGUST 10, 200 9; http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/2009/08/10/democrat-opposes-sending-guantanamo-detainees-to-leavenworth/]

A senior Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday warned against sending detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Fort Leavenworth prison in Kansas, saying it could endanger U.S. relations with Muslim countries. It was also another thorn in President Barack Obamas effort to quickly close the

controversial U.S. prison in Cuba. Representative Ike Skelton, chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, acknowledged the difficulties the Obama administration was having finding a place to move the detainees, but in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates he raised two problems with sending them to Kansas. In addition to Fort Leavenworth housing a maximum security military prison, the U.S. Armys Command and General Staff College is also located at the military installation which is meant to serve as a graduate school of sorts for military officers, including from abroad. I have strong indications that, if

detainees from Guantanamo were to be transferred to Fort Leavenworth, a number of Muslim countries would decline to continue to send their students, Skelton said in the letter. This would have a very negative outcome for our military officers, the school, and the health of our relationships with Muslim nations. He also raised the issue of housing foreign individuals near American prisoners, saying that U.S. law bars it.
Plans to transfer Guantanamo detainees to Fort Leavenworth would require additional expenses for military construction and enhanced security so as not to run afoul of the law, Skelton said. I feel strongly that Fort Leavenworth is not an appropriate option. Skelton is the first senior Democrat to raise issues with moving the Guantanamo detainees to Kansas, but follows a n ews conference last week in which Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback and Republican Representative Jerry

Moran blasted suggestions of moving the detainees there. The Obama administration has said Fort

Leavenworth is one of many options under consideration. Another option could be a maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan. There are some 229 detainees still at the controversial prison in Cuba, which was opened in 2002 to house terrorism suspects.

AT: Gitmo bad Hype

Bad conditions at GITMO are overhyped, the camp cannot be compared to a Russian Gulag Spencer, Cohen, Phillips, and Kochems 2005

(Jack Spencer, Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., James Phillips and Alane Kochems (Jack Spencer is Senior Policy Analyst for Defense and National Security, Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow, Jim Phillips is Research Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies, and Alane Kochems is a Research Assistant, in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation, The Heritage Foundation, No Good Reason To Close Gitmo, June 14, 2005, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/06/no-good-reason-to-close-gitmo, ES)

Guantanamo Bay is no Gulag. Blinded by hatred of America and U.S. policies and seeking to shift the blame away from terrorist crimes, Amnesty International's Secretary-General Irene Zubeida Khan recently called Guantanamo Bay detention camp the "Gulag of our times." She added,
according to some reports, "Ironic that this should happen as we mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz."It is not clear whether this was a statement of deep ignorance or deliberate deception. Ms. Khan, though, is not alone in her criticism. Amnesty's Washington director, William Schulz, has said that Guantanamo's terrorist detention facility is "similar at least in character, if not in size, to what happened in the Gulag."

Comparing Guantanamo's tropical Caribbean detention facility with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's frozen concentration camp empire makes about as much sense as calling the London police "Nazis." Amnesty's gall in abusing the dead and trivializing their suffering for its own political purposes is appalling. Gulag (from "Main Directorate of Camps" in Russian) began as an extermination machine for political opponents. It quickly became a meat-grinder in which tens of millions of innocent Soviets and citizens of other countries perished. Islamists may manipulate some anti-American elements in the human rights community whom they consider, to borrow
Lenin's phrase, "useful idiots." This strategy has been surprisingly successful, perhaps due to the political inclinations of those who lead the major human rights groups in the U.S. today. For whatever reason, Amnesty and Ms. Khan are ignoring real threats to human rights, especially those of women in the Islamic world, and are playing into the hands of terrorists who are hell-bent on destroying the West. The

human rights community's bizarre priorities are no reason, however, to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

AT: Theyre Innocent

Roughly 30-40% of released detainees are active in terrorist organizations and that number is increasingThe Judicial Watch, in 10
As President Obama restores Americas moral high ground by freeing Guantanamo Bay prisoners, the

(A non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law ) Judicial Watch.org, March 29 2013, http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2010/03/more-gitmo-prisoners-return-terrorism/

list of detainees that return to terrorism after being released continues to grow sharply. Last year the Pentagon revealed that the number of Middle Eastern terrorists who rejoined the fight after leaving the military prison nearly doubled in a short time. Among them was an Al Qaeda leader (Said Ali al-Shihri) who masterminded a U.S. Embassy bombing in Yemens capital after being released. Like many of the
detainees, al-Shihri went through an Obama-backed Saudi Arabian rehabilitation program that supposedly reforms jihadists but instead has served as a training camp for future terrorists. As

the administration frees more detainees, the list of those who rejoin extremist missions is predictably growing. More than 100 have returned to terrorism recently and 30-40% of all released prisoners are active in terrorist causes, according to a Green Beret Lieutenant Colonel
cited in a national news report. A lot of them go underground, change their name and hide out before surfacing again, the Lieutenant Colonel says. Adding insult to injury, many of the U.S.-hating Middle Eastern radicals who actively train to kill Americans benefit from generous medical treatments during their incarceration, compliments of Uncle Sam. Among them is Abdullah Mehsud (also known as Said who got a $75,000 prosthetic leg before leaving U.S. custody. After his release he

Mohammed Alim Shah), directed an attack that killed 31 people in Pakistan and a few months later blew himself up to avoid capture. U.S. taxpayers have also bought laptops and

computer lessons for Guantanamo terrorists so that they can be reintroduced into a modern society when the president fulfills his campaign promise of releasing them. The U.S. military actually set up a sophisticated computer lab for the detainees, who also get phones and fast-food takeout, to send electronic mail and receive language and basic user skills to assist them in finding jobs once freed. There are still around 170 prisoners at Guantanamo and even the president and some of his ultraliberal allies in Congress acknowledge some are far too dangerous to be released. In some cases the courts may lend a hand as they have dozens of times. In the last few months alone, different federal judges have ordered the release of two top Al Qaeda operatives. One of them (Mohamedou Slahi) recruited most of the 9/11 hijackers and the other (Saeed Mohammed Saleh Hatim) fought against U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Gitmo k/2 Security

Closing GITMO would endanger National Security and Public Safety, these issues should not be compromised for a potential benefit to relations Kimball and Lerner in 09

(E.J. Kimball, Esq. is a consultant with the Center for Security Policy. He previously served as Managing Director at the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Benjamin E. Lerner, Esq. is Director of Policy Operations at the Center for Security Policy. Prior to joining the Center, Mr. Lerner served as counsel on homeland security and energy issues in a government relations firm, and held a senior government relations role with a foreign affairs advocacy organization.) May 28 2009, Center for Security Policy, KEEP GITMO GOING http://www.offnews.info/downloads/KimballLernerKeepGitmoGoing.pdf)

The inmates currently housed at Guantnamo are not mere criminals they are hardened Islamist
returned to terrorism according to official Department of Defense reports.4

terrorists who believe they have a religious duty to kill Americans and destroy the United States, and will sacrifice even their own lives to accomplish this objective. Of the nearly 500 detainees who have been moved from Guantnamo, at least 61 have

Some sources within the Pentagon have indicated that the number of former Guantnamo detainees that have returned to terrorism may be much higher, at 100 or more.5 This direct threat to American national security was made apparent when the U.S. embassy in Yemen was attacked on September 17, 2008. Eleven people were killed, including Susan Elbaneh, an eighteen-year-old Muslim American teenager from upstate New York. The purported leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen, the group responsible for the attack, is Said Ali al-Shihri, a former Guantnamo detainee.6 The most lethal attack by a former Guantnamo detainee took place last March 23 when Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi, released in 2005, carried out a suicide attack in Mosul, detonating a 10,000 pound truck bomb that killed 13 soldiers from the 2nd Iraqi army division and injured 42 others. An Al Qaeda website praising the attack called him the Lion of Guantnamo.7 Additionally, the Talibans top
operational officer in southern Afghanistan as of March 2009, Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, is a former Guantnamo detainee who returned to the Taliban after being transferred from Guantnamo to Afghan authorities, which in turn released him.8 Other

released detainees have been documented participating in terrorist activities with-al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, Turkey, Morocco, Russia, and Iraq.9 The United States has released many
detainees to Saudi Arabia for placement in the Saudi rehabilitation program. The effectiveness of the program is debatable, at best. At least eleven Saudis who were released from Guantnamo and went through the Saudi rehabilitation program appeared on a list of 85 wanted terrorism suspects in February 2009 who have since fled the country. 10 Included on the list was Mohammed al-Awfi, a former Guantnamo detainee, who became an al-Qaeda commander in Yemen.11 Documents obtained at a former house of Osama bin Laden show that al-Awfi was associated with alQaeda and that he fought against U.S. forces in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Some of the most dangerous terrorists are among the roughly 250 detainees still held

at Guantnamo, including Khaled Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), the self-confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and the kidnapping-murder of journalist Daniel Pearl.13 Others include: Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, a key

facilitator for the 9/11 attacks and lead operative in a plot to crash hijacked aircraft into the United Kingdoms Heathrow Airport; Abu Faraj al-Libi, KSMs operational successor and number three leader of al-Qaeda after bin Laden and al-Zawahiri; Abdal al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the mastermind behind the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole; and Abu Zubaydah, a facilitator of attempted Millennium terrorist attacks on targets in the United States and Jordan.14 In light of the nature of the current

Guantnamo detainees and the demonstrated unreliability of foreign custody over similarly dangerous individuals, the best way to keep America safe is to keep the detention/interrogation facility at Guantnamo open and operational. The other alternatives increase the risk to the American public. As the Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia episodes make clear, the transfer of these detainees into foreign custody creates the risk that they will return to terrorism and plan or carry out attacks either abroad against American interests or here inside the United States. Transferring detainees to facilities inside the United States would also pose a direct threat to the safety of the American public. Any facility holding alQaeda detainees would immediately become a
terrorist target. Reports have indicated that the Pentagon is investigating three specific facilities in which to house these detainees: Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, the Navy Brig in North Charleston, South Carolina, and Camp Pendleton in California.15 It would appear, however, that Fort Leavenworth may be a non-starter then-Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, along with the State Legislature, recently objected strongly to any transfer of Guantnamo detainees to Fort Leavenworth.16 Even if a location were found within the United States in which to house detainees, significant issues would remain to be addressed. According to Charles Stimson, former Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for Detainee Affairs, You cant commingle them [Guantnamo detainees] with military detainees, so youd have to set up a separate wing or clear out the facility[a]nd you would have to address secondary and tertiary [security] concerns within the town, the county and the state to protect from the increased risk of terrorist attack.17 Indeed, the Guantnamo Bay Detention Facility was chosen because it

served as the safest location at which to house the detainees. The facility is secure from enemy attack and

provides the least risk to American citizens in that it keeps the detainees and those who would try to free them far away from major populated areas. In order even to begin addressing the very real public safety concerns associated with housing Guantnamo detainees in a facility on American soil, the U.S. government would have to undertake the construction of one or more uniquely designed prison facilities, or substantially upgrade existing facilities. This reality was reflected in the U.S. Department of Defense recent request for $50 million to begin the construction necessary to house transferred Guantnamo detainees inside the United States.18 Given the current economic crisis in which the United States finds itself, spending tens of millions of dollars to construct facilities that match the standards of a facility already in existence is highly irresponsible. Moreover, the Pentagon

acting on orders from President Obama conducted an investigation into conditions at Guantnamo and concluded that the facility is in full compliance with the Geneva Conventions.19 According to the Associated Press, Attorney General Eric Holder, commenting on his own subsequent visit to

Guantnamo, described the facility as well-run and professional.20 In light of such assessments, the use of a substantial amount of taxpayer dollars to close the Guantnamo prison facility must be further called into question, particularly when such closure would take place at the expense of public safety and national security. The closure of Guantnamo also presents a set of formidable legal issues surrounding the transfer of detainees into the United States. As it stands, the transfer of Guantnamo detainees into the U.S. including seventeen terrorismtrained Uighurs (Chinese Muslims) recently cleared for release would violate federal law. In 2005, Congress amended Section 1182 of Title 8, United States Code, to provide that an alien is inadmissible to the United States if s/he has engaged in a terrorist activity; is a member of a terrorist organization; or has received military-type trainingfrom or on behalf of any organization that, at the time the training was received, was a terrorist organization.21 Because the Uighur detainees in question are affiliated with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, an al-Qaeda offshoot formally designated by the United States as a terrorist organization, their transfer into the U.S. would violate several provisions of the foregoing statute as would the transfer of other Guantnamo detainees for similar reasons.22 While the very act of transferring these detainees into the United States would force the federal government to violate U.S. law, trying Guantnamo detainees in the U.S. civilian court system would present legal difficulties that would either imperil the American effort against global terrorism, or risk the release of extremely dangerous and committed terrorists. Because these detainees were captured during the course of battlefield hostilities, the governments case against them necessarily includes evidence that is classified, circumstantial, or otherwise acquired in ways that might make it inadmissible in an American civilian court. The U.S. government would therefore be forced to make an impossible decision: either disclose the evidence in full, which would in turn involve disclosure of military and intelligence sources and methods, or decline to disclose such evidence, and risk the release of the detainees as a result. Either way, it is clear that the civilian system would be ill-equipped to adjudicate the cases of the Guantnamo detainees in a way that would not risk public safety or national security. Moreover, if Guantnamo is closed, where will the United States hold future detainees, including perhaps extremely high-value targets such as al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri? Will they be brought into the United States? Against the backdrop of these significant concerns, there is a movement afoot in Congress opposing the transfer of Guantnamo detainees into facilities within the United States. Members of the House and Senate have expressed their vocal opposition to the closure of Guantnamo, including House Minority Leader Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY). Republican leadership in the House have introduced the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act, HR 2294, prohibiting the detainees from being transferred to the United States unless a long list of criteria are satisfied.23 There are additional pieces of legislation prohibiting the transfer of detainees into specific states, such as Georgia, North Carolina and Oklahoma.24 This movement is gaining momentum, with more than twenty pieces of legislation introduced so far in both the House and Senate.25 There are significant issues of national security

that must be addressed before Guantnamo is closed and detainees transferred into the United States. Until these risks are adequately addressed and security assured, no detainee should be removed from Guantnamo. While proponents of closure may perceive a public relations benefit to closing this facility, the preservation of public safety and national security must remain paramount in determining U.S. policy on this critical matter.

Gitmo k/2 Security

GITMO is key to US national Security Sullivan in 13
(Mobile Journalist at The Gazette Project Editor at The Daily Iowan Past: Political Reporting Intern at Houston Chronicle Assistant Producer at Iowa Public Radio External Affairs at University of Iowa Graduate College) Alison Sullivan, Chron: A Texas b ased news source, Cornyn, McCaul disagree with Obama, say Gitmo needed for dangerous enemy combatants, http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2013/05/cornyn-mccaul-disagreewith-obama-say-gitmo-needed-for-dangerous-enemy-combatants/)

President Obamas speech on counterterrorism strategy drew negative reviews from two key Texas lawmakers. Republican

Sen. John Cornyn challenged Obamas assertion that America must close the prisoner facility at Guantanamo Bay, insisting it remains crucial to U.S. national security. Gitmo serves as an important function of detaining Americas most dangerous enemy combatants, Cornyn said in a
statement. No individual who continues to pose a threat to the U.S. should be shuttled home at the expense of American taxpa yers only to return to the battlefield to kill Americans and our friends, no matter how many dramatic hunger strikes are staged. Obama called on Congress to close the prison, which he promised in 2008 that he would close during his first year in office. Now well into his sixth year, Obama blamed the facilitys continued existence on Congress and said there is no justification beyon d politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened. Austin Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, said Obama

cant ignore the fact that al Qaeda continues to pose as a threat to America and that closing Guantanamo would increase that threat. The Obama
administrations return to a pre-9/11 counterterrorism mindset puts American lives at risk, he said. This war will continue whether the president acknowledges it or not. Cornyn called the presidents speech an attempt to pivot from scandals and said American safety should be the presidents foremost consideration. Protester Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the antiwar effort CodePink, momentarily disrupted Obamas speech, shouting her own displeasure that Guantanamo remains open. Obama said her disapproval demonstrates that these are tough issues. President Obama also attempted to redefine the post-9/11 area of national security and the fight against global terrorism. America is at a crossroads. We must define our effort not as a boundless global war on terror but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America, he said. Obama pledged to set more narrow parameters on the use of drones abroad to limit the causalities, which he said is a haunting reality of war. Before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured the highest standard we can set, he said. West Texas Rep. Mac Thornberry plugged his national security oversight bill in the House and said it would be wise of Obama to come out in support of the legislation. If the president would have done something like that it would go a long way to gain bipartisan trust, Thornberry, a Republican from Clarendon, told CNNs Jake Tapper. Thornberry sits on a handful of national security-related House committees, including Vice Chairman of the House Armed Service committee and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Obamas remarks on drones comes only a day after the administration released information that four Americans had been killed, all known terrorists, in drone strikes since 2009. Thornberrys bill, which has bipartisan support, would mandate congressional oversight by defense committees of any lethal defense operations, including drone activity, overseas. Obama did allude to possibly supporting an effort to create an additional independent oversight during his speech, though he said Congress has been notified of every drone strike. Thornberry said support from Obama on additional oversight would assure the American people that somebody else is looking at this.

Enviro Turn
Cuban port development produces massive environmental destruction Tamayo 13
(Juan O. Tamayo, 6/1/13, Miami Herald, Mariel port expansion may be economic boost and ecological busthttp://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/01/v-print/3428522/mariel-port-expansion-may-be-economic.html#storylink=cpy)

A $900 million project to expand the Cuban port of Mariel into a strategic hub for shipping in the Atlantic has been painted in Havana as the countrys best opportunity in decades to set a new course for its stagnant economy. It might also be an ecological calamity, the latest in a series of schemes by Cubas all-powerful communist government to boost its economic development at the expense of its nature, according to experts on the islands environment. The Mariel project has killed nearly 10 acres of mangroves in the bay and silted the waters of the bay and one of the rivers that feeds into it, said Eudel Cepero, a Cuba-born environmental consultant and activist in Miami. Working from satellite photos of Mariel available on Google Earth, Cepero said he also measured 20 acres of coves within the bay filled in to expand the ports container and other land operations, and 25 acres of surrounding land quarried for fill. Cepero acknowledged that without a first-hand study
of Mariel the starting point of the 1980 boatlift that brought more than 125,000 Cubans to U.S. shores he cannot definitively establish the environmental damage. But

if you kill 10 acres of mangrove in the Florida Keys, theres a revolution, said Cepero, a lecturer at the University of Miami and Miami-Dade College. That would be like destroying an entire eco-system. Whats going on (in Mariel) certainly seems alarming, said Sergio Diaz-Briquets, a Washington-based consultant who co-authored a book on the islands environmental record, Conquering Nature.
Cuba usually gets high marks from the international environmental community for its regulatory framework and the pristine condition of many of its national preserves, especially along its southern coastline. About one-quarter of its land and marine habitats are legally protected, one of the highest percentages in the world. And Havana has signed many of the key international agreements and declarations on the environment. Yet, like

other developing countries, the government at times has tossed aside environmental and other concerns over projects considered to be strategically needed for economic growth, said DiazBriquets. The reality is that in the situation that Cuba faces, with economic difficulties, the question becomes whether that (regul atory)
framework can be enforced when the very survival of the revolution is at stake, he said. The Mariel project is a once in a century chance to set a winning development strategy for the country and probably the biggest investment project today in Cuba, Havana economist Pe dro Monreal wrote in a column last month. Once completed next year, he argued, the mega-port could easily become a hub for shipping all along the Atlantic, an area expected to grow following the expansion of the Panama Canal that is due to be completed in 2015. Mariel will have space for 3 million cargo containers, a duty-free zone that could serve the entire Caribbean and bonded assembly plants maquiladoras that could produce goods for Latin America and Europe, according to official Havana reports. No

one is thinking about the environment. This is always about jobs and money, said Dan Kipnis, a Miami activist who has fought the ongoing dredging of the port of Miami. Why would Cuba be any different? But Cuba is very different. For one, the Western
recognized by the government. In

Hemispheres lone ruling Communist Party runs a top-down system in which agencies and the state monopoly on the media can be ordered to overlook or hide any problems with the Mariel project, said Diaz-Briquets. Cuba also has no known independent environmental activists who can monitor the project. Cepero started the Around Cuba Environmental Agency in 1996 to report on such issues but fled the island four years later. It was never

Cuba its the same government thats doing the construction and the monitoring, so theres no independent review, said Cepero. Wheres the independent check? Well its in these satellite photos that anyone can see on Google Earth. Havana has not revealed any details on the environmental impact of th e Mariel project. And the Brazilian government, which is financing $640 million of the $900 million price tag, said last month its agreement with Cuba requires the details be kept secret. The environmental impact statement for the port of Miami dredging is two inches thick and publicly available. A dozen

federal and state agencies, as well as non-government environmental activists, are monitoring the project. Brazils state -owned National Bank for Economic and Social Development (NBESD), which is providing the financing, did not answer El Nuevo Heralds detailed question s about Mariel but emailed the newspaper a brief statement. As in any operation that deals with exports of Brazilian goods and services that w e finance, in the case of the Mariel project we abide by local environmental regulations, bank spokesman Paulo Braga wrote in the statement. The banks web page asserts that a responsible social and environmental work is indispensable for development Based on this vision (the bank) embraces socio -environmental development as an issue that cuts across all its activities. Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction firm carrying out the Mariel expansion as well as the expansion of parts of Miami International Airport, said the Cuban government was in charge of all pre-construction research, such as environmental impact statements. Companhia de Obras em Infraestrutura (COI), an Odebrecht independent special purpose entity engaged in the development and execution of infrastructure projects in Cuba, is not responsible for any preliminary study concerning the Port of Mariel. All previously researches of this project were developed by the Cuban government, said a statement to El Nuevo. Cuban diplomats in Washing ton did not reply to requests for comment. Brazil is Cubas second-largest commercial partner in Latin America after Venezuela, with bilateral trade topping $624 million in 2008. Relations improved further after President Dilma Rousseff took power in 2011. Mariel is a so-called pocket bay 28 miles west of Havana, with a 1,066-foot wide mouth opening into a bay 2.8 miles long and 2.3 miles wide, and up to 31 feet deep. The town of Mariel, with a population of about 43,000, sits on its southeastern end. A

2008 report by Cubas Ministry for Science, Technology and the Environment ranked the bay as slightly contaminated, mostly by untreated sewage from the town and spills from its port operations. Cuba saw its share of environmental misadventures

under former ruler Fidel Castro, notorious for his recklessly impulsive ideas on economic development throughout his nearly half-century in power. Just six weeks after he seized power in 1959, Castro announced that he was preparing to drain the Zapata Swamp, rich in myriad types of wildlife, and turn it into farmland. A number of acres were drained, but the project was shortly abandoned. In the 1960s, Castro ordered virtually every river dammed for irrigation, under the slogan not one drop wasted. Diaz-Briquets said it was likely that saltwater encroachment increased and brackish waters receded, impacting coastal habitats. In 1985, he ordered construction of a 65-mile Southern dyke along the southern coast of Havana province to block the infiltration of saltwater and the loss of freshwater. Pollutants from agricultural runoff accumulated on the land side of the dyke, killing acres of mangrove. And in the 1990s, a 12-mile stone causeway was built across the shallow waters of the Bay of Dogs off the north central coast to make it easier to shuttle larger numbers of tourists to the Cayo Coco resort. The causeway cut off tidal flows, salinity spiked and oxygen dropped, and the bay became a lifeless body. Later modifications reportedly improved the water flow, but the results are not publicly known. The bays of Moa and Nuevitas on the northeastern coast have been reported to be highly contaminated by pollution from nickel processing plants and other industries. The state news media monopoly has published little on those cases.

Enviro Turn
Lifting the Cuban Embargo is an act of imperialismthe environment proves Alcanney 12
Cubas political isolation and economic limitations have spelled success for it s wildlife in the last 50 years. With (Cuban Transitions, The Threat of Lifting the US Embargo, March 1, 2012, http://pages.vassar.edu/cubantransitions/the-threat-of-lifting-the-usembargo/)

Cubas limited ability to develop as other Caribbean nations have, and the continuing US embargo helping to keep Cuba in the past, Cubas natural resources have been preserved in a way not seen in most of the world. However, no embargo can last forever, and many believe that the US embargo will end soon. While some might look forward to celebrating the end to the hostility and the new potential to enrich the Cuban economy, others worry about the future of Cubas unique natural environment. Like any other country, Cuba does have a history of environmental exploitation. Only a few years after Columbus discovery, Spanish settlers arrived and began to clear
the land to establish plantations. This deforestation only worsen ed through the following centuries. Cubas original forest cover had been 90%. In 1959, it stood at a meager 14%. However, one of Fidel Castros priorities since 1959 has been to conserve Cubas natural resources. Since then, reforestation has slowly taken place, and today over 26% of the country is forested. Although Castro, and Cuba as a whole, should be recognized for its dedication to conservation, in truth, a lot of the preservation of Cubas land has been due to Cubas inability to develop it as most first world countries would have done. With the withdrawal of support from the Soviet Union in 1991, Cubas economy collapsed .

Without access to modern technologies, Cuban turned to sustainable organic farming practices. Without capitalism driving its development, Cuba has avoided much of the environmental destruction seen in other first world countries. Due to these political and economic factors, and also to the fact that Cuba is an island, Cuba has developed in a unique way. Cuba boasts incredible biodiversity and is home to more than 7,000 endemic species of plants and animals. One of these includes the bee hummingbird, the smallest bird
in existence. Cubas coral reefs are of particular excitement for marine scientists. As coral reefs worldwide have bee n suffering the effects of global warming, pollution, boats, and fishing, Cubas reefs have been the least affected. Unfortunately, this paradise is threatened by many problems, despite efforts, including pollution, biodiversity loss, and deforestation. On top of this, threat of US tourism looms.

If the embargo is lifted, US tourists will flood the island, promoting the construction of new resorts which will destroy beach habitats along the coasts. With the economy also flooded with US dollars, possibly pulling Cuba out of its economic downturn, will Cuba continue to refuse the tempting technologies which have devastated richer countries environments? With US companies eager to drill for oil off Cubas shores, putting pressure on the government to lift the embargo, this question becomes especially urgent. To complicate matters further, environmentalists from both Cuba and the US are limited in the amount of work they can do by the embargo. Communication is tricky. Calls to the US in Cuba are
expensive, while the internet is restricted to most Cubans. While scientists can sometimes receive academic permits to study in Cuba, the US rarely allows Cuban scientists to enter the country. Although lifting the embargo would end these problems, as well as enriching the Cuban economy, the question is, as always,

would the environmental degradation be worth it? As it moves forward, is there a way that Cuba can preserve its unique environment?

Enviro Turn Hotspot

Rare animals and marine life Protected in Guantanamo Bay Handwerk 09
(Brian, National Geographic researcher and writer, Guantanamo's Wild Side: Huge Boas, "Banana Rats," More, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090403-guantanamo-bay.html, April 3rd 2009, TH)

Detainees may be leaving the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but a host of rare animals giant snakes, "banana rats," nesting sea turtles are there to stay, protected by the same razor wire fences that keep prisoners in. Best known for its controversial role in the U.S. "war on terror," the Guantanamo Bay base is also an important refuge for animals pressured by Cuba's tough economic conditions. "The protein situation is poor in Cuba," explained the Toledo Zoo's Peter Tolson, who has years of experience reserching wildlife at Guantanamo Bay. "There are laws that protect [animals] on paper, but in general there is not a lot of enforcement. People are eating Cuban boas and rock iguanas, Tolson said. But on the Guantanamo base's 28,800 acres (11,660 hectares), plants and animals found only in Cuba thrive in virgin subtropical dry forests and swim in clear waters along relatively undisturbed coastline. "There is an overt effort on the part of the [U.S.] Navy to protect what's there," Tolson added. The United States has operated Naval Station Guantanamo Bay since 1898, during the Spanish-American War. The country maintains the base by virtue of a lease that can end only by the consent of both Cuba and the U.S. Giant Snakes and Rock Iguanas Tolson works with the Navy to radio-track Cuban boas on the base, where their numbers and sizes, he said, are incredible. The snakes are listed as near threatened on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). "We routinely find animals ten feet (three meters) long and larger. My correspondence with Cubans who are studying them indicates that [such large snakes] are extremely rare in mainland Cuba," he said. The Cuban rock iguana, which the IUCN lists as vulnerable, also thrives and reaches great sizes on the base. "The IUCN's iguana specialist group estimates that Guantanamo contains anywhere from 6 to 8 percent of the Cuban rock iguanas in Cuba," Tolson added a surprisingly large portion, given the U.S. base's small footprint. "You can see on a map how small that place is compared to the rest of Cuba and you get an idea of what an important refuge it is." "Banana Rats" by the Bunch Guantanamo is also home to the hutia, known

to base personnel as the banana rat. Some hutia species have been eaten to extinction around the Caribbean. But Guantanamo actually has too many of the groundhog-like rodents, which are damaging the landscape and denuding trees and undergrowth, officials say. Michael McCord, the Gunatanamo base's environmental director, said the rodent problem has led to a unique agreement by which environmental staff, contractors, and others kill excess animals. "We have a permit from the Cuban government to control the hutia population on the installation, as well as protect the boas and one of the owl species, and we've taken it to heart to do that," he said. The pact is one of the very few formal agreements between the U.S. and Cuba, McCord said. Waters

House Corals, Turtles Guantanamo Bay hosts a sparkling marine ecosystem, a heavily patrolled 9,000-acre (3,640-hectare) home to fish, coral, and other aquatic animals. Sea turtles nest on Guantanamo beaches year-round, encouraged by turtle-friendly yellow lighting and restrictions on access to sensitive nesting areas. Biologist Craig Downs researches elkhorn coral at the naval base. The species, listed as critically endangered by the IUCN, is dying all over the Caribbean except off southern Cuba. "The coral reefs in Guantanamo are gorgeous," said Downs, of Virginia-based Haereticus Environmental Laboratory. Though the reefs draw plenty of interest from Navy snorkelers and divers, such activities are stringently managed, and the reefs are well protected from threats like overfishing, added Downs, who works at the base with a team affiliated with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and several

U.S. universities. Guantanamo's reefs are also spared many land-based threats, such as runoff from industry or large-scale farming. Such activities are negligible on the base and not extensive in surrounding areas, where dry weather also limits runoff. "It's one of the nicest sites in the Caribbean. The corals there look like they did 50 years ago. They're huge and reproductively viable," he said. The Guantanamo coral population is so unspoiled, he said, that the team will use it as the gold standard for a normal, healthy Caribbean reef when the researchers study other reefs in the region. Limited Access Jennifer Gebelein of Miami's Florida International University studies Cuba's physical environment and says that some plant and tree species, like highly prized Cuban mahogany, benefit from limited human access at Guantanamo. "From a [natural] state of maybe 80 to 90 percent forest, what you see now when you drive through Cuba is primarily pastureland and really wide open grasslands that have replaced a lot of the forests," she said. "Mahogany is a pretty sought-after tree elsewhere on the island." Base environmental director McCord takes pride in the Navy's management initiatives to protect such species, but says that geography also plays an important role. "The eastern side of the base is very rugged, hilly country, and not a lot of people go in there," he said. "Animals

can go where they want to go, and do what they want to do, with very little stress from human interaction." That protected status is likely to continue indefinitely. Though U.S.
President Barack Obama has pleged to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, or "Gitmo," the base, and the animals, are expected to remain indefinitely.

Enviro Turn Hotspot

Guantanamo Bay is a biological Hotspot LiveScience Staff 12
(Ecological Researchers and topic writers, Butterflies Reveal Biodiversity at Guantanamo, http://www.livescience.com/22995butterflies-reveal-biodiversity-at-guantanamo.html, September 12th 2012, TH)

Researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History have documented 51 different butterfly species at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, showing that the area is an inadvertent wildlife refuge and biodiversity hotspot. The base, which covers about 45 square miles (120 square kilometers) in the southeast corner of Cuba, was leased to the United States in 1903 and much of it remains undeveloped. "Because it is a military base and this is true for many military bases, which typically have large areas of land people are not trampling, bulldozing or developing the land," Roger Portell, the Florida Museum's invertebrate paleontology collections manager, said in a statement. "So there is a large area of land in the southeast corner of the island that has basically been untouched for 100 years." Researchers collected 1,100 specimens of 192 moth and 41 butterfly species, during a weeklong trip to the site in January. These specimens included the fulvous hairstreak butterfly (Electrostrymon angelia) and the invasive lime swallowtail (Papilio demoleus), along with the tropical buckeye (Junonia evarete zonalis). Additional records from previously collected specimens brought the total number of butterfly species recorded at Guantanamo Bay up to 51. "Biodiversity studies are extremely important, because they give us clues about where things were and how they evolved over time so we can better understand what may happen in the future," co-author Jacqueline Y. Miller, curator of Lepidoptera at the Florida Museum, said in a statement. "We're
also looking at climate change over time, and butterflies are biological indicator species since they are associated with particular plants as caterpillars and often found in particular habitats." Butterfly communities are often sensitive to larger changes in climate, from early snowmelts hitting Rocky Mountain populations of butterflies to species in Massachusetts heading north in response to warmer temperatures.

Neolib Link Agriculture

If The United States lifts its embargo on Cuba it would be highly imperialistic the agriculture proves Gonzalez 3
(Carmen G. Gonzalez, Assistant Professor, Seattle University School of Law, Summer 2003, SEASONS OF RESISTANCE: SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY IN CUBA, p. 729-33)

Notwithstanding these problems, the greatest challenge to the agricultural development strategy adopted by the Cuban government in the aftermath of the Special Period is likely to be external the renewal of trade relations with the United States. From the colonial era through the beginning of the Special Period, economic

development in Cuba has been constrained by Cubas relationship with a series of primarytrading partners. Cubas export-oriented sugar monoculture and its reliance on imports to satisfy domestic food needs was imposed by the Spanish colonizers, reinforced by the United States, and maintained during the Soviet era. It was not until the collapse of the socialist trading bloc and the strengthening of the U.S. embargo that Cuba was able to embark upon a radically different development path. Cuba was able to transform its agricultural development model as a consequence of the political and economic autonomy
occasioned by its relative economic isolation, including its exclusion from major international financial and trade institutions. Paradoxically, while the

U.S. embargo subjected Cuba to immense economic hardship, it also gave the Cuban government free rein to adopt agricultural policies that ran counter to the prevailing neoliberal model and that protected Cuban farmers against ruinous competition from highly subsidized agricultural producers in the United States and the European Union. Due to U.S. pressure, Cuba was excluded from regional and international financial
institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank.n413 Cuba also failed to reach full membership in any regional trade association and was barred from the negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). However, as U.S. agribusiness clamors to ease trade restrictions with Cuba, the lifting of the embargo and the end of Cubas economic iso lation may only be a matter of time. It is unclear how the Cuban government will respond to the immense political and economic pressure from the United States to enter into bilateral or multilateral trade agreements that would curtail Cuban sovereignty and erode protection for Cuban agriculture.n416 If

Cuba accedes to the dictates of agricultural trade liberalization, it appears likely that Cubas gains in agricultural diversification and food self-sufficiency will be undercut by cheap, subsidized food imports from the United States and other industrialized countries. Furthermore, Cubas experiment with organic and semi-organic agriculture may be jeopardized if the Cuban government is either
unwilling or unable to restrict the sale of agrochemicals to Cuban farmers as the Cuban government failed to restrict U.S. rice imports in the first half of the twentieth century. Cuba is once again at a crossroads as it was in 1963, when the government abandoned economic diversification, renewed its emphasis on sugar production, and replaced its trade dependence on the United States with trade dependence on the socialist bloc. In the end, the future of Cuban agriculture will likely turn on a combination of external factors (such as world market prices for Cuban exports and Cubas future economic integration with the United States) and internal factors (such as the level of grassroots and governmental support for the alternative development model developed during the Special Period). While this Article has examined the major pieces of legislation that transformed agricultural production in Cuba, and the governments implementation of these laws, it is important to remember t hat these reforms had their genesis in the economic crisis of the early 1990s and in the creative legal, and extra-legal, survival strategies developed by ordinary Cubans. The distribution of land to thousands of small producers and the promotion of urban agriculture were in response to the self-help measures undertaken by Cuban citizens during the Special Period. As the economic crisis intensified, Cuban citizens spontaneously seized and cultivated parcels of land in state farms, along the highways, and in vacant lots, and started growing food in patios, balconies, front yards, and community gardens. Similarly, the opening of the agricultural markets was in direct response to the booming black market and its deleterious effect on the states food distribut ion system. Finally, it was the small private farmer, the neglected stepchild of the Revolution, who kept alive the traditional agroecological techniques that formed the basis of Cubas experiment with organic agriculture. The survival of Cubas alternative agricultural model will therefore depend, at least in part, on whether this model is viewed by Cuban citizens and by the Cuban leadership as a necessary adaptation to severe economic crisis or as a path-breaking achievement worthy of pride and emulation. The history of Cuban agriculture has been one of resistance and accommodation to larger economic and political forces that shaped the destiny of the island nation. Likewise, the transformation of Cuban agriculture has occurred through resistance and accommodation by Cuban workers and farmers to the hardships of the Special Period .

The lifting of the U.S. economic embargo and the subjection of Cuba to the full force of economic globalization will present an enormous challenge to the retention of an agricultural development model borne of crisis and isolation. Whether Cuba will be able to resist the re-imposition of a capital-intensive, exportoriented, import-reliant agricultural model will depend on the ability of the Cuban leadership to appreciate the benefits of sustainable agriculture and to protect Cubas alternative agricultural model in the face of overwhelming political and economic pressure from the United States and from the global trading system.

Neolib Link SEZs

SEZs produce economic collapse in developing countries for the benefit of the First World, cause environmental destruction, and produce exploitative working conditions Murray 10

(Megan Murray is a writer for the University of Iowa Center for International Finance and Development, University of Iowa Center for International Finance and Development, What Are Special Economic Zones?, February 9, 2010,http://blogs.law.uiowa.edu/ebook/faqs/what-are-special-economic-zones) CS

. One of the reasons for investor success in some SEZs is that they avoid many of the costs of taxation, labor standards, human rights oversight, safety, and environmental regulations to which other sectors in the same country must adhere when doing business. Some academics argue that these regulatory-avoidance mechanisms ultimately benefit the citizens because SEZs bring employment and infrastructure to the area, while opponents argue that the zones benefits are not worth the degradation that the SEZs cause to a developing country. For example, displacement challenges have a very significant impact on any SEZ implementation. Initially, the host country or private developer must acquire the land area used to implement a geographicallybased zone. Most of the time this land is taken from locals using it for agricultural purposes, often at very low prices, like when Indias local Tamil Nadu government cut the price of the farmers land in half to accommodate the Nokia Telecom SEZ
The development of SEZs has not come without significant costs development in Sriperumbadur, Kancheepuram. Aside from the low prices farmers obtain for their land, the problem with the acquisition of farmland for SEZ development in developing countries is two-fold: First, farmers in these environments might make a living through subsistence farming, in which case the land that is ac quired is the farmers sole means of food and livelihood. Second,

even if farmers farm for profit, some have very low-level skills that are not transferrable to more complex SEZ unit employment like manufacturing or technology-based trades. The acquisition of their land displaces them from their economic means of survival and forces them into an unfamiliar environment where they lack the skills to stay and work in the SEZ unit. If they also
lack the resources to move, they are left without a farm or survival skills. The challenges associated with the development of SEZs do not end when an SEZ is fully developed.

SEZs also create environmental concerns because host governments often relax environmental standards to attract SEZs or overlook them because of the high costs of regulation and oversight. Emission controls and labor standards are regulations that an SEZ developer will try to avoid because they cut into SEZ profitability. But environmental controls and oversight are especially important because SEZ development can lead to quick growth and outpaced infrastructure that leads to waste and environmental devastation. Shenzhen in China, a highly-polluted trade area where the sky is gray most of the day from the polluting industries, is a perfect
example of the environmental impacts that rapid SEZ growth can have on an area. In certain areas within an SEZ in Mumbai, the creeks are so polluted that no one can fish. Many attribute the pollution there to the fact that no environmental laws apply to the SEZs.

In Tijuana, Mexico, the Rio Grande is so polluted from maquiladora waste that it has caused an increased risk of Hepatitis A. Another obstacle that SEZs face is the high cost of development. Governments that lure developers by providing infrastructure capital and tax subsidies must ensure that they recover their costs in doing so. Some SEZ developments have cost the host country more to build than they bring in trade revenues, negating the benefits the trade region brings to the country. Some academics have referred to this practice as a race to the bottom. For example, Namibia offered greater economic and regulatory concessions to foreign investors than its neighboring countries
of South Africa and Madagascarin the form of 99-year tax exemptions, water and electricity subsidies, and relaxed labor standards as a way to compete for SEZ investors.

While Namibia eventually won the contract, it did not result in an overall social or economic net benefit to the country. This kind of strategy produced a downward spiral in SEZ conditions across the continent as South African countries competed with each other by promoting reduced regulation and increased economic incentives.

As a result, foreign investors reaped all the benefits of the competition while the host countries absorbed all the costs. Indirect costs of SEZ development should also not be overlooked. New and economically profitable SEZ areas can still cause social problems if they develop at the expense of the surrounding non-SEZ areas. An SEZ development can socially cannibalize its surroundings, diverting valuable resources into the SEZ that those living on the outside depend on to survive. These resources can be as simple as grocery stores and medical facilities and as complicated as high-tech jobs. The bottom line is that the creation of an SEZ development to better one sector of a countrys economy at the expense of another will widen the gap between the more prosperous living within SEZ areas and the poor living outside the SEZ, hindering the true net gain of the

Poor labor standards are also a prevalent problem in SEZ developments. The alluring volume of international trade traffic, combined with the other relaxed custom, taxation, and environmental standards, leads many zones to overlook proper labor requirements that keep employees safe, healthy, and competitive. High traffic trade zones are most cost-effective when they employ low-skilled, low cost assembly-line
development. workers. Historically, many of these employees have been paid extremely low wages to do repetitive skills in pollution-filled environments. Host country governments also have

some of the most successful SEZs in China were actually totally exempt from national labor laws when they were
been known to suppress unions and workers rights groups to prevent employees from demanding better conditions. Not surprisingly,

first created in the 1980s. Zimbabwe and Namibia also excluded provisions of their nations labor acts when they initiated national EPZ laws in the early 1990s,
needed foreign investment into the economically depressed country. Maquiladoras in

drawing immediate criticism from the global human rights community. Namibia claimed that the avoi dance of labor standards was absolutely necessary in drawing much

Mexico are also very well known for their abhorrent labor conditions, including poor working environments, inadequate training, use of hazardous materials, and lack of knowledge about protective equipment. Gender inequality and the exploitation of female workers is another unfortunate product of SEZ development. Females

originally accounted for 6070% of the SEZ workforce because many companies regard women as better suited for the repetitive textile- and electronic-based manufacturing industries that made up much of the initial SEZ work, but that percentage tends to decrease as product complexity increases. In Malaysia, for example, where technology is a large part of SEZ industries, currently 40% of the workers are women, down from 60% twenty years ago when its SEZs generally catered to simpler manufacturing based industries. Women are often separated from the male employees, used as lower-skilled workers to reduce production costs, and given fewer rights than their male counterparts. Fortunately, the labor standards in some countries are improving slowly as a result of their adoption of International Labor Organization standards. These standards are critical to prevent abuses, and foreign investors have been increasingly mandating quality labor management practices as a prerequisite to doing business with a host country.

Cap Link FTZs

Designating special Zones for economic exchange is the epitome of late modern colonial capitalism the plan only creates bastions of the Global North, port colonies in the South used to extract resources and accumulate Capital Bach 11
(Johnathan. Professor of International Affairs @ The New School for Social Research New York. Modernity and the Urban Imagination in Economic Zones. Theory, Culture, Society 28(5): 98-99.) THE RECENT phenomenon of the export zone is foundational for the development of the global economy and attracts scholarly attention primarily for its economic and political logics. Yet

it is as a cultural phenomenon that the Zone may ultimately signal its transformational role in the trajectory of state sovereignty and the global urban imagination. A little over a generation ago what we today call export zones were anomalies in which we could hear the echo of historical spatial forms such as Hanseatic and colonial free ports. While at first only a handful of demarcated national
spaces gave export industries special incentives, allowing companies to pay fewer taxes and move goods in and out with minimal regulation, customs or tariffs, these spaces multiplied and became central to the contemporary export-oriented industrialization stage of global capitalist development (Sum, 2001), playing an especially important historic role in the rise of the Asian Tigers and, later, China as an economic power . Today the export zone conjures images of a near-universal spatial expression of the internationalization of production. The proliferating number and type of zones over the last half-century makes any one definition, let alone a standard nomenclature, increasingly difficult when referring to the phenomenon that this essay seeks to capture. What

I will refer to simply as the Zone signifies a shift in the socio-spatial formation of late modernity as export zones turn from a pragmatic space for the production of exports into a place, imagined and lived. This sense of place refashions the Zone as a new urban paradigm (Easterling, 2008: 31), making it more than simply an epiphenomenon of economic globalization that rises and falls with financial booms and busts. Indeed, the global economic crisis that emerged in 2008 has not decreased zones as much as intensified a shift from manufacturing to knowledge production, increasing their transnational urban characteristics. This article seeks to understand the rise to rapid global prominence of the Zone not only by its ability to attract and shape investment but also by its attraction and shaping of fantasies and aspirations of modernity, especially in the Global South where the majority of zones are located. The Zone is a site where, to use Michel-Rolph Trouillots (2003: 36^7) terms, modernization as the geography of management is inextricably intertwined with modernity as the geography of the imagination. At stake in our exploration of
the Zone is how changing practices of sovereignty create what we might call nested exceptionalisms: the interplay of exception and rule that creates intersections for networks, markets, and political rule. As

a key location for the production of space in response to changing modes of capital accumulation, these intersections turn the Zone into a form of new urban imagination that recombines scales, functions, and identities. This article begins by showing how the Zone
emerged from a logic of exception at the heart of the relationship of state sovereignty to global capitalism, then shifts to examine how economic and political origins led to an urban cultural formation where city and zone intersect and exceed each other. I

argue that the Zones prominence draws from its discursive power as a modernist fantasy of rationality and new beginnings, and thus becomes part of a political discourse about urban futures in which the Zone figures as an emerging form we will later term the Ex-City. The article calls for a wider empirical research
program on zones within the social and cultural analysis of globalization.

Cap Link Zones/Spatiality

SEZs splits the global and the local in a disorienting whirl of mobility it represents the in-between spaces necessary to oil the cogs of global capitalism Bach 11

(Johnathan. Professor of International Affairs @ The New School for Social Research New York. Modernity and the Urban Imagination in Economic Zones. Theory, Culture, Society 28(5): 98-99.)

As both a city and a capital accumulation strategy, the Zone gives rise to a seeming disjuncture: it functions simultaneously as a special bordered space of exception and as a prototype for the city writ large. As a domestic space with internal borders the Zone is made possible only by the external borders of the sovereign nation-state. Yet as an experimental, imagined space the Zone mediates as much as it segments, becoming a new kind of border not just between the Zone and the rest of the country, but between local and global, restructuring the relationship of local elites to global capital, and disciplining labor mobility while facilitating capital mobility (ODonnell, 2001). Zones near international borders can become the focal point of a transborder subregion, as is the case with parts of the US-Mexican border, the Pearl River Delta in China, or the many zones of the Singapore Sijori Growth Triangle (Chen, 2005). This double bordering function of differentiation and integration, combined with its mix of infrastructural efficiency and discursive fantasy, makes the Zone infinitely malleable. It becomes a border of the global itself, in the sense of a liminal space where zones function as key
nodes in what Law and Hetherington (2000) call a materially heterogeneous network - a network that generates a particular depiction of space emerging from an interaction between linear spaces and networked spaces. In this role, zones approximate obligatory points of passage in Michel Callons sense where the actant (here the Zone) articulates the identities and interests of other a ctors - for example corporations, workers, and investors - and persuades them to move through Zone networks, thereby contributing to the networks overall strength and re -production (Callon et al., 1986).